"Tom, if you don't I'll go over and speak to him without an introduction."
"Better try it," said Tom, aggravatingly. "Why, you'd shock him so much he wouldn't get over it for a year. You don't know these Japs as I do, my dear—dozens of them at our college—awfully strict on subject of etiquette, manners, and all that folderol."
"Yes, but I'd tell him it was an American custom."
"Can't fool Takashima, my dear. Been in America eight years now—knows a thing or two, I guess."
Takashima, the young Japanese, looked over at them, with the unreadable, quiet gaze peculiar to the better class Japanese. His eyes loitered on the girl's beautiful face, and he moved a step nearer to them, as a gentleman in passing stood in front, and for a moment hid them from him.
"He is looking at us now," said the girl, innocently.
Tom stared at her round-eyed for a moment.
"How on earth do you know that? Your head is turned right from him."
Again the saucy little toss of the chin was all the girl's answer.