"I'll give you another one instead."

Hsi Jen was prompted by his rejoinder to nod her head and sigh. "I felt
sure;" she observed; "that you'd go again and do these things! Yet you
shouldn't take my belongings and bestow them on that low-bred sort of
people. Can it be that no consideration finds a place in your heart?"

She then felt disposed to tender him a few more words of admonition, but
dreading, on the other hand, lest she should, by irritating him, bring
the fumes of the wine to his head, she thought it best to also retire to
bed.

Nothing worth noticing occurred during that night. The next day, when
she woke up at the break of day, she heard Pao-yue call out laughingly:
"Robbers have been here in the night; are you not aware of it? Just you
look at my trousers."

Hsi Jen lowered her head and looked. She saw at a glance that the sash,
which Pao-yue had worn the previous day, was bound round her own waist,
and she at once realised that Pao-yue must have effected the change
during the night; but promptly unbinding it, "I don't care for such
things!" she cried, "quick, take it away!"

At the sight of her manner, Pao-yue had to coax her with gentle terms.
This so disarmed Hsi Jen, that she felt under the necessity of putting
on the sash; but, subsequently when Pao-yue stepped out of the apartment,
she at last pulled it off, and, throwing it away in an empty box, she
found one of hers and fastened it round her waist.

Pao-yue, however, did not in the least notice what she did, but inquired