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Geoffrey picked it up with a smile. "Curio dealers?" he asked. Japanese letters were printed on one side and English on the other. "Ito, that's the lawyer fellow, who pays the dividends. Did you see him." "Oh, no, I was much too weary. But he has only just gone. You probably passed him on the stairs." Geoffrey could only think of the vivid gentleman, who had been talking with Tanaka.
"If I do have a second," he gasped, "it will be my own funeral." But this joke did not run in the well-worn lines of Japanese humour. Mr. Ito merely thought that the big Englishman, having drunk much saké, was talking nonsense. All the guests were beginning to circulate now; the quadrille was becoming more and more elaborate. They were each calling on each other and taking wine.
Ito left her, as he had intended, with a growing sense of her own importance as distinct from her husband. "I was your father's friend: we were at school together here in Tokyo." Why, Geoffrey did not even know her father's name. Asako did not think as closely as this. She could not.
Ito," I exclaimed, "here comes the patrol cruiser the Askold and she is heading straight for us! Gun and tube crews, stand by! Quartermaster, light those two signal lanterns, white above red, bend them on to the signal halliards, and stand by to hoist away when I give the word." "Yes," agreed Ito, his voice tense with excitement; "she has seen and intends to speak us.
Scarcely had they settled themselves in the train when they became aware that two Japanese women were smiling and bowing repeatedly in the most cordial manner. "Why, it's Mme. Ito," exclaimed Miss Campbell. "And O'Kami San," finished Mary, who remembered names for everybody. "Are you going to Nikko, too, O'Kami San?" asked Billie, sitting beside the pretty little Japanese.
The presence of the two Japanese exasperated him. His manner was tactless and unfortunate. His tall stature in the dainty room looked coarse and brutal. Sadako and Ito were staring at his offending boots with an expression of utter horror. Geoffrey suddenly remembered that he ought to have taken them off. "Oh, damn," he thought. "Geoffrey," said his wife, "I can't come back. I am sorry.
Geoffrey was mumbling incoherently, and wondering whether he was expected to reply to this oration, when Ito again exclaimed, "Please step this way." They passed into a large room like a concert hall with a stage at one end. There were several men squatting on the floor round hibachi smoking and drinking beer. They looked like black sheep browsing.
"Don't look at me; I am a wreck!" she implored, with a little exhausted laugh. "I wonder where my keys are? I must get on something cool before dinner." "Ito has all the keys somewhere. Ito's a gentleman. He takes beautiful care of me, only he won't let me drink as much shasta as I want. What is that? Iced tea? Bad, bad before dinner! I'm going to watch you now. You are not looking a bit well.
At last, Asako said helplessly: "Is he dead?" The cook, a man, was glad of the opportunity to escape. "I go and call doctor," he said. "No, stay with me," said Asako; "I am afraid. O Hana can go for the doctor." Asako and the cook waited by the open shoji, staring blankly at the body of Ito. Presently the cook said that he must go and get something. He did not return. Asako called to him to come.
Ito insisted on doing up their hats in paper bundles. In the midst of a great deal of leave-taking and much smiling and bowing, Yoritomo found time to say to Nancy: "You see, chance has favored me to-day. The rain which kept me away from the bridge has brought you to my home." Nancy blushed in spite of her efforts not to.
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