"It was also for this," continued Madame Wang as she nodded her head, "but there's another reason besides."
"As for the other reason, I honestly haven't the least idea about it," explained Hsi Jen. "But I'll make bold to-day, and say something in your presence, Madame, about which I don't know whether I am right or wrong in speaking. According to what's proper…."
She had only spoken half a sentence, when hastily she closed her mouth again.
"You are at liberty to proceed," urged Madame Wang.
"If your ladyship will not get angry, I'll speak out," remarked Hsi Jen.
"Why should I get angry?" observed Madame Wang. "Proceed!"
"According to what's proper," resumed Hsi Jen, "our Mr. Secundus should receive our master's admonition, for if master doesn't hold him in check, there's no saying what he mightn't do in the future."
As soon as Madame Wang heard this, she clasped her hands and uttered the invocation, "O-mi-to-fu!" Unable to resist the impulse, she drew near Hsi Jen. "My dear child," she added, "you have also luckily understood the real state of things. What you told me is in perfect harmony with my own views! Is it likely that I don't know how to look after a son? In former days, when your elder master, Chu, was alive, how did I succeed in keeping him in order? And can it be that I don't, after all, now understand how to manage a son? But there's a why and a wherefore in it. The thought is ever present in my mind now, that I'm already a woman past fifty, that of my children there only remains this single one, that he too is developing a delicate physique, and that, what's more, our dear senior prizes him as much as she would a jewel, that were he kept under strict control, and anything perchance to happen to him, she might, an old lady as she is, sustain some harm from resentment, and that as the high as well as the low will then have no peace or quiet, won't things get in a bad way? So I feel prompted to spoil him by over-indulgence. Time and again I reason with him. Sometimes, I talk to him; sometimes, I advise him; sometimes, I cry with him. But though, for the time being, he's all right, he doesn't, later on, worry his mind in any way about what I say, until he positively gets into some other mess, when he settles down again. But should any harm befall him, through these floggings, upon whom will I depend by and bye?"