The girl looked gratefully at him. "Ess, I nod lig' big crowd joyful ladies and gentlemen," she said, haltingly.
He found a couple of seats close by a window, where a soft breeze came through, and fanned her flushed little face. In spite of what Mrs. Davis had told her of Sinclair's not liking Japanese girls, with the usual confidence of a little woman in a tall man, Numè felt protected from the curious crowd when with him. She told him so with a shy artlessness that astonished him.
"Me? I lig' you," she said, shyly. "You are big—and thad you nod lig' poor liddle Japanese womans—still I lig' you jus' same."
"I like some of them," he said, lamely, confounded by the girl's direct words. "You see, I have not met any Japanese ladies, and the Japanese girls I have met always struck me as being—well, er—too gay to have much heart."
Numè shook her head. "Japanese girl have big, big heart," she said, making a motion with her hands. "Japanese boy go long way from home—see all the big world; bud liddle Japanese girl stay at home with fadder and mudder, an' vaery, vaery good, bud parents luf always the boy. Sometimes Japanese girl is vaery sad. Then account she stay at home too much, but she not show that she is vaery sad. She laugh and talk so thad the parents do nod see she is vaery sad."
Sinclair did not interrupt her. Her odd way of telling anything was so pretty and her speech so broken that he liked better to hear her talk. But the girl stopped short here, and looked quite embarrassed a moment. Then she said:
"Numè talk too much, perhaps?" Her voice was raised questioningly.
"No—no—Miss Numè cannot talk too much."
"Oa," the girl continued, smiling saucily, "Americazan girl talk too much also?"
"Sometimes."