Sinclair noticed that the Englishman seemed to know Numè. He addressed her as Miss Watanabe, and inquired after Mrs. Davis.
"You have met before, I see," he remarked.
"Ess," the girl smiled; and Taylor repeated the incident of how he had spoken to her father of the girl's beauty.
"Did I offend you?" he asked the girl.
"Ess."
Both Sinclair and Taylor laughed heartily at her assent, and the two girls joined in, scarcely knowing what they were laughing at, but feeling strangely happy and free.
Numè called their attention to Koto, telling them she was her friend and maid. Sinclair recognized the girl almost immediately as she smiled at him.
"And so you have been making almost daily trips to Tokyo?" he said, wondering at the girl's skill in evading detection.
"Ess—we become so lonely."
"Well, it's a jolly shame to shut you up like they do the women here," Taylor said, with a vivid memory of how the girl had been kept under such rigid seclusion after his conversation with her father. Taylor began fumbling with his sketching tools.