Jack and I were much more sensible, but that whole
blessed time is wrapped in rosy mists with streaks of moonlight to
the tune of heavenly music, so it 's futile to try to recall just
what did happen. I ought to have gone to another hotel, but the
chain of memory was too strong for me.

I was hesitating between the luxury of a sentimental spell and a
fit of loneliness, when a happy interruption came in a message from
Countess Otani, naming the next day at two for luncheon with her at
the Arsenal Gardens at Tokio. How I wished for you, Mate! It was
a fairy-story come true, dragons and all. The Arsenal Garden means
just what it says. Only when the dove of peace is on duty are its
gates opened, and then to but a few, high in command. For across
the white-blossomed hedge that encloses the grounds, armies of men
toil ceaselessly molding black bullets for pale people and they
work so silently that the birds keep house in the long fringed
willows and the goldfish splash in the sunned spots of the tiny
lake.

After passing the dragons in the shape of sentries and soldiers, to
each of whom I gave a brief life-history, I wisely followed my nose
and a guard down the devious path.

The Countess received her guests in a banquet-hall all ebony and
gold, and was not seated permanently on a throne with a diamond
crown screwed into her head as we used so fondly to imagine.

The simplicity of her hospitality was charming. She and most of
her ladies-in-waiting had been educated abroad. But despite the
lure of the Western freedom, they had returned to their country
with their heads level and their traditions intact. But you guess
wrong, honey, if you imagine custom and formality of official life
have so overcome these high-born ladies as to make them lay figures
who dare not raise their eyes except by rule. There were three
American guests, and only by being as nimble as grasshoppers did we
hold our own in the table talk which was as exhilarating as a game
of snowball on a frosty day.

We scampered all around war and settled a few important political
questions. Poetry, books and the new Cabinet vied with the
merriment over comparisons in styles of dress. One delightful
woman told how gloves and shoes had choked her when she first wore
them in America. Another gave her experience in getting fatally
twisted in her court train when she was making her bow before the
German Empress.

A soft-voiced matron made us laugh over