Jenny Davis put her arms round her again.
"Dear, I don't hate you. Indeed, I don't, but it has startled me so. I am so—so shocked, because of Numè, and the two poor old men. I don't know what to say, but I'd stand by you, dear, against all the Japanese in Japan if it became necessary." She put her head against Cleo's, and the two friends wept in sympathy with each other, as women do.
"You must face the thing out, Cleo. Have you told Takashima yet?"
"No;—he sent me this to-day," she put the note despairingly into her friend's hands.
"How dreadful!—how perfectly awful!—you do not know the Japanese as I do, dear. It will just break the two old men's hearts. They have looked forward to his marriage with Numè all their lives. They don't love their children as we do in America. Their pride in them is too pathetic, Cleo; and when they disappoint them it is like a death-blow."
"Don't, Jenny—don't, please don't talk about them."
"But we must, Cleo. That is where the whole mistake has always been with you. You are too weak, Cleo. You can't look suffering in the face, and in consequence you do nothing to relieve it. Your duty is plain. Go right to Orito and tell him the truth."
"Jenny, I can't do it. He said once on the steamer that he would not scruple to take his life if he were very unhappy; and then he went on to tell me how common suicides were in Japan, and how the Japanese had not the smallest fear of death, and he seemed to think it would be a courageous act to—to take one's life. Jenny, I got so frightened that night I almost screamed out."
"But sooner or later you will have to tell him, Cleo. Don't let him know it solely by your marrying Sinclair. That would be too cruel;—tell him. Tell me, Cleo, do you think he actually believes you care for him?"