Nodding and smiling at the girls brightly, she followed Miss Campbell into the theater where they were met by the plump, hospitable little Nesan, who prostrated herself before each guest and removed shoes at the same time.
Miss Campbell groaned.
"Oh, dear," she complained. "Even at the theater! I shall never get accustomed to walking flat-footed. I shall be wearing bifurcated stockings next, I suppose."
"Etiquette, Madam, etiquette," said Mr. Buxton. "You must do as the
Romans do, remember, or else be thought extremely rude."
But there was no time for argument and the party hastily distributed themselves in the two boxes. Yoritomo Ito kept close beside Nancy while Nicholas Grimm and Reggie Carlton sat tailor fashion in the back of the box. The theater was a strange place to the Western eye. There was not a chair in the entire house and Mr. Buxton chuckled aloud over Miss Campbell's complaints when she was obliged to sit on a mat on the floor. Below the two tiers of boxes, the pit appeared like a gigantic checker-board divided into square compartments by partitions about a foot high. In each compartment squatted six people. Running from the rear of the house to the stage was a slightly raised walk three feet broad to be used by the actors as an exit. The stalls were crowded with men and women and children. Here and there were groups of geishas or dancing girls. Their rich apparel made bright spots of color in the scene. The children ran about with perfect freedom, up and down the aisles at the sides and in and out of the stalls, eating sweetmeats and visiting their friends. And there was scarcely a grown person in the entire audience of Japanese who was not smoking, for women as well as men smoke in Japan: one pinch of tobacco in a short pipe, one puff, a little whiff of smoke inhaled and the operation is over. Before the curtain rose, the Nesan flew busily from one box to the other with cushions and sweetmeats, baskets of oranges and boxes of sweet pickled black beans. Presently came the sound of two blocks of wood striking together. Then the curtain rose and the audience settled itself for three hours of the most intense enjoyment. The play was a Japanese legend and the actors picturesque and dramatic, but if all the greatest actors in the world had combined to give the performance, Miss Campbell could not have maintained her cramped position a minute longer than two hours.
"I am sure my limbs will refuse their office, Duncan," she whispered. "If this goes on much longer, I shall have to be carried from the theater like a helpless paralytic."
"Buxton, don't you think we've had enough?" suggested Mr. Campbell, and the bachelor, glad to stretch his own cramped legs, took the hint and gave the signal for departure.
Once more they were in the 'rikshas, only this time Nancy found herself seated by Yoritomo and Billie and Nicholas had paired off in the same way. Miss Campbell was not sure that she approved of this change.
"In my day," she remarked to her cousin, "young ladies never rode alone in buggies with young men."
"But they aren't buggies, Cousin," he answered good-naturedly.