SINCLAIR'S INDIFFERENCE.
When Mrs. Davis had said Sinclair did not care for Japanese women she
had merely spoken the truth. With the unreasoning prejudice of a
westerner, he had taken a dislike to them, hardly knowing himself why he
did so. Perhaps one of the reasons lay in the fact that when he had come
to Japan he had been too acutely aware of his engagement, and that his
wife would likely make her home there in Japan. For this reason he
avoided the distractions that the tea-houses offered to most foreigners,
going there only occasionally with parties of friends; but, unlike most
western men, who generally consider it their privilege when in Japan to
be as lawless as they desire, he had got into no entanglements whatever.
That he had been called upon constantly, as consul, to help various
Americans out of such scrapes with Japanese women, had made him more
prejudiced against them.
On the night of Mrs. Davis' party, he stood in a doorway looking on at
the gayly mixed throng. Here were Americans, English, French, Germans,
and a good sprinkling of the better class Japanese. Mrs. Davis' house
was entirely surrounded by balconies, which she had had specially built
in American fashion, and the guests wandered in and out of the
ball-room on to these balconies, or down into the gayly lighted garden;
under the shadows of the trees, illumined, in spots only, by the flaring
light of hundreds of Japanese lanterns, scattered like twinkling
swinging lamps all through the gardens, and on the lawn. Cleo Ballard
was looking very beautiful; and because she was undoubtedly the
prettiest woman in the room she was surrounded the entire evening.
Sinclair had once told her laughingly that he gave her carte blanche to
flirt all she desired. In his secret heart, like most men, he was
opposed to this pastime (for women). Not that he was entirely free from
it himself. By no means; but sometimes the ring of falsity and untruth
in it all struck the finer sense of the man. Perhaps he was a trifle
bored that night. He watched wearily the dancers passing back and forth,
the filmy laces and beautiful summer gowns; and he sighed. Somehow, he
was not a part of the scene, for with the peculiarity of a traveler,
Sinclair detested anything smacking of conventionality, and most parties
(in society) are formal to a great degree--at least on the surface.
Quite late in the evening Mrs. Davis, who had disappeared for a time
from the ball-room, returned, bringing with her a young girl. Sinclair
could not see her face at first, because her head was turned from him.
She was dressed very simply in a soft white gown, cut low at the neck,
the sleeves short to the elbows. She wore no jewels whatever, but in the
mass of dense black hair, braided carelessly and coiled just above the
nape of her neck, were a few red roses. Something in the girlish poise
of the figure, the slim, unstudied grace of the neck, and rounded arms,
caused Sinclair to move deliberately from his position by the door, and
pass in front of her. Then he saw her face. There was something piteous
in the girl's expression. He could not have told what there was in her
face that struck him so with the peculiarity of its beauty. Her
nationality puzzled him. As the guests began to crowd about her, the
girl lost her repose of manner. She looked frightened and troubled. With
a few quick strides, Sinclair was beside Mrs. Davis, waiting to be
introduced. Almost as in a dream he heard his hostess say, half
jokingly:
"Numè, I am going to introduce you to a--a hater of Japanese woman--he
is our consul, Mr. Sinclair. You _must_ cure him, my dear," she added;
and then smiling at Sinclair she said: "Arthur, _this_ is Numè, Miss
Watanabe, of whom I told you."
The girl raised her little oval face, and looked very seriously at him.
She held her hand out; she had learned from the Americans the habit of
shaking hands. Sinclair felt a strange, indescribable sensation as her
little hand rested in his; it was as if he held in his hand a little
trembling, frightened wild bird.