"What an infant thunder-cloud!" said Patricia as the carriage proceeded. "That must be where our precious prodigy gets his English. Poor mite!" she added. "He was the inseparable of the son of Toru, the flower-dealer opposite the Embassy, Barbara, and the dear little fellow was run over and killed last week by a foreign carriage. No doubt he's grieving over it, but in Japan even the babies are trained not to show what they feel. I wonder who this new friend is?"
"I've seen the man once before," said the Ambassador. "He was pointed out to me. His name is Thorn. His first name is Greek—Aloysius, isn't it?—yes, Aloysius. He is a kind of recluse: one of those bits of human flotsam, probably, that western civilization discards, and that drift eventually to the East. It would be interesting to know his history."
So this, thought Barbara, was the exile of whom Daunt had told her, who had chosen to bury himself—from what unguessed motive!—in an oriental land, sunk out of sight like a stone in a pool. When he looked at her she had felt almost an impulse to speak, so powerfully had the shadow in his eyes suggested the canker of solitariness, the dreary ache of bitterness prolonged. She felt a wave of pity surging over her.
But the carriage leaped forward, new sights sprang on them and the fleeting thought dropped away at length behind her, with the overhanging cherry-blooms, the little green park, and the strange face at its gateway.
CHAPTER XVI
"BANZAI NIPPON!"
Gradually, as they proceeded, the throng became denser. Policemen in neat suits of white-duck and wearing long cavalry swords lined the road. They had smart military-looking caps and white cotton gloves, and stood, as had the officer before the file of convicts in Shimbashi Station, moveless and imperturbable. The crowds were massed now in close, locked lines on either side. In one place a school-master stood guard over a file of small boys in holiday kimono: a little paper Japanese flag was clutched in each chubby hand.
In all the ranks there was no jostling, or fighting for position, no loud-voiced jest or expostulation; a spell was in the air; the Imperial Presence who was to pass that way had cast His beneficent Shadow before.
Through a double row of saluting police they whirled into an immense brown field, as level as a floor, stretching before them seemingly empty, a dull, yellow-brown waste horizoned by feathery tree-tops. The carriage turned to the right, skirting a surging sea of brown faces held in check by a stretched rope; these gave place to a mass of officers standing in dress-uniform, with plumed caps and breasts ablaze with decorations; in another moment they descended before a canvas marquée where brilliant regimental uniforms from a dozen countries shifted and mingled with diplomatic costumes heavy with gold-braid, and with women's gay frocks and picture-hats.