I turned toward Hong.

Dim light from the doorway fell on his face, making it look like terra cotta worn smooth and flat by time. He couldn't have gazed at me more impassively without being dead, but his eyes granted me a warning glimpse of the intensity I'd seen in him outside The Luxury, when he'd taken his first look at the chops.

I didn't need Sternway or even T'ang to tell me that I had to be careful now. Very careful. I'd already struck a spark from T'ang.

From Hong I might get the full conflagration.

"Sifu Hong." My breath caught high up in my chest. My nerves remembered how they'd felt when Parker Neill had poked me. I mimed one of Sternway's bows while I tried to make my diaphragm work.

He didn't bow back. Within his silk robe his body remained unnaturally still. Not even respiration stirred the fabric.

With as much ease as I could muster, I began, "You'll have to forgive me. As Mr. T'ang just remarked, I'm Western. I don't know all the appropriate forms and courtesies. No matter what I do or say now, I'm going to seem crude."

Deliberately I refrained from pointing out that he should be used to it by now. He'd been living here long enough. He must know how to get along with us uncultured, couth less Occidentals.

"I don't have any personal experience with this," I continued abruptly, "but I'm told that as a school Traditional Wing Chun is widely respected. As the school's sifu, you're held in high esteem. Everyone I've talked to says so," even Anson Sternway in his un giving fashion, "and I have no reason to doubt them. You're regarded as a man of honor."

At my shoulder, T'ang breathed harshly, "To say so is to suggest that the opposite is possible."

I ignored him to concentrate on Hong.

"Mr. Lacone and Stern-way sensei haven't insulted you by hiring me to protect the chops. They hired me to give you face."

"You speak," T'ang put in, "but you say nothing. Sternway and others believe my master will attempt to reclaim the chops. They will call it theft, although the chops are rightfully Chinese. You are the hand of their distrust. You oppose my master for an action he has not committed and does not contemplate."

This time I answered T'ang.

"Now you're insulting me." But I kept my eyes fixed on Hong.

"Do you think I have no honor?

"Your master is an honorable man. Of course he won't do anything dishonorable. But the police don't understand honor. They understand greed. And national pride." Never mind bigotry.

"Not honor."

Then I appealed directly to Hong.

"Sifu, if anything happens to the chops, whose voice will defend your honor to the police? Whose but mine? They'll assume you had something to do with it. They'll have to. Distrust is their job.

"But I'm responsible for security here now. The safety of the chops is my problem. And if I fail to protect them, then I'm responsible for discovering the truth about what happened to them.

"That's called honor where I come from.

"You don't have any reason to resent me," I finished.

"The simple fact that I'm here protects you. My presence gives you face."

Which, as I was acutely aware, was only one way to look at it.

Naturally T'ang had a different perspective.

Bitter as bile, he demanded, "Do you wish my master to believe that those gwailo Sternway and Lacone hired you as a sign of their respect?

He is not such a fool. He " "Enough, Wen," Sifu Hong interrupted softly. His gaze never left mine. No expression touched his flat features.

"This country is not China. Here men may perform work without sharing the purposes of their masters."

On my own behalf, I explained, "I don't work for Sternway sensei. I work for Mr. Lacone. He's in the profit business. He wouldn't do anything to insult you. He doesn't want to lose a respected school" a paying lessee "like Traditional Wing Chun. And he certainly doesn't want anything to happen to the chops. That would damage his plans for Martial America."

After that I couldn't think of any way to make myself clearer, so I shut up.

T'ang shifted restively behind my shoulder, but didn't say any more.

His master studied me for a moment longer. Then he nodded crisply, like an acknowledgment.

"Mr. Axbrewder," he announced, "I have heard you. We will not speak of this again. Events will reveal their meaning as they unfold."

In other words, I was dismissed. He was willing to suspend judgment, at least temporarily. Maybe he expected me to count my blessings and just go away.

Fortunately he didn't stop there.

"While you remain in the service of Mr. Lacone," he continued, "you are welcome here. If you wish our assistance, if you desire to learn more of Wing Chun, or if you require any knowledge that is ours to share, please name your need to T'ang Wen."

Before I could open my mouth to thank him, he turned away. The weak light from the doorway made his short grey hair look like an iron skullcap, ascetic and impregnable. He might've been walking off a battlefield as he stepped into his apartment and closed the door, leaving me with T'ang.

Apparently he'd just given me face.

At any rate, he'd accepted my protestations. But I didn't grasp why they'd been necessary in the first place.

T'ang cleared his throat. He sounded uncomfortable doing it, but when I turned to look at him his face was shrouded in shadow, his reactions hidden.

"Are you content, Mr. Axbrewder? I will do what I can to satisfy you."

The words suggested more than one meaning. What kind of satisfaction did he have in mind?

"I'll think of something," I muttered. Then I winced at my own gracelessness. Trying to make amends, I admitted, "This is all new to me. I'm a little baffled at the moment."

T'ang stood in silence, apparently waiting for me to frame a question.

But I didn't speak.

Even taking into account my ignorance of China, and of Chinese psychology, I couldn't get my head around the idea that my presence was an insult. As far as I could tell, he and Hong had reached that conclusion from another dimension, bypassing ordinary reality altogether.

It must've come from somewhere.

I wanted an explanation. But I didn't know how to ask for it politely.

Stalling, I indicated the lighted hall beyond the conference room and started in that direction. T'ang joined me smoothly.

I didn't say anything until I could see better. When he'd closed the conference room door, I studied his face for a moment, looking for remnants of hostility, but I didn't find any.

Maybe now I could stop worrying that he might hit me.

"I do have a couple of questions," I told him while my muscles loosened.