A HARD SUBJECT TO HANDLE.
When the girls reached their home that afternoon they found Mrs. Davis
waiting for them. Numè, who thrilled with a joy she herself could not
comprehend, ran to her, and putting her arms about her neck, clung with
a sudden passion to her.
"Oh, Numè is so habby," she said.
Mrs. Davis undid the clinging arms, and looked the girl in the face.
Then Numè noticed for the first time that the American lady was
unusually silent, and seemed almost offended about something. Numè tried
to shake off the loving mood that still lingered with her, for where one
is in love there is a desire to caress and shower blessings everywhere,
and on all living creatures. So it was with Numè.
"I want to have a talk with you, Numè dear," Mrs. Davis, said, gravely;
and then turning coldly to Koto she added, "No, not even Koto must
stay." The little maid left them together.
"Numè, how could you be so sly?"
"Sly!" the girl was startled.
"Yes--to think that all these weeks when you have been pretending to be
alone with Koto in the woods, you have been meeting Mr. Sinclair."
The girl turned on her defiantly.
"I nod telling you account tha's nod business for you."
"Well, Numè!"
"I getting vaery lonely, and meeting only by accident with Mr. Sinka."
"Does your father know?" the other asked, relentlessly.
The girl approached her with terror. "No! Oh, Mrs. Davees, _don't_ tell
yet." After a time she asked her: "How did _you_ know?"
"I learned it by accident through a clerk at the consulate. How he
knows--and how many others know of it, I cannot say." She almost wrung
her hands in her distress. She saw it was no use being angry with Numè,
and that she might do more by being patient with her. She had learned
merely the fact of Sinclair's being in the woods each day with a
Japanese girl. This had set her to thinking; Koto's and Numè's long
absences in the country each day--a few questions and a handful of sen
to the runners who had been loitering in her vicinity for some days now
with their vehicles, and she soon knew the truth.
Just how far things had gone between Sinclair and Numè she must find out
from the girl herself, though she was not prepared to trust her
completely when she realized how Numè had deceived her all these weeks.
She was determined to help Cleo, and felt almost guilty when she
remembered that she had urged the girl to make the trip which might
result in so much disaster to her, for Jenny Davis knew Cleo Ballard
well enough to know that it would break her heart to give Sinclair up
now, after all the years she had waited for him.
"Numè," she said, quite sadly, "don't look at me so resentfully. I want
only to do my duty by you and my friend. Let me be your friend. Oh!
Numè, if you had confided in me we could have avoided all this."
Numè had a tender spot in her heart for Mrs. Davis, who had always been
so good to her.
"_Forgive_ Numè," she said, impulsively, and for a moment the two women
clung together, the American woman almost forgetting, for the moment,
everything save the girl's sweet spontaneity and impulsiveness. Then she
pulled herself together, remembering Cleo.
"Numè, tell me just what--just how--all about the--the meetings with Mr.
Sinclair."
The girl shook her head, flushed and rebellious.
"Me? I _nod_ tell. Mr. Sinka tell me--all _too saked_."
Mrs. Davis caught her breath.
"He told you--told you the--the--meetings were sacred?"
Numè nodded:
"Ess."
"Then he is not an honorable man, Numè, because he is betrothed to
another woman."
"Bud he writing her to breag'," the girl said, triumphantly.
"He write to--Numè, what are you talking about? Are you conscienceless?
When did he write--what?"
"He say he writing soon, and I telling Orito, too."
The girl's complacency cut Mrs. Davis to the quick. She forgot all about
Cleo's flirtations. She remembered only that Cleo was her dearest
friend--that this strange Japanese girl might cause her immeasurable
trouble and pain, and that she must do something to prevent it.
"Numè, you can't really care for--for Sinclair."
"Ess--I luf," the girl interrupted, softly.
"Come and sit at my knee, Numè, like--like you used to do. So! now I
will tell you a little story. How hot your little head is--you are
tired? No? Oh, Numè, Numè, you have been a very foolish--very cruel
little girl." Nevertheless, she bent and kissed the wistful upturned
face.