And Professor Barrowes, student of human nature as he prided himself upon being, did not know that Sunny had stepped suddenly across the gap that separates a girl from a woman, and had come into her full stature.
CHAPTER VI
Time and environment work miracles. It is interesting to study the phases of emotion that one passes through as he emerges from youth into manhood. The exaggerated expressions, the unalterable conclusions, the tragic imaginings, the resolves, which he feels nothing can shake, how sadly and ludicrously and with what swiftness are they dissipated.
It came to pass that Sunny's friends across the sea reached a period where they thought of her vaguely only as a charming and amusing episode of an idyllic summer in the Land of the Rising Sun. Into the oblivion of the years, farther and farther retreated the face of the Sunny whose April smile and ingenuous ways and lovely face had once so warmed and charmed their young hearts.
New faces, new scenes, new loves, work and the claims and habits that fasten upon one with the years—these were the forces that engrossed them. I will not say that she was altogether forgotten in the new life, but at least she occupied but a tiny niche in their sentimental recollections. There were times, when a reference to Japan would call forth a murmur of pleasureable reminiscences, and humorous references to some remembered fantastic trick or trait peculiar to the girl, as:
"Do you remember when Sunny tried to catch that nightingale by putting salt near a place where she thought his tail might rest? I had told her she could catch him by putting salt on his tail, and the poor kid took me literally."
Jinx chuckled tenderly over the memory. In the first year after his return to America Jinx had borne his little friend quite often in mind, and had sent her several gifts, all of which were gratefully acknowledged by the Reverend Simon Sutherland.
"Will you ever forget" (from Bobs) "her intense admiration for Monty's white skin? She sat on the bank of the pool for nearly an hour, with the unfortunate kid under water, waiting for her to go away, while she waited for him to come out, because she said she wanted to see what a white body looked like 'wiz nothing but skin on for clothes.' I had to drag her off by main force. Ha, ha! I'll never forget her indignation, or her question whether Monty was 'ashamed his body.' The public baths of Nagasaki, you know, were social meeting places, and introductions under or above water quite the rule."