The Japanese smiled—a happy, confident smile. It touched the girl, and she said, impetuously: "Tom, it always depends on who has the monopoly."
Tom answered with mock sternness: "Very well, madam; I leave you and Takie to the tender mercies of each other."
"Your cousin likes you very much, does he not?" the Japanese asked her, as Tom moved away.
"Yes; Tom is the best boy in the world. I don't know what I'd do without him." She leaned her head against the railing. His next quiet, meaning words startled her: "Would you wish to marry with him?" She laughed outright; for she perceived the first touch of jealousy he had shown in these words.
She lifted her little chin in its old saucy fashion.
"No—not if Tom was the only man in the world. It would be too much like marrying one's brother."
She smiled at the anxious face of the Japanese. He bent over her chair a moment, then he drew back and stood against the rail, in a still indecisive posture. The girl knew instinctively what he wanted to say. Perhaps it was because she was tired, and her heart was hungry for a little love, that she did not try to prevent him from speaking.
"This afternoon, Miss Ballard, your words gave me courage. Will you marry with me?" he asked.
The question was so direct she could not evade it. She must face it out now. Yet she could find no words to answer at first. The effort it had cost the Japanese to say this had made him constrained, for he had all the pride of a Japanese gentleman; and after all he was not so sure that the girl would accept him. He had been told it was customary in America to speak to the girl herself before speaking to the parents, and it was in a stiff, ceremonious way that he did so. He waited silently for her answer.