Numè smiled happily.
"Do you think he will love me forever, Koto?"
"Ah, no!" Koto answered, elaborately; "because the august consul is to marry with the honorably august American woman in two months now, and of course he love only his wife then."
This answer displeased Numè. She spoke quite sharply to Koto. "But he tells me love never dies; that when he will love somebody he love her only forever."
Koto shrugged her shoulders.
"Americans are very funny. I do not understand them."
The next day Numè asked Sinclair whether he thought it possible for one who was married to love any one else besides his wife.
"Yes, Numè, it is possible," he said.
Then an idea struck him that she was thinking of her own case and her approaching marriage to Orito.