"I won't make love to you, Numè," he said, bitterly. "You need not fear."
In his misery at his helplessness and inability to tell the girl how much he loved and wanted her, he was doubting her,—wondering whether it were indeed the truth that a Japanese woman had no heart. A feeling of utter misery came over him as he thought that perhaps Numè had been only playing with him, that her shy, seeming pleasure in being with him was all assumed. He looked down at the girl beside him. Perhaps she felt that look. She raised her little head and smiled at him, smiled confidently, almost lovingly. His doubts vanished.
"Numè—Numè!" was all he said; but he kissed her little hands at parting with a vehemence and passion he had never known.
CHAPTER XL. A PASSIONATE DECLARATION.
"Koto," Numè said that night, as the maid brushed her hair till it shone bright and glossy as the shining jade-stone she placed before the huge Buddha when she visited the Kawnnon temple, "Mr. Sinka luf me."
"I know," the other said, quite complacently, and as though she had never had even the smallest doubt about it.
"Why, Koto," Numè turned around in surprise, "how do you know?"
"Shiku tell me first. He say always the august consul carry with him the flowers you give him, and he leave his big work for to come and see you."