discreet refusal, we immediately set to work to make
it. Let us go in, take off our boots, shake ourselves like so many cats
that have been out in a shower, and step up to our apartment.

In front of Buddha, the little lamps are burning; in the middle of the
room, the night-blue gauze is stretched.

On entering, the first impression is favorable; our dwelling is pretty
this evening; the late hour and deep silence give it an air of mystery.
And then, in such weather, it is always pleasant to get home.

Come, let us at once prepare Yves's room. Chrysantheme, quite elated at
the prospect of having her big friend near her, sets to work with a good
will; moreover, the task is easy; we have only to slip three or four
paper panels in their grooves, to make at once a separate room or
compartment in the great box we live in. I had thought that these panels
were entirely white; but no! on each is a group of two storks painted in
gray tints in those inevitable attitudes consecrated by Japanese art: one
bearing aloft its proud head and haughtily raising its leg, the other
scratching itself. Oh, these storks! how tired one gets of them, at the
end of a month spent in Japan!

Yves is now in bed and sleeping under our roof.

Sleep has come to him sooner than to me to-night; for somehow I fancy I
had seen long glances exchanged between him and Chrysantheme.

I have left this little creature in his hands like a toy, and I begin to
fear lest I should have caused some perturbation in his mind. I do not
trouble my head about this little Japanese girl. But Yves--it would be
decidedly wrong on his part, and would greatly diminish my faith in him.

We hear the rain falling on our old roof; the cicalas are mute; odors of
wet earth reach us from the gardens and the mountain. I feel terribly
dreary in this room to-night; the noise of the little pipe irritates me
more than usual, and as Chrysantheme crouches in front of her
smoking-box, I suddenly discover in her an air of low breeding, in the
very worst sense of the word.

I should hate her, my mousme, if she were to entice Yves into committing
a fault--a fault which I should perhaps never be able to forgive.

CHAPTER XXX

A LITTLE DOMESTIC DIFFICULTY

August 12th.

The Y----and Sikou-San couple were divorced yesterday. The Charles
N---and Campanule household is getting on very badly. They have had some
trouble with those prying, grinding, insupportable little men, dressed up