"I'm sorry, but I can't," answered Nancy, in a low voice.
"Why not?"
"I just can't. That's all."
Billie felt as if a rough hand had seized her by her collar and given her a good shaking.
"Oh, very well, Nancy" she said, and went softly out of the room.
"I am sure she must be really ill," she thought, trying to put a charitable interpretation on this act of selfishness, but even illness could hardly account for anything so entirely remote from their usual relations. And, apparently, Nancy had no fever and was only a little under the weather with a headache.
Therefore, when the subject of her raincoat had come under discussion,
Billie quickly changed it.
"Do look at that queer-looking crowd," she ejaculated, pointing to a group of people walking in couples along the roadside. Their white kirtles were girded high about their waists and they carried staffs.
As the company marched along, always facing Fuji, they began singing a weird chant. When the motors drew nearer the tourists saw that each man wore a huge mushroom hat made of lightest pith and from his neck hung a piece of matting suspended by a cord.
"That must be one of the Pilgrim Clubs," announced Nicholas. "There are hundreds of them in Japan and they are fearfully expensive to join. The dues are from eight to fifteen cents a year. Every summer a club selects a delegate to take a nice little walking trip to a shrine and bring back blessings for the other members. His expenses are paid and lots of the other members go on their own hook. All the inns make special rates and it's come to be a jolly way to spend one's vacation, combining pleasure and religion. You see they've got the costume down to the finest point," he continued. "They wear umbrellas on their heads, and the matting hanging around their necks serves as a raincoat, seat and bed. It's the coolest, lightest and most complete walking equipment I ever saw."