He guessed the struggle she was making and chimed in with her mood.
"Sensible fellows," he said lightly, tapping a cigarette on the verandah rail. "Gone home to bed I expect. Time you went to bed too. I'll just smoke this cigarette." But as she turned away obediently, he caught her back, with a sudden exclamation:
He took a tiny package from his pocket and gave it to her. Girlishly eager her fingers shook with excitement as she ripped the covering from a small gold case attached to a slender chain. She pressed the spring and uttered a little cry of delight. The miniature of Craven had been painted by a French artist visiting Yokohama and was a faithful portrait.
"Oh, Bar-ree," she gasped with shining eyes, lifting her face like a child for his kiss. She leaned against him studying the painting earnestly, appreciating the mastery of a fellow craftsman, ecstatically happy--then she slipped the chain over her head and closing the case tucked it away inside her kimono.
"Two?" said Craven pausing as he lighted his cigarette. "What do you mean?"
"Wait, I show," she replied and vanished into the house. She was back in a moment holding in her hand another locket. He took it from her and moved closer under the lantern to look at it. It hung from a thick twisted cable of gold, and set round with pearls it was bigger and heavier than the dainty case O Hara San had hidden against her heart. For a moment he hesitated, overcoming an inexplicable reluctance to open it--then he snapped the spring sharply.
"Good God!" he whispered slowly through dry lips. And yet he had known, known intuitively before the lid flew back, for it was the second time that he had handled such a locket--the first he had seen and left lying on his dead mother's breast.
He stood as if turned to stone, staring with horror at the replica of his own face lying in the hollow of his hand. The thick dark hair, the golden brown moustache, the deep grey eyes--all were the same. Only the chin in the picture was different for it was hidden by a short pointed beard; so was it in the miniature that was buried with his mother, so was it in the big portrait that hung in the dining-room at Craven Towers.
"Who gave you this?" he asked thickly, and O Hara San stared at him in bewilderment, frightened at the strangeness of his voice.