"Sunny, you know your father now, fully, don't you? Tell me that you do—that you have not forgotten me. You were within a few weeks of six when I went away, and we were the greatest of pals. Surely you have not forgotten altogether. It seems just the other day you were looking at me, just as you are now. It does not seem to me as if you have changed at all. You are still my little girl. Tell me—you have not forgotten your father altogether, have you?"
"No. Those year they are push away. You are my Chichi (papa). I so happy see you face again."
She held him back, her two hands on his shoulders, and now, true to her sex, she prepared to demand a favour from her father.
"Now I think you are going to give Katy and me mos' bes' job ad you business."
"Job? Who is Katy?"
"I are not told you yet of Katy. Katy are my frien'."
"You've told me nothing. I must know everything that has happened to you since I left Japan."
"Thas too long ago," said Sunny sadly, "and I am hongry. I lig' eat liddle bit something."
"What! You've had no lunch?"
She told him the incident of the dog meat, not stopping to explain just then who Katy was, and how she had come to be with her. He leaned over to the desk and pushed the button. Miss Holliwell, coming to the door, saw a sight that for the first time in her years of service with Senator Wainwright took away her composure. Her employer was kneeling by a chair on which was seated the strange girl. Her hat was off, and she was holding one of his hands with both of hers. Even then he did not break the custom of years and explain or confide in his secretary, and she saw to her amazement that the eyes of the man she secretly termed "the sphinx" were red. All he said was: