"It's worth all that comes from it," he said. "You play me fair! Do you understand? You'll play me fair, or I'll settle with you!"
The doctor smiled, a smile of horrible cunning.
"As you settled with your brother?" he said.
Phil shrank into the chair speechless, looking at him with trepidation in his eyes. The shot had gone home.
"Pshaw!" said Bersonin. "Do you take me for a fool not to guess? Come, we needn't quarrel. Our interests are the same. Go home, now, to your Japanese butterfly—and wait!"
CHAPTER XLV
THE BISHOP ANSWERS A SUMMONS
The Chapel was but sparsely filled. From where she sat, Barbara, through the open door, could see the willows along the disconsolate roadway whipping in the fleering dashes of wind. A woman trudged by, bare-legged, her kimono tucked knee-high, the inevitable, swaddled baby on her back. The hot, fibrous song of the semi had died to a thin humming, like bees in an old orchard. Across the bishop's voice she heard the plaintive call of a huckster, swinging by in slow dogtrot with panier-pole on shoulder, and the chirr of a singing-frog under the hedge.
The service was in the vernacular, and though she tried to follow it in her Romaji prayer-book—whose words were printed in Roman letters instead of the Japanese ideograph—the lines were meaningless, and she could not fasten her mind on them.