hotel.
And by the way my thoughts are going, for all I know I may be
booked to spin on through eternity.

My visit to Sada was so full of things that did not happen. When I
reached the house, I sent in my card to Sada. Uncle came gliding
in like a soft-footed panther. He did it so quietly that I jumped
when I saw him. We took up valuable time repeating polite
greetings, as set down on page ten of the Book of Etiquette, in the
chapter on Calls Made by Inconvenient Foreigners.

When our countless bows were finished, I asked in my coaxingest
voice if I might see Sada. Presently she came in, dressed in
Japanese clothes and beautiful even in her pallor. She was
changed--sad, and a little drooping. The conflict of her ideals of
duty to her mother's people and the real facts in the case, had
marked her face with something far deeper than girlish innocence.
It was inevitable. But above the evidences of struggle there was a
something which said the dead and gone Susan West had left more
than a mere memory. Silently I blessed all her kind.

Sada was unfeignedly glad to see me, and I longed to take her in my
arms and kiss her. But such a display would have marked me in
Uncle's eyes as a dangerous woman with unsuppressed emotions, and
unfit for companionship with Sada. I had hoped his Book of
Etiquette said, "After this, bow and depart." But my hopes had not
a pin-feather to rest on. He stayed right where he was. All
right, old Uncle, thought I, if stay you will, then I shall use all
a woman's power to beguile you and a woman's wit to out-trick you,
so I can make you show your hand. It is going to be a game with
the girl as the prize. It is also going to be like playing
leap-frog with a porcupine. He has cunning and authority to back
him, and I have only my love for Sada.

For a time I talked at random, directing my whole conversation to
him as the law demands. By accident, or luck, I learned that the
weak point in his armor of polite reserve was color prints. Just
talk color prints to a collector and you can pick his pocket with
perfect ease.

My knowledge of color prints could be written on my thumb nail.
But I made a long and dangerous shot, by looking wise and asking if
he thought Matahei compared favorably with Moronobo as painters of
the same era. I choked off a gasp when I said it, for I would have
you know that for all I knew, Matahei might have lived in the time
of Jacob and Rebecca, and Morono