'You are not to be bought, my friend,' Lavendale went on. 'Neither am I. When we walk together, you hedge yourself around with restraint because you believe that I am one of those who could bear your country ill-will. That is where you are wrong. That is where there is a cloud between us which ought to be driven away. Japan and America naturally, industrially and geographically, should be friends, not enemies.'
'The causes of ill-feeling which lie between us,' Niko observed suavely, 'are not of our making.'
'Nor of ours—not of the true American,' Lavendale answered promptly. 'It is the desire of Washington, official Washington, that the sons of your country who come to us should be treated as our own sons. What we have to contend with, and you, is local feeling. The only sentiment that exists against Japan in my country is that local feeling, and the people who have shown themselves most virulently possessed of it are the compatriots of the man who only within the last few weeks has sought to pave the way for a disgraceful compact with your country.'
Niko's face was a little whiter, his eyes were filled with wonder. Slowly he nodded his head.
'You surprise me with your knowledge of things which I had imagined secret,' he said. 'Secret they have remained so far as I am concerned. Such information as you have gained can have come but from one source, so I will speak thus far. The sword of Japan shall be drawn in defence of her honour, and for no other cause. The alliance which you suggest would be hateful and dishonouring to my country. Nor,' he concluded, 'would Japan at any time commence a war with a treasonable ally.'
'What answer have you made to Kessner?' Lavendale asked bluntly.
His companion gently raised his eyebrows.
'Who is that gentleman—Mr. Kessner?' he inquired.
Lavendale shrugged his shoulders.
'Ah! I forgot,' he said. 'Those would not be your methods. Yet we know quite well that the person whose name I have mentioned has made overtures to you which could not, under present circumstances, emanate from Berlin. Japan from the west, and Germany on the east, might well embarrass a country so criminally unprepared for war as mine. I take it, however, that that combination is not to be feared.'