the Emperor’s most inviolate property—­virgins selected from among the highest and most comely in the land; forbidden fruit, which had not even been tasted because of the Emperor’s lack of masculinity....  I thought rapidly of the various classes into which these women are divided according to immemorial custom:  of the concubines of the first rank, of the second, of the third, and even of the fourth, who are merely favoured hand-maidens of the Biblical type.  Then I wondered whether it was true that when the former Emperor Hsien Feng had suddenly died, and the Empress Dowager had selected the child Kuang-shu to succeed him, she had caused the child to be mutilated, so that the question of the next heir should remain in her own hands....  The women would know.

And yet even Imperial concubines must have opportunities which no one suspects, for I was suddenly relieved of the necessity of breaking the ice by their breaking it for me.  Without embarrassment they suddenly began plying me with questions, and not waiting for replies, they asked what was going on outside; what was going to happen; who was I; why had I come; why was I not a soldier?...  The questions came so fast and thick that before I had realised it I had forgotten my surroundings, forgotten the time, forgotten most things, I am afraid, and was deep in the middle of an astonishing conversation, which never flagged and which was continually broken with laughter.  Then I was brought to ominously.  I heard a door shut with a thump; I saw the women pinch and look at one another and cease talking.  What did that door mean?

On purpose I did not turn round; that would have been fatal.  I did as I always do now:  I gained time to lessen the shock.  Some day, when I have much leisure, I shall, doubtless, prepare tables specially adapted to every situation and to every temperament, which will show exactly the number of seconds, minutes, and hours which are necessary on an average to accustom one’s self to anything.  It is possible to do so; it will be astonishing when it is done.  For the time being, I thought of this rather glumly—­indeed, without a trace of enthusiasm—­and I wished a little that I had not been so foolish in putting my head inside the lion’s mouth.  I remembered the story a former Secretary of the British Legation used to tell us of two Englishmen, who, in the unregenerate days in Cairo—­or was it Constantinople?—­climbed into the harem, and were cruelly mutilated for their audacity before they could be rescued.  I became so glum as this flashed through my mind, that my great system of preparation was in imminent danger of breaking down.  So I turned suddenly round on my heel, and looked squarely ... it was as I had thought.

The door I had entered had been quietly locked, and now, inside, were standing, with moving lips and menacing air, those evil-looking eunuchs.  This time there were four of them.  Two were the two who had knelt and prayed that we should not enter the Empress Dowager’s private apartments; one was the man who had stood up and been almost threatening; the last one was so tall that his aspect of strength almost gave the lie to the assumption that he had been mutilated for Palace use.  These last two would be difficult; the others I could leave out of my calculations.