"Send Mr. Farrel another box of cigars, popsy-wops. Don Mike, how did you guess it?"
"Oh, all the real plutocrats in New York have been sold memberships in that instrument of propaganda by the wily sons of Nippon. The Japan Society is supposed to be a vehicle for establishing friendlier commercial and social relations between the United States and Japan. The society gives wonderful banquets and yammers away about the Brotherhood of Man and sends out pro-Japanese propaganda. Really, it's a wonderful institution, Miss Parker. The millionaire white men of New York finance the society, and the Japs run it. It was some shrewd Japanese member of the Japan Society who sent you to Okada on this land-deal, was it not, Mr. Parker?"
"You're too good a guesser for comfort," the latter parried. "I'm going to write some letters. I'm motoring in to El Toro this afternoon, and I'll want to mail them."
"'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof'," Don Miguel assured him lightly. "Whenever you feel the urge for further information about yourself and your Japanese friends, I am at your service. I expect to prove to you in about three lessons that you have unwittingly permitted yourself to develop into a very poor citizen, even if you did load up with Liberty Bonds and deliver four-minute speeches during all of the loan drives."
"Oh, I'm as good as the average American, despite what you say," retorted the banker, good-naturedly, as he left them.
The master of Palomar gazed after the retreating figure of his guest. In his glance there was curiosity, pain, and resignation. He continued to stare at the door through which Parker had disappeared, until roused from his reverie by Kay's voice.
"The average American doesn't impress you greatly, does he, Don Mike?"
"Oh, I'm not one of that supercilious breed of Americans which toadies to an alleged European culture by finding fault with his own people," he hastened to assure her. "What distresses me is the knowledge that we are a very moral nation, that we have never subjugated weaker peoples, that we have never coveted our neighbor's goods, that we can outthink and outwork and outgame and outinvent every nation under heaven, and yet haven't brains enough to do our own thinking in world-affairs. It is discouraging to contemplate the smug complacency, whether it be due to ignorance or apathy, which permits aliens to reside in our midst and set up agencies for our destruction and their benefit. If I——— Why, you're in riding-costume, aren't you?"
"You will never be popular with women if you do not mend your ways," she informed him, with a little grimace of disapproval. "Do you not know that women loathe non-observing men?"
"So do I. Stodgy devils! Sooner or later, the fool-killer gets them all. Please do not judge me to-day, Miss Parker. Perhaps, after a while, I may be more discerning. By Jupiter, those very becoming riding-togs will create no end of comment among the natives!"