"The only foreigners I know are those who write me letters: malicious busybodies, people who want subscriptions to all sorts of shams, or invite me to join respectable, humbug societies, or write merely to gratify a low curiosity. As for friends, I have none."
"Surely, I saw you with one this morning," she said, with a smile.
"Ah," he said, his look changing swiftly; "I don't count Ishikichi. Children understand me."
"And me," she said. "I made friends with Ishikichi this morning. He was catching crickets in the garden. I am visiting the American Embassy," she added.
"The garden there has been a famous playground for the child, no doubt," he returned. "His boon companion lived just opposite the compound."
"Yes. Ishikichi has been inconsolable. To-day, however, he has ceased to sorrow. The owner of the carriage has sent six hundred _yen_ to the father, who is now able to pay his debts and enlarge his business. The tablet on the Buddha-shelf that bears the little boy's death-name will be henceforth the dearest possession of the family. To Ishikichi he is a glorious hero whose passing it would be a crime to grieve." He broke off, with the odd, timid gesture she had seen before. "But you came to see the garden," he said. "If you like, I will show it to you."
Without waiting for her answer, he led the way, moving quickly and agilely. The softness of his tread in the cloth _tabi_ seemed almost feminine. A little farther on he turned abruptly:
"When you passed me in the carriage this morning you must have thought me unmannerly," he said. "I was, no doubt. My manners are only villainous notions of my own."
"Not at all," she answered. "I only thought--"
"That perhaps I reminded you of some one you had known."
He turned and walked on without reply. As they proceeded, from behind the flowering bush came the tintinnabulent tinkle and drip of running water. The stepping-stones meandered on in graceful curves and presently arrived at a little lake at whose edge grew pale water-hyacinths and whose surface was mottled with light green lotos-leaves, dotted here and there with pink half-opened buds. Now and then these stirred languidly at the flirt of a golden fin, while over them, in flashes of flame-yellow, darted hawking dragon-flies. Thickets of maroon-tinted maple glowed in the sunlight and clusters of yellow oranges hung on dwarf trees. On the lake's margin bright-hued pebbles were strewn between rounded stones whose edges were soft and green with moss. Barbara longed to feel those mossy boulders with her bare feet--to splash in that limpid water like a happy child.