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ONE:"Lieutenant," I replied, choking with dismay, "why mind her meanings now? Ought you not rather to ignore them? She is fevered, dejected, overwrought. Why, sir, she is the very woman to say and mean things now which she would never say or mean at any other time!" But my tone must have shown that I was only groping in desperation after anything plausible, and he waved my suggestions away.

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ONE:Mrs Keeling looked round in a distressed and flurried manner, with her feeble geniality showing like some pale moon behind clouds that were growing rapidly thicker.

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ONE:And then the moment was over, except that in the secret place of his brain the voice sang in the{267} wilderness, and he looked at the letter she had given him. The words danced and swam; presently they steadied themselves.

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ONE:"Go hon!" exclaimed Mrs. Flack, leaning her red folded arms upon the table, "well I never!"

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ONE:Mary's list included some carvings in ivory and some lacquered boxes to keep her gloves in. These were not at all difficult to find, as they were everywhere in the shops, and it would have been much harder to avoid them if he had wanted to do so. There were chessmen of ivory, and representations of the divinities of the country; and then there were little statues of the kings and high dignitaries from ancient times down to the present. As it was a matter of some perplexity, Frank sought the advice of Doctor Bronson; the latter told him it would be just as well to restrain himself in the purchase of ivory carvings, as there was better work of the kind in China, and a few samples of the products of Japan would[Pg 248] be sufficient. Frank acted upon this hint, and did not make any extensive investments in Japanese ivory. He found a great variety of what the Japanese call "nitschkis," which are small pieces of ivory carved in various shapes more or less fanciful. They were pretty, and had the merit of not being at all dear; and as they would make nice little souvenirs of Japan, he bought a good many of them. They are intended as ornaments to be worn at a gentleman's girdle, and in the olden times no gentleman considered his dress complete without one or more of these at his waist, just as most of the fashionable youths of America think that a scarf-pin is necessary to make life endurable. A large number of carvers made a living by working in ivory, and they displayed a wonderful amount of patience in completing their designs. One of these little carvings with which Frank was fascinated was a representation of a man mounting a horse with the assistance of a groom, who was holding the animal. The piece was less than two inches in length, and yet the carver had managed to put in this contracted space the figures of two men and a horse, with the dress of the men and the trappings of the horse as carefully shown as in a painting. There[Pg 249] was a hole in the pedestal on which the group stood, and Frank found, on inquiry, that this hole was intended for the passage of a cord to attach the ornament to the waist of the wearer. And then he observed that all the carvings had a similar provision for rendering them useful.