“Are you detailed to look after our party today?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, for the duration of your stay,” came the instant answer in perfect English.
Wally turned and went into the hotel. He found his way to the men’s lounge, and to a big wing chair in a corner. There he sat and thought, cursing himself for his breaks.
Prince Hata and the two old men talked of the days, only two or three years back, when Hata had been at Princeton. It had not occurred to either of them that they might see this former pupil, and here they were, walking slowly up and down, arm in arm. But here the two who had been teachers, and therefore in authority, were the guests, and Hata, talking fast, was planning all sorts of wonderful entertainments for them.
Prince Hata and his two old teachers started gaily off to look at temples and jade and epitaphs. Hata had even remembered epitaphs! They would have a grand time, and it was easy to see that Prince Hata was hungry to hear all about Princeton.
Dulcie found her father and David in close consultation in the reading room, while near the door half a dozen Japanese officers waited patiently for the conversation to end. This was no place for Dulcie. She went down to the lobby again and found Red, scarcely recognizable in white suit and shoes, his coppery hair painstakingly flat, his eyes bluer than ever.
“Well, I certainly am glad to see you!” Dulcie exclaimed, dragging him toward two big chairs in a corner. “Such a time!” and she told him about Wally and the Prince.
“Honestly, Miss Hammond, that lad makes me just sick with disgust, but what can be done? There’s no chance to lock him up, and there’s no use warnin’ him to keep a civil tongue in his head, because he just don’t know when he’s insultin’. Gosh, what do you suppose he said and did at Friedrichshafen, when no one was with him? I dunno, but I bet it was awful. And he speaks good German, so he could make all his friendly comments as clear as sea-water, and as bitter.”
“Well, I’m too ashamed for words,” said Dulcie. “Last night in the car I know that chauffeur understood what he said. These people are so perfectly and beautifully polite; so gentle, and self-effacing, and yet so efficient. You must meet Prince Hata, Red. He simply oozes aristocracy, yet Doctor Trigg hugged him and called him his dear boy, and now he’s taken them off to find old jade and tombstones. And that man last night who put us in the car. He never smiled when dear Doctor Trigg spouted his Japanese at him. He was so proud of his Japanese and, Red, he had looked at the wrong line in the book! He thought he said ‘Good-night, and thank you’, but he had said, ‘You have stolen the rice of my father’!”
“God love him!” cried Red, after a shout of laughter. “He said that, did he?”