“Just as you say; but you don’t need a sampan, these men will row you back again. See you to-morrow at ten, then.”
Miss Hemster, now on deck, leaned over the rail and daintily blew me a kiss from the tips of her slender fingers.
“Thank you so much, retainer,” she cried, as I lifted my hat in token of farewell.
CHAPTER IV
I was speedily rowed ashore in a state of great exaltation. The sudden change in my expectations was bewilderingly Eastern in its completeness. The astonishingly intimate companionship of this buoyant, effervescent girl had affected me as did the bottle of champagne earlier in the day. I was well aware that many of my former acquaintances would have raised their hands in horror at the thought of a girl wandering about an Eastern city with me, entirely unchaperoned; but I had been so long down on my luck, and the experiences I had encountered with so-called fashionable friends had been so bitter, that the little finicky rules of society seemed of small account when compared with the realities of life. The girl was perfectly untrained and impulsive, but that she was a true-hearted woman I had not the slightest doubt. Was I in love with her? I asked myself, and at that moment my brain was in too great a whirl to be able to answer the question satisfactorily to myself. My short ten weeks in America had given me no such acquaintance as this, although the two months and a half had cost me fifty thousand dollars a week, certainly the most expensive living that any man is likely to encounter. I had met a few American women, but they all seemed as cold and indifferent as our own, while here was a veritable child of nature, as untrammelled by the little rules of society as could well be imagined. After all, were these rules so important as I had hitherto supposed them to be? Certainly not, I replied to myself, as I stepped ashore.
I climbed the steep hill to my former residence with my head in the air in every sense of the word. Many a weary journey I had taken up that forlorn path, and it had often been the up-hill road of discouragement; but to-night Japan was indeed the land of enchantment which so many romantic writers have depicted it. I thought of the girl and thought of her father, wondering what my new duties were to be. If to-day were a sample of them then truly was Paradise regained, as the poet has it. I had told Mr. Hemster that I needed time to purchase necessary things for the voyage, but this would take me to very few shops. I had in store in Nagasaki a large trunk filled with various suits of clothing, a trunk of that comprehensive kind which one buys in America. This was really in pawn. I had delivered it to a shopkeeper who had given me a line of credit now long since ended, but I knew I should find my goods and chattels safe when I came with the money, as indeed proved to be the case.
It was a great pleasure to meet Yansan once more, bowing as lowly as if I were in truth a millionaire. I had often wondered what would happen if I had been compelled to tell the grimacing old fellow I had no money to pay him. Would his excessive politeness have stood the strain? Perhaps so, but luckily his good nature was not to be put to the test. I could scarcely refrain from grasping his two hands, as Miss Hemster had grasped mine, and dancing with him around the bare habitation which he owned and which had so long been my shelter. However, I said calmly to him:
“Yansan, my ship has come in, as I told you this morning; and now, if you will bring me that bill, errors and all, I will pay you three times its amount.”