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THREE:"Of course, you will want to know if the Japanese women are pretty. Now, you mustn't be jealous when I say they are. Fred thinks so too, and you know it won't do for me to have a quarrel with Fred when we are travelling together, and especially when I think he's right. They are all brunettes, and have sharp, bright eyes, full of smiles, and their skins are clear and healthy. They look very pleasant and happy; and they have such sweet, soft voices that nobody could help liking them even if he didn't want to. They have such nice manners, too, that you feel quite at your ease in their company. They may be wishing you ten thousand miles away, and saying to themselves that they hate the sight of a foreigner; but if they do, they manage to conceal their thoughts so completely that you can never know them. You may say this is all deception, and perhaps it is; but it is more agreeable than to have them treat you rudely, and tell you to get out of the way."Well, then, as they are both women, or girls, as you may choose to call them, why don't you take up the subject of women in Japan? They would naturally be interested in what relates to their own sex, and you can give them much information on that topic." The proposal struck Frank as an excellent one, and he at once set about obtaining the necessary information for[Pg 255] the preparation of his letter. He had already seen and heard a great deal concerning the women of Japan, and it was not long before he had all the material he wanted for his purpose. His letter was a long one, and we will make some extracts from it, with the permission of Miss Effie, and also that of Mary, who claimed to have an interest in the missive.

THREE:The day before their tryst out among the downs, this stupefied stagnation of emotion suddenly left him. All morning and through half the afternoon a succession of Spring showers had flung themselves in mad torrents against the plate-glass windows of his office, and more than once he had seen Norah look up, and knew as well as if she had spoken that she was speculating on the likelihood of another drenching afternoon to-morrow. But she said nothing, and again he knew that neither storm nor tempest would keep her back from their appointment, any more than it would keep him. The thing had to be: it was arranged so, and though they should find all the bluebells blackened and battered, and the thunder bellowed round them, that meeting in the bluebell wood was as certain as the rising of the sun.... And then the clock on his chimney-piece chimed five, and with a rush of reawakened perception, a change as swift and illuminating as the return of consciousness after an anaesthetic, he realised that by this time to-morrow their meeting would be over, and they would know, each of them, what they were to become to each other. The week’s incurious torpor, broken once and sometimes twice a day by her glance, rolled away from him: the world and all that it contained started into vividness{300} again. Simultaneously with the chiming clock, she got up, and brought him the finished typewritten letters for his signature. To-day there were but a dozen of them, and the work of reading and signing and bestowal in their envelopes was soon finished. But an intolerable sense of restraint and discomfort surrounded these proceedings: he did not look at her, nor she at him, and though both were hugely conscious of each other, it was as if they were strangers or enemies even under some truce. That feeling increased and intensified: once in handing a letter to him a finger of hers touched his, and both drew their hands quickly away. She hurried over her reading, he scrawled his name; they wanted to get away from each other as soon as was possible. Then the thought that they would have to sit here again together all morning to-morrow occurred to him, and that to him at least was unfaceable. In this reawakened vividness to the crisis that now impended in less than the space of a day and a night, he felt he could not meet her again over common tasks.

THREE:SPECIMEN OF CHINESE WRITING. SPECIMEN OF CHINESE WRITING.

THREE:

THREE:‘Then I think you are quite mistaken. They are great friends, and Mr Silverdale has the most wonderful and spiritual influence over her. She is quite changed. She is always doing something now for somebody else; she reads to Mamma, she takes a Sunday school, she is busy and happy active.’The flap fell again and my panic was turned into a joy qualified only by a reduced esteem for my general as a judge of character.