First she made a low Japanese bow, quite different from the little smiling nods she had learned to give her friends at Wellington.
"I feel much honored, Mees Brown. Will you be seated and I will bring refreshments."
"Why, Otoyo," exclaimed Molly, filled with wonder at this new phase in her friend, "I don't want any refreshments. I thought I'd drop in for half an hour before English V. and find out what has happened to you. You never come to see me any more," she added reproachfully. "You haven't been since that Sunday afternoon with your father, and you always have a 'Busy' sign on your door. Are you really so busy or are you trying to avoid us?"
Otoyo drew up her one chair she used for visitors and sat down again on the floor.
"I have been much engaged," she said, avoiding Molly's eye. Molly noticed that her English was perfect. She spoke with great precision and avoided adverbial mistakes with painful care.
She had had a great deal to think about lately, Otoyo continued, and she was reading a book of Charles Dickens, the English novelist. It was very difficult.
With an impetuous gesture, Molly rose and pushed the chair out of the way. Then she sat flat on the floor beside Otoyo, and took one of the little plump brown hands in hers.
"Otoyo, you're unhappy. Something has happened and you're praying to Catholic saints and Fuji and Buddha all at once. Isn't it so?"
"The saints are very honorable gentlemen," answered Otoyo quickly. "Mrs. Murphy has told me many things of their goodness. And Fuji is the mountain that brings comfort to all Japanese people. Holy men dwell on Fuji and pilgrims climb to the summit each year to worship. And Buddha, he is a great god," she added. "He is kind to lonely little Japanese girl."
As she neared the end of her speech her voice was as faint and thin as a sick child's, but she steadily repressed all emotion, for no well-bred Japanese lady is ever seen to weep.