"But it was brazen," he finished lamely. "I promise never to do it again."
The breath of the night was coolly sweet. It hovered about them, mingled of all the musky winds and flower-months of Eden. A dulled, weird sound from the street reached their ears—the monotonous hand-tapping of a small, shallow drum.
"Some Buddhist devotée," he said, "making a pious round of holy places. He is stalking along in a dingy, white cotton robe with red characters stamped all over it—one from each shrine he has visited—and here and there in a doorway he will stop to chant a prayer in return for a handful of rice."
"How strange! It doesn't seem to belong, somehow, with the telegraph wires and the trolley cars. Japan is full of such contrasts, isn't it? It seems to be packed with mystery and secrets. Listen!" The deep, resonant boom of a great bell at a distance had throbbed across the nearer strumming. "That must be in some old temple. Perhaps the man with the drum is going there to worship. Does any one live in the temples? The priests do, I suppose."
"Yes," he answered. "Sometimes other people do, too. I know of a foreigner who lives in one."
"What is he? European?"
"No one knows. He has lived there fifteen years. He calls himself Aloysius Thorn. I used to think he must be an American, for in the Chancery safe there is an envelope bearing his name and the direction that it be opened after his death. It has been there a long time, for the paper is yellow with age. No doubt it was put there by some former Chief-of-Mission at his request. He has nothing to do with other foreigners; as a rule he won't even speak to them. He is something of a curiosity. He knows some lost secret about gold-lacquer, they say."
"Is he young?"
"No."
"Married?"