"Oh!" she said humbly. "I beg your pardon, Ishikichi! I put the rim right in your eye!"
"Don't menshum it," he returned solemnly. "I got another." He stalked to the gate, faced about, bobbed over again and disappeared.
Barbara looked after him smilingly. "Is Ishikichi in straitened circumstances? Or is his bent political economy?"
"His father has been ill for a long time," Thorn replied. "He keeps a shop, and in some way the child has heard that they will have to give it up. It troubles him, for he can't imagine existence without it."
"What a pity! I would be so glad to—do you think I could give them something?"
He shook his head. "After you have been here a while, you will find that simple charity in Japan is not apt to be a welcome thing."
"I am beginning to understand already," she said, as they walked along the stepping-stones, "that these gentle-mannered people do not lack the sterner qualities. Yet how they grace them! The iron-hand is here, but it has the velvet glove. Courtesy and kindness seem almost a religion with them."
"More," he answered. "This is the only country I have seen in the world whose people, when I walk the street, do not seem to notice that I am disfigured!"
She made no pretense of misunderstanding. "Believe me," she said gently, "it is no disfigurement. But I understand. My father lived all his life in the dread of blindness."
A faint sound came from him. She was aware, without lifting her eyes to his, that he was staring at her strangely.