"I'll let you go, since you seem to feel so set on it. But be careful of what you say or do, and don't promise anything. Give little Snowflake my love, and tell her I miss her about the house."
Gwendolen, without a word of thanks, walked toward the door. "Now, Dodge, remember," warned her father, in a semi-whisper.
"If Mr. Dodge is being sent along as a sort of diplomatic nurse, or a keeper to an idiot, I won't have him," flashed the girl.
"Nonsense, child!" said her father. "You'd better run along in a hurry before I change my mind. I don't know but as I'm weak—"
Without waiting for more, the girl literally ran from the room. Clerks and visitors in the outside offices looked up in wonder. That dry sob in her throat had stirred again. Even her dad, on this horrid day, was cross.
Outside the sun had begun to shine brilliantly. The high winds, those scourges of the Tokio winter, were, for the time, at rest. The people in the streets appeared contented and happy enough, trudging along on wooden clogs, or trotting with noiseless, straw-sandalled feet between the shafts of vehicles. The small boys wore miniature flags in their caps.
When again she felt mistress of her voice, she said, with an attempt at her usual gay levity, "Now, Mr. Dodge, I intend to know what all that mysterious interchange of glances in the office was supposed to convey."
Dodge seemed to think. "I should fancy you'd know by instinct," he answered. "Japan and Russia are at war. America is neutral."
"Yes," challenged Gwendolen, "and the earth goes around the sun, and the moon around the earth. But what is that to Yuki and to me?"
"You are the daughter of the American minister, and Miss Yuki is under the protection of Prince Haganè. It's the bother of marriage. You must see that she can never marry Le Beau. The worst of it all is that Le Beau's such an ass!"