The women they had passed looked back curiously at the foreigner walking with her. One, a girl of Haru's own age, called smilingly after her:
"Komban Mukojima de sho?" Phil understood the query. Was she going to Mukojima—to the cherry festival—to-night! His eyes sparkled at the tossed-back, "Hai!" Well, he would be there, too! He had appreciated the quick wit of her subterfuge. The clever little baggage! She was not such a small, brown saint, after all!
"I think I did that rather well," he said, when they had passed out of earshot. "They'll think your honorable parent and I exchange New Year gifts at the very least."
A little smile of irrepressible fun was lurking under Haru's flush. "You have ask how is papa-San rhu-ma-tis-um," she said. "In our street he have some large fame, for because he so old and no have got."
Phil laughed aloud. "Look here, little Haru," he said, "you and I are going to be great friends, aren't we?" He looked down at the slim, nervous arm, so soft and firm of flesh, so deliciously turned and modeled. He knew a jade bracelet in Yokohama that would mightily become it—he would write to-night and have it sent up! "When can I see you again, eh?"
They had turned into a narrow deserted lane, bordered with bamboo fences, and opening, a little way beyond, into the wider Street-of-Prayer-to-the-Gods. She stopped as he spoke and shook her head. "My no can tell," she answered. "No come more far. My house very near now."
He caught her hand—it was almost as small as a child's, with its delicate wrist and slender fingers. "Give me a kiss and I will let you go," he said.
As she shrank back indignantly against the palings, her free hand flung up across her face, he threw his arms about her and strained her to him. She wrestled against him with little inarticulate sobs, but he lifted her face and kissed her again and again.
He released her, breathing hard, the veins in his temples throbbing, his lips burning hot. He stood a moment looking after her, as white-faced and breathless, she fled down the bamboo lane.
"There!" he muttered. "That's for you to remember me by—till next time!"