Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

see how anyone can be blamed.”
    The officer said curtly, ”Mr. Li—”
    ”Oh, certainly not Mr. Li,” she said firmly. ”Mr. Li has shown nothing
but courtesy and kindness to us all. A very excellent guide.”
    Mr. Li gave her a startled glance and then returned his gaze to the
floor; perhaps he had not expected equanimity.
    ”But Mr. Li and this riding of horses—”
    She shook her head. ”You don’t understand how it was,” she told him
earnestly. ”We all watched the Kazakhs perform, and they were magnificent,” she
emphasized, ”but everyone except myself had ridden before, and could ride very
well. And Americans”—she hesitated and then looked him straight in the
eye—”Americans do tend to be assertive about things they want to do. Peter was
the first to ask for a horse to try, and the Kazakhs were most polite
and let him climb on one, and they obligingly led him up and down the meadow on
a rope until they saw that Peter knew horses and really could ride.” She
stopped, aware that she was flooding him with trivia. ”Anyway, they very
courteously allowed him to gallop up and down by himself, and then the others
pleaded for the same chance but Peter insisted I be put on a horse next.
Because I’d never ridden one. Because he thought I should have a picture taken
of myself on a horse.”
    With exquisite irony the officer said, ”And did he take your picture?”
    ”I don’t know, the horse ran away with me. And the Kazakhs were
certainly not to blame,” she put in quickly. ”We were all laughing together,
and they understood our having fun and were very obliging.”
    ”And Mr. Li?”
    ”Standing and watching,” said Mrs. Pollifax. ”Helping to translate the
interest in the horses and smiling at our pleasure.” He hadn’t been smiling,
he’d been glowering, but never mind that, she thought.
    ”And so the horse ran away with you,” pointed out the officer, glancing
down at his notes.
    ”Yes.”
    ”And Mr. Peter Fox followed you on horseback.”
    ”Yes.”
    He waited and then said smoothly, ”Yes. Now we come to the important
part, please. Your horse ‘ran away’ as you say, and once over the mountain you
came down to the flatland with Mr. Peter Fox in pursuit.”
    His English was excellent; she wondered if he’d ever lived in the United States but dared not ask. ”The horse galloped, or whatever they do,” she pointed out,
”and my right foot was caught in the stirrup and when I saw the river ahead I
knew I had to—absolutely had to—jump off.”
    He was watching her very closely now. ”Yes. You succeeded in freeing
your foot?”
    She nodded. ”Yes, I’d been trying to for some time but—I guess
desperation helped. And I jumped off and broke my wrist.”
    The man standing at the window abruptly turned to look at her for the
first time, and her glance swerved to meet his. At once she was sorry that
she’d looked at him because his gaze unnerved her. The younger official had
been observing her with a professional efficiency, but the eyes of this man
were penetrating and alert. She thought, He is very much the younger man’s
superior and he’s been listening to me, measuring each inflection and nuance,
and now he is going to watch my face, my eyes, my hands. Yet he did not
look unkind; his iron-gray hair matched his charcoal Mao suit, and his face was
that of a scholar.
    She turned her attention back to the young man at the table. ”I see,” he
was saying politely, with a glance at the cast running up her arm. ”And where
was Mr. Joseph Forbes?”
    She shook her head. ”Nowhere to be seen. It was Peter— Peter Fox—who
galloped up and slid from his horse and ran over to me. I discovered my wrist
was hurt and he helped me up and we were standing there talking about what to
do… Actually Peter was apologizing.”
    ”Apologizing?” he repeated.
    ”Yes, for insisting I mount the horse. And then very suddenly Joe Forbes
was there, he’d left his horse in the woods and walked, and this startled us.”
    ”And then?”
    She kept her eyes resolutely on the young man behind the table. ”He
became very abusive to Peter. He called him names for allowing me to get on the
horse, and he said—he also called him names for taking advantage, as he called
it, of Iris Damson.” She had thought about this and now she delivered it. ”He
called Peter an out-and-out—should I mention the word?”
    ”Please,” he said.
    ”Bastard,” said Mrs. Pollifax. ”And that’s