About a half hour later he heard Taylor calling to them.
"Numè," he said, as he helped her rise to her feet, "I know a pretty spot on the river not far from your home. Won't you and Koto come there instead of going all the way to Tokyo?"
The girl nodded her head. As they started up the hill she said: "Mrs. Davees tell me not to say too much to you."
"Don't put any bar on your speech, Numè. There is nothing you may not say;" he paused, "but—er—perhaps you had better not say anything to her about our meeting."
He was strangely abstracted as he and Taylor trudged back to their hotel. The Englishman glanced at him sideways.
"Nice little girl, that—Numè-san."
Taylor stopped in the walk to knock the ash from his pipe against a huge oak tree.
"Hope she is not like the rest of them."
"What do you mean?"
"Ah—well, don't you know—lots of fire and all that—but as for heart—ever hear the old saying: 'A Japanese flower has no smell, and a Japanese woman no heart'?"