“Well, I don’t care what Straits you have to go through; he’s gone to Osaka on important business the note said. Now, what business can have taken him there. What do they do at Osaka?”
“Make all sorts of things, from machinery to tea-pots, and so on.”
“Well, he can’t have gone to buy machinery or tea-pots—what can it mean? He was so good, too, yesterday; brought me up some antipyrine, and wanted to fetch a doctor, and plumped up my pillows, and then went out and off to Osaka without a word, and how did he get there? He says follow by next boat to-morrow. I was going to ask the hotel people, but I didn’t like to. I just told them I knew he was going, and I was going to follow him to-morrow.”
“There’s no railway to Osaka,” said Leslie, “for this bit of Japan is an island. He must have gone by a Holt liner; one started last evening. The Canadian Pacific boats don’t stop at Osaka, they go right on to Yokohama. I suppose he means for you to follow by the Messagerie boat that leaves to-morrow evening.”
“I’ll give him tea-pots,” said Jane gloomily, “when I catch him! The idea of his leaving me like that! In a strange country, too. I wonder what is the meaning of it all!”
“Perhaps he went away—because of a girl.”
“You mean he’s run away with some girl!” flashed Jane. “Why don’t you say so if you mean it?”
“Because I don’t mean it. I said ‘because of a girl,’ not ‘with a girl.’”
“Dick, you know something!”
“Yes, I do.”