The girl sighed. Her words were halting, for she hesitated to ask even her closest friend such a question: "Does he—has he paid any one here much—a—attention?"
"No, indeed. He doesn't like Japanese women much—he told me so himself. Says they are all alike. That they haven't any heart."
"Is it true?"
"Well, dear, I don't know. It is not true of all of them, at any rate. There is one girl I know who is the dearest, best-hearted little thing in the world. Cleo, she is the sweetest thing you ever saw. I won't attempt to describe her to you, because I am not a poet, and it would take a poet to describe Numè."
"Numè?"
"Yes—Mr. Takashima's little sweetheart, you know. Ever heard him speak of her?"
Cleo Ballard had become suddenly very still and quiet. The other woman rattled on, without waiting for an answer.
"She has waited for him eight years, and—and I actually believe she still loves him. She seems to take it as a matter of course that she loves him, and doesn't see anything strange at all in her doing so, in spite of the fact that she was just a little girl when he went away." She paused a moment, smiling thoughtfully. "Really, Cleo, it is the prettiest thing in the world to see them together. He is rather stiff and formal, but just as gentle and polite as anything, and she, poor little creature, thinks he is the finest thing alive."
Cleo Ballard caught her breath with a sudden pain. She had grown quite white. "Jenny, don't let's talk of—of the Japanese now. I—I—don't care for them much."
"Don't care for them! Why, you must get over any feeling like that if you intend living here. However, even if you dislike every Japanese in Japan, you'd change your mind, perhaps, after you knew Numè. You really ought to see her—she—why, my dear, what is the matter? You look quite faint."