"Several of my best pieces of Imari china were smashed," replied Pearl, "and I picked up my big Delft vase in fear and trembling. But it was uninjured, mercifully. Stranger still, this heavy bronze clock was thrown off the mantelpiece, and was still going when I picked it up. Frightened? I should think I was frightened. I and all the Japanese servants rushed into the garden, and watched the house rocking backwards and forwards, expecting every moment to see it collapse."
"It was the worst earthquake we've had for years," added Rosina, "but it was nothing here compared to what it was in the north. I see by the newspapers whole villages were destroyed, and there has been immense loss of life. Amy will have told you how Tom retired as usual under the table. And did you hear how those two American globe-trotters, those dear old Miss Mordants, each clutching her own particular Chin dog, fled precipitately from the Grand Hotel, clad in little else than their stockings and chemises, and took refuge in a 'ricksha in the middle of the Bund? Thus airily clad, with the hood down and the apron up, they insisted on remaining for several hours. And then poor Nelly Richards, who was completely lost, and at last, after a long search, was found up a tree in the garden. I am told no power in heaven or earth would induce her to desert her tree until dragged down by main force by her infuriated parent."
"Yes, even earthquakes have their comical side. I heard of a certain mutual friend of ours who was indulging in a bath at that moment, and who fled into the street adorned tastefully but extremely simply in a high hat and a walking-stick," and Pearl laughed, but a second later her face became once more overclouded, and she sighed deeply.
"Now my dear," said Rosina, as she took her in her arms and kissed her affectionately, "be your own brave philosophical self, and don't worry about things. And as for your late husband, the last thing you could possibly manage to do is to mourn him, you know. Personally, I make no attempt to disguise how greatly relieved I am that a merciful Providence has thought fit to remove him from this troublesome world to another, and,--we'll hope,--a brighter sphere. While he was alive, in spite of your divorce, one could never feel quite sure that he might not take it into that evil head of his to annoy you in some way. Why! who knows? He might have turned up here in Tokyo!"
"There may be, for all you think, a far worse danger threatening me than the unexpected arrival of a divorced husband," murmured Pearl oracularly.
She was on the verge of confiding to Rosina the probable arrival in Japan of Lord Martinworth. She would have done so if it had not been that, since those few confidential conversations held on Pearl's first arrival three years ago, the name and even the existence of Martinworth had, by a sort of tacit consent and mutual understanding, been ignored by the two women in all later intercourse. Pearl was longing for Rosina's sympathy and advice in the difficulties she saw before her, but an incipient feeling of shyness, a kind of mauvaise honte, prevented her from venturing to reopen a subject which for so long had been closed between them. She therefore held her peace.
"After all," she thought, as she seated herself at her writing table after Mrs. Rawlinson's departure, "it may simply be a mare's nest of Sir Ralph's. Dick may never come in the end. A thousand incidents may occur to cause him to change his mind. And even if he and his wife do come to Japan, it is just as likely we shall not meet. What scores of globe-trotters visit this country whom I never see. I can easily abstain for the next two or three months from accepting invitations to the English Legation, the one place where we are likely to run across each other. Yes, after all, I am glad I said nothing to Rosina."
And yet in spite of all her sophistries, deep down in her heart of hearts, Pearl never doubted for a moment but that it was ordained by fate that Dick Martinworth should visit Japan, and that once again, whether for weal or for woe she knew not, their paths in life should cross.
Mr. Hall's and Rosina's arguments combined carried weight, and the next mail conveyed a letter from Mrs. Nugent to the former, in which no mention was made of renouncing the wealth left her. Indeed, enclosed with the letter was the rough draft of a will, by which, with the exception of a very substantial legacy to Mrs. Rawlinson, and another to the old lawyer himself, the whole of Pearl's vast fortune was left unconditionally to her young cousin, Miss Amy Mendovy.