then he suspected that she and Pierre were more than friends. No, she could not believe it! Even if he did suspect, it was not certain that he would disapprove. Haganè was known everywhere as a friend to foreigners. He had travelled much, and had seen with his own eyes the splendor and the opportunities of foreign courts. He would know that, as wife of a diplomat, no matter what his country, she could serve her own.
At any rate she was soon again to meet the ex-daimyo. She was glad at least of this, and until she judged for herself, would not believe absolutely that the great man was against her. The thought of seeing him, of standing near him, gave her a sort of gentle strength and calm, as one feels when standing beside a great tree. If she could only get a warning to her lover,—to that less strong but dearly loved Pierre! Toward him she was beginning to feel, not only a girl's romantic devotion, but a mother's protecting tenderness. Here in her own country she longed to have her arms around him, shielding and at the same time preventing him from ignorance and prejudice. At Haganè's villa he was possibly to face an ordeal, unwarned by a hint from her. A little hope crept closer. Pierre was a passionate admirer of all the arts of Japan, Haganè an untiring collector. At the Tabata banquet pictures would surely be displayed. It was possible that Pierre's intelligence and appreciation might win him the most powerful of friends.
Most of the night before the banquet the young girl lay awake. The faint light of the andon flowed across her, melting into soft grayness at the far end of the room. It ruled, as with a heavy pencil, the overlapping boards of the ceiling. She counted them, but to no purpose. Sleep perched higher.
"A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by,—one after one; bees murmuring—" she quoted under her breath, and lay still as a fallen rose. Sleep grinned down from the small, high branches of night. She thought of dark running water, of a green curtain stretched across nothingness, of a deep, bottomless pool; but sleep, the raven, never stirred a feather.
Beside her bed, on the soft, matted floor, lay a white prayer-book, a tiny vase containing a few sprays of umè (plum-flower), and a chatelaine watch set with pearls. The watch had been
