We had dinner early that night, somewhere about six o’clock, for there were neither candles nor lamps in the Palace, and if we waited until nightfall we had to “grope,” as Mr. Hemster termed it. In spite of the success of her plans, Miss Hemster was distinctly snappy at dinner, if I may use such a term regarding a person so beautiful. She shut me up most effectually when I ventured a little harmless general conversation, and I think she made Miss Stretton feel more than usual the bitterness of a dependent’s bread. Mr. Hemster said nothing. I could see the poor old gentleman was hankering for a daily paper, and from my soul I felt sorry for him as he listened with the utmost patience to the querulous fault-findings of his lovely daughter.
Toward the end of dinner something that was said did not please the young lady, and she rose abruptly and left the table, with a gesture of queenly disapproval of us all. Anger appeared to fill her as electricity fills an accumulator, and until the battery was discharged we never knew who would suffer the next shock. When the young woman’s ill-temper had been aroused by my opposition earlier in the day, perhaps we would have spent a pleasanter evening if it had been allowed to run its course. But as it was checked by her interest in the negotiations it now filtered out in very palpable discontent. When Miss Stretton arose to leave I took the liberty of begging her to remain.
“I should like very much,” I said, “to show you the light on Nam-san.”
“And what is the light on Nam-san?” she asked, pausing with her hand on the back of the chair.
“Beacons are lighted all along the coast of Corea, on the mountain tops,” I replied, “so that peak calls to peak, as it were; and the last one to be lit is that on Nam-san, which is the name of the highest mountain near Seoul. They kindle it at eight o’clock, and its blazing up shows that the kingdom of Corea is safe and at peace with the world.”
“Very well,” said Miss Stretton after a pause; “I will return here about ten minutes to eight.”
She was as good as her word, and we took a stroll together in the great courtyard of the Palace, which is a city within a city. The gates of the Palace grounds were now closed and guarded, and we could not have got out into Seoul if we had wished to do so. But it was all very still and pleasant in the broad square surrounded by the low, strangely roofed buildings that constituted the Palace. We saw the beacon light flash out and then die away. I cannot remember that we talked much, but there was a calm and soothing sense of comradeship between us that was very comforting. She told me, when I had tried to warn her against expecting too much on seeing the Emperor next day, that she did not intend to accompany our party, and I suspected that she had been ordered to remain away. Moreover I could see that she was very tired of it all, and, like Mr. Hemster, wished herself back in her own country.