"He's married a Jap, hasn't he? I'm new here but I have heard something about him that's queer."
"Yes," the Ambassador replied. "Married her, preacher, ring, the whole thing."
"How did it happen? Why did he marry her?" the younger man asked with a laugh.
"We all talked to him. I talked to him like a father, but he wouldn't listen to reason. Saw her at the mission school, fell head and heels in love with her and wouldn't take anyone's advice. Even the missionary was against it. Told him that mixed marriages never came out right; that the girl always reverted to type," said the Ambassador a little bitterly.
"Well, has it turned out as they predicted?" inquired the secretary interestedly.
"Well, no," admitted the Ambassador. "It's been two years, and everything seems to be all right so far. No one ever sees much of either of them. You meet her with him once in a while in some garden admiring the wistaria, or the lotus. She's a beauty—a real beauty—and belongs to one of the old Samurai families up north somewhere."
"How did the mission get her? I thought they went in more for the lower classes," asked the secretary.
"Well, it seems that some missionary up north saw her and was attracted by her cleverness and her pretty face, and she persuaded the girl's parents to send her to school here. They're as poor as Job's turkey; but they live in a great old palace and observe all the old time Jap customs. Haven't changed a bit for centuries. The real thing in old-time aristocracy. But the missionary got past them some way and the girl came down—when was it?—six years ago, I think. Missionary says she's clever, has become a Christian, and evidently forgotten that she's a Jap."
"It'll perhaps be the exception that proves that all mixed marriages are not failures," said the optimistic secretary.
"No," said the older man, "I know Japan and the Japanese. There's something in them that never changes—the call of the blood or whatever it is. No matter how much education they have, change of religion, life in foreign countries—anything—they're Japanese, and in a crisis they go back to their gods and the instincts of their race. We all told Freeman this—the missionary, myself, everybody took a hit at him when we found he really meant business, but he only laughed. He said Yuki was as European as he was. Never thought of the gods, hardly remembered her people, and all that rot. He ought to know better: this is his second post in Japan. Was out here twelve years ago and got in some kind of trouble. I was surprised when the government sent him back; but I suppose they thought it had all blown over, and I presume it has, although the Japs don't forget."