speech and dress, absorbed in the pleasures of patting and pawing the mouse, even if it was reserved for the Japanese". Through mostly at odds with the Japanese delegation, Koo supported and voted for the Japanese-sponsored Racial Equality Proposal. On 12 April 1919, the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George bluntly asked Koo: "Which would China prefer-to allow Japan to succeed to the German rights in Shandong as stated in the treaty between China and Germany or to recognize Japan's position in Shandong as stipulated in the treaties between China and Japan?" Koo replied in English: "Both alternatives are unacceptable". Koo seized upon the 14 Points, which stated that secret treaties were invalid, to argue that the secret treaties in 1917 under which Great Britain, France and Italy all agreed to support Japan taking over the German rights in the Shandong peninsula, were invalid. Koo was greatly hurt when Lloyd George casually told him that China had made only the most "minimal" contributions to the Allied cause as he dismissed the work of the Chinese coolies in digging the trenches on the Western Front as unimportant. Lloyd George finally dismissed Koo's concerns about the 21 Demands under the grounds that he never heard of the 21 Demands. On 22 April 1919, in what Koo always saw as a betrayal, Wilson-whom he had invested such hopes in-came out in support of Japanese claims on the Shandong as he stated that "the war had been fought largely for the purpose of showing that treaties cannot be violated" and it was "better to live up to a bad treaty than tear it up" as he argued that China was bound by the 1915 treaty. Koo's forceful advocacy of the Chinese case made him internationally famous while his status as a widower whose wife had just died of the "Spanish flu" conveniently ensured that he was free to marry again. The Oei family, a wealthy huaren (ethnic Chinese) family from the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia), had decided that Koo should marry Oei Hui-lan. During the last months of the Paris peace conference, Koo was often seen with Oei at dinners and social receptions. Koo's romance with Oei, whom he showered with flowers and gifts, distracted from his work at the conference. Oei complained in her memoirs that Koo spent his days pursuing her instead of engaging in his "important work as the second