"Remember Jenny Davis, Tom?"
"Well, I guess so;—never saw you alone when she was in Washington."
"Well, she brought home with her the sweetest little Japanese maid you ever saw. She used to be—a—a geesa girl in Tokyo, and the people she worked for were horrid to her. So Jenny paid them some money and they let her bring—a—Fuka with her to America. Well, I wish you could have seen her. She wasn't bigger than that, Tom," measuring with her hand, "and she was just as cute as anything,—walks on her heels, and smiles at you even when you are offended with her, Jenny says."
"Where is Mrs. Davis now?" Tom asked. "Thought I heard some one say she had come back here."
"So she did. She is somewhere in Japan now. Last time I heard from her she was in Kyoto. I wrote her, care of Arthur though, because she moves around so much, and I told her we were coming. I half expected she would meet us." After thinking a moment she added, "Tom, do you know, there was not a single American to meet us? I think mamma is right (though I won't tell her so), and that Arthur acted abominably in not meeting us. It doesn't matter what business he had—he should have left it. He might at least have sent—a—a friend to meet us, instead of that smooth Japanese. Mrs. Davis says there is a perfect American colony here, and in Yokohama and Kyoto—they are scattered everywhere, and Arthur knows them all, and most of them know we are to be married."
"Sinclair's hands, I guess, are pretty full most of the time. Every American nearly that comes here pounces onto him. He wrote me once that he had a different party to dinner nearly every day at the Consulate—when he is in Kyoto, and I guess that is why the poor chap likes to run down here where every tourist does not throw himself at him. Sinclair never was a good—a—business man. Don't believe he has any idea of the responsibility of his work. Believe he'd just as lief throw it up, anyhow."
But, though Tom stood up for his friend, even he could not help feeling in himself that the girl was justly indignant.