University of Virginia Library

VII.

He had come out on the same steamer as Koto, and report had it among the passengers that he was in love with her. He was good looking after a fashion, tall and athletic, with even features, a little brown moustache, and large, rather sentimental eyes. He was an all- around nice young fellow, one of the kind that girls invariably fall in love with.

When Koto moved all her belongings into the little house where her sister lived with an old uncle and aunt, and announced that she proposed living in Japanese style while she was in Japan, Jack had looked dubious, and expressed it as his opinion that she never would get used to living like the Japanese, after her long residence among “God's chosen people.” His advice to her was, “Stay at the American hotel by all means, and enjoy Japan through colored glasses.” I believe some old globe-trotter had given Jack this same advice before he had started out on his trip to Japan. But Koto was unalterable in her resolve.

“No, sir; I'm going to live with Natsu for—hm! The rest of her maiden days,” she said emphatically.

Jack Carruthers moped around the hotel for a few days after she left, feeling desperately lonely and blue, and then with a grim sort of feeling that was divorced from the better part of himself, he set out to hunt up the little house where Koto now lived, and which Jack thought was a “doosid” long way from the “doosid” hotel.

Arrived there, he was met at the door by Koto herself, and being a stranger to Japan and things Japanese, he fell an easy victim. The first impression a stranger has on entering a Japanese house is that the dainty, pretty, and altogether charming little house reminds him of some vague picture in a fairyland scene, or an Elysian dream. Then just as he has[10] arrived at this conclusion, some little doll of a Japanese girl (generally happening to be especially pretty at this time, too) will arrive on the scene, and the harshest critic immediately becomes an ardent admirer. So it was with Carruthers.

“Well—ah—upon my word, Miss Crowder, this is a—er— most chawming little place; delightful—ah—er—” he stopped short, and stared with fascinated eyes toward the fusuma which was slowly sliding apart.