"Not a day, not an hour," was Nan's answer.
Little Toku, with his two attendants, was walking up and down, vastly entertained yet a little afraid at all this confusion and these strange faces, but as he looked up into the faces of those who led him by the hands, he smiled, for these were friends and would not leave him to the unknown.
Ko-yeda and Jean were having last words together, while Mr. Sannomiya talked as best he could to Mrs. Corner, both appealing to Ko-yeda whenever there was absolute need of an interpreter.
Mary Lee and Jack were leaning over the rail to see the bustle below. "What a queer, queer summer it has been," said Jack musingly. "It passes before me, such a jumble of strangeness and yet with some things standing out so clearly. That dreadful day in the boiling mud when Neal snatched me away and probably saved my life."
"You never told me about that," said Mary Lee.
"No, but I will tell you now, because it accounts partly for my appropriating Neal when I had no business to. I felt so grateful to him." Then she gave her sister an account of what had happened. "Another day," she went on, "is that one when you had the letter from Carter. I think I shall remember that to the day of my death. I think my heart really woke up that minute. I didn't quite realize how much I cared till you showed me. And to-day," she continued, "I am going back to him."
A little further off, Nan was saying, "Suppose I had never come to Japan. I cannot bear to think of what I might have missed."
"You mean?" Mr. Harding spoke.
"I mean you, dear boy."
"You would not have missed me, nor would I have missed you. Fate could not have been so unkind. Somewhere, somehow, sooner or later we would have met. I can't think otherwise."