"Well," began Nicholas slowly, "Yoritomo has been a good friend to me. I have always liked him and looked up to him because he's a deal cleverer than I am and a wonderful student,--but lately,--it's hard to explain to you, Miss Bille, but I--"

"Don't you like him any more?"

"No, no, it isn't that." Nicholas paused again and wiped beads of perspiration from his face. He shifted his position and dug his hands into his pockets. "I don't think I can say it," he said. "I thought I could, but it's too deuced hard."

"Go on, you silly boy."

"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't trust him," he blurted out.

"But Papa likes him," said Billie, simply, feeling that her father's sanction was as good as a royal stamp of approval.

"Oh, yes, of course. Everybody likes him. It isn't that."

"Then what are you driving at?"

"Good heavens, I don't know what I am driving at. Only, you see, I introduced Yoritomo to the family and something happened the other day that made me uneasy. It seemed to me that I ought to warn you not to get too thick with him--that is--not you but Miss Brown. You see, j.a.panese are different--they take things more seriously--" Nicholas plunged deeper and deeper in.

"Can't you tell me what happened?"

"That's the queer part. There's nothing really to tell. It was one of those little incidents that mean everything or nothing. I couldn't tell Mr. Campbell because it was too insignificant, but I thought I might make a clean breast of it to you and you could warn Miss Brown--well--not to talk too much to Yoritomo. She might tell him something--"

"But Nancy hasn't any secrets to tell, Mr. Grimm."

"I thought you promised to call me Nicholas? I didn't say she had, but these j.a.panese are the wiliest people. They will use you without your knowing you are being used. Couldn't you just tell Miss Nancy to be careful without explaining why? Don't girls ever do that? Just say that Yoritomo's a j.a.p, and j.a.ps are deep people and she had better not tell him all she knows."

Billie laughed.

"Why, yes, I could, I suppose, but I'm sure it's not necessary. She doesn't know anything to tell."

"Whew!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Nicholas, fanning himself with his hat. "I'd rather dig a tunnel through a mountain than have to do that again. I decided I had to do it and I have been working it over in my mind for days. First I thought of Miss Campbell, but she would have gone off her head about it. Miss Brown wouldn't have understood, either. She would have been angry, I suppose. So I decided to come to you. I felt sure you would understand and know exactly what to do."

Billie smiled. She was beginning to be very fond of this boyish, honest young man whose nature was not unlike her own. Just at that moment they saw Yoritomo and Nancy strolling along a moonlit path. He was talking to her in a low intense voice and she was smiling and dimpling as usual. It occurred to Billie that Nancy was getting very grown up all of a sudden and for her part, she couldn't see any fun in it at all. She had noticed lately that Nancy did not enjoy their old-time girlish fun half so much as she used to. She would rather stroll in the garden with a young man than with her four devoted friends, and "hen parties" as she called them, did not amuse her any longer.

Billie began to feel quite serious about the benighted state of her best friend. Her nature was deeply tinged with sympathy and sweetness, but she was not yet old enough to feel tolerant with Nancy for growing up and craving beaux and flattery.

"I will speak to Nancy Brown," she thought, and that night going home in the 'riksha by Nancy's side she turned the matter over in her mind. "But not to-night," she decided, for Nancy had never seemed more adorable than on that ride, chatting with her friend about the evening's pleasures.

CHAPTER XIII.

A FAILING OUT.

Several days went swiftly by and still Billie had not delivered the warning to her beloved Nancy.

After all, was it really necessary to warn Nancy not to talk too much and tell all she knew? That was a man's idea of a girl's conversation: to tell all she knew. How absurd! Besides, Nancy was not much of a conversationalist and it's only people who talk all the time who tell secrets. After they exhaust every other subject, they begin to draw on their confidential stock.

The more Billie turned the question over in her mind, the more far-fetched it seemed, and at last she determined not to mention it at all.

"Who am I to be scolding anybody?" she said to herself. "I am sure I am far from perfect and it would look rather presumptuous to criticize Nancy who hasn't done anything to be criticized for."

But these n.o.ble and modest sentiments were not destined to remain unchanged in Billie's mind. By a curious chain of circ.u.mstances, the very thing she had concluded to avoid was brought about.

The circ.u.mstances began in the morning before breakfast and led up, one after another, to the first real quarrel the two friends had ever had since their friendship began.

It had been raining all night, a hot sticky downpour, and n.o.body in the house had slept well. The atmosphere was oppressive, and breathing became a conscious effort; so that the American members of the household were fretful and out of humor after a disagreeable and restless night. Even the most even-tempered and well-balanced natures are upset by a steaming, humid temperature which seems to creep into the soul and enshroud the brighter self with mist.

Billie felt the general depression and after breakfast she followed her friends in a disconsolate procession to the library.

"There are as many different kinds of rain as there are people," she observed. "The rain in Scotland was like a brisk scolding person. At least there was nothing monotonous and tiring about it. It had plenty of vigor and energy. But this j.a.panese summer rain is like a great, fat, stupid, lazy creature who never lifts a little finger to do anything but just rain and rain and turn into misty steam!"

"One hasn't even the energy to read a book," sighed Mary.

"As Reggie Carlton says, 'it's so infernally damp,'" put in Elinor, and the others smiled languidly. Elinor was indeed feeling the humidity to quote a semi-profane expression.

Nancy was really the most cheerful member of the party. She had an air of expecting something which appeared to give her a reason for existing.

After the outbursts of her three friends, there was a long and heavy silence broken only by the steady patter of the rain on the roof.

At last Nancy rose and smiling mysteriously, said:

"Excuse me, ladies. While your company is highly exciting, I must leave you to write letters."

"I can't imagine to whom," exclaimed Billie.

"I mailed four for you yesterday to your mother and father and 'Merry'

and Percy St. Clair."

Billie knew Nancy's affairs quite as well as she knew her own; two sisters could hardly have been more intimately a.s.sociated.

"Guess again, Miss Inquisitive," said Nancy. "And guess fifty times more if you like. You'll never guess the right person and I shan't tell you for punishment. So there!"

For some reason--of course it was the weather--Billie felt teased and hurt. Not for anything would she have kept Nancy in ignorance of any of her correspondence.

"I didn't mean to be inquisitive." she called, half apologetically. "I was merely surprised at your being so mysterious."

"When you get to be as old as I am," said Nancy in a lofty tone, "you'll know better than to tell all you know."

"I'll never get to be as old as you are, Miss Nancy-Bell," retorted Billie. "It's a physical impossibility, since you are two months older than I am."

Nancy departed from the room, calling out laughingly:

"Smarty! Smarty!"

Billie kicked off her slipper after her, and so the quarrel started with good natured raillery. But the memory of the letter lingered in Billie's mind all the morning, although why it should have connected itself with Onoye, who, an hour later, stepped out into the garden on high wooden clogs with an oiled paper umbrella, she could not say. Standing idly by the window, Billie watched the little figure disappear down the path.