"He say he writing soon, and I telling Orito, too."
The girl's complacency cut Mrs. Davis to the quick. She forgot all about Cleo's flirtations. She remembered only that Cleo was her dearest friend—that this strange Japanese girl might cause her immeasurable trouble and pain, and that she must do something to prevent it.
"Numè, you can't really care for—for Sinclair."
"Ess—I luf," the girl interrupted, softly.
"Come and sit at my knee, Numè, like—like you used to do. So! now I will tell you a little story. How hot your little head is—you are tired? No? Oh, Numè, Numè, you have been a very foolish—very cruel little girl." Nevertheless, she bent and kissed the wistful upturned face.
CHAPTER XLII. A STORY.
"Once there was a young girl," Mrs. Davis began, "who was born in a beautiful city away across the seas. She was just as beautiful and good—as—as you are, Numè. But, although the city was very beautiful in which she lived, she had very little in her life to make her happy. She lived all alone in a house so big that the halls and stairways were as long as—as the pagodas. She seldom saw her father because he was always away traveling, and, besides, he did not love children much. Her mother was always sick, and when the little girl came near her she would fret and worry, and say that the little girl made her nervous. So she grew up very, very hungry for some one to love her. After a time, when she became a beautiful young lady, many men thought they loved her; but she had grown so used to not loving, and to not being loved by any one, that she never could care for any of them. At last there came one man who seemed different to her from all the others. And, Numè, he fell in love with her—and she loved him. Oh! you don't know how much they loved each other. They were with each other constantly, and, and,—are you tired?" she interrupted herself to ask the girl, who had moved restlessly.