"Been fooling you?"
"No;" he hesitated a moment, as though he feared to tell Sinclair the truth. Then he said: "She not like for to leave her mistress now;—" he paused again, looking uneasily at the consul, and shifting from one foot to the other.
Sinclair had been opening some letters with a paper-cutter while the boy had been speaking. He suddenly laid it down, and wheeled round on his chair.
"Well?"—he put in.
"Numè-san is quite sick," the boy said.
"Quite sick!" Sinclair rose with an effort. He was struggling with his desire to seem indifferent, even before the office boy, but a sudden feeling of longing and tenderness was overpowering him. It shocked him to think of Numè's being ill—bright, happy, healthful Numè.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"I not know. Koto say she cry plenty, and grow very thin,—that she have very much luf for somebody."
"Ah!"