"What are you talking about, Count?"
"Nonsense!" he replied promptly; "after all, Miss Carrol, I am here to play."
"I wonder you came here at all to such a quiet place."
"Oh, I don't care for orgies, Miss Carrol. But if you ask me, I wonder also why I am here."
Patricia felt that he was speaking truthfully and turned on him with a look of amazement. From all she had seen of the small Japanese, she judged that he was a man who knew his own mind. As she looked, by some telepathic process he guessed what was in hers. "Sometimes I do," he answered; "but on this occasion I don't--exactly"--and he drawled the last word slowly.
Patricia almost jumped. "You are a very uncomfortable man," she remarked.
"The East and the West, dear lady--they never meet without misunderstandings."
This cryptic remark closed the conversation, and they went in to afternoon tea. Akira said no more, nor did he explain his puzzling conversation in the least. However, he still remembered it, for every time he looked at Patricia he smiled so enigmatically that the mother which is in every woman made her wish to slap him and send him to bed without any supper.
That same evening in the drawing-room a strange thing took place, which made Patricia wonder more than ever. Theodore had been performing some conjuring tricks with cards at which Akira smiled politely. Basil had sung, and she had played a sonata of Beethoven. Feeling tired, no doubt, of Shakespeare and the musical glasses, Mr. Colpster had stolen to his study to look at his beloved family tree. The young people had the drawing-room to themselves. As all save Mara--who invariably declined to contribute to the gaiety of any evening--had done his or her part, it was the turn of the Japanese.
"Amuse us in some way, Count," commanded Patricia, crossing to a sofa, and throwing herself luxuriously on the silken cushions.