“And soon,” said Taro, “you will be still wider awake, and then—then it will be time for her to awaken.”

“No!” said Jack, sharply, with bitter memory. “She has no heart whatever. She likes to pretend—that is all.”

“How do you mean?”

“Simply that we’ve both been pretending and acting—I to myself, she to me; she trying to make me believe it was all real to her, at any rate these last two months; I trying to delude myself into believing in her, which was more than my conceit was good for, after all. Just when I was sure of her, I accidentally discovered that she was preparing to desert me altogether.”

“She apparently has more sense than some of them,” said Taro. “Her head rules her heart.”

“Oh, entirely,” Jack agreed, quickly, thinking of the money she had coaxed from him in the past.

“And you,” Taro turned on him, “have you come out all right?”

“Perfectly!” the other laughed with forced assurance and airiness that deceived Taro, who was somewhat credulous by nature. “It wasn’t for a lifetime, you know,” he added.

His reply was distasteful to the high moral sense of Taro Burton—more, it pained him, for it brought to him a sudden and deep disappointment in his friend. He changed the subject, and tried to talk about his own people. He was in a great hurry to go home, and would linger but a day in Tokyo. He had arrived sooner than they expected him. He was hungry for a sight of his little sister and mother—they were all he had in the world.

Jack’s spirits were dampened for the moment, as he had expected his friend to remain with him for a few days. However, he got Taro’s consent to accompany him to his home for dinner that evening, in order to meet the “Sun-goddess.”