We scampered all around war and settled a few important political questions.  Poetry, books and the new Cabinet vied with the merriment over comparisons in styles of dress.  One delightful woman told how gloves and shoes had choked her when she first wore them in America.  Another gave her experience in getting fatally twisted in her court train when she was making her bow before the German Empress.

A soft-voiced matron made us laugh over her story of how, when she was a young girl at a mission school, she unintentionally joined in a Christian prayer, and nearly took the skin off her tongue afterwards scrubbing it with strong soap and water to wash away the stain.  There wasn’t even a smile as she quietly spoke of the many times later when with that same prayer she had tried to make less hard the after-horrors of war.

The possibilities of Japanese women are amazing even to one who thinks he knows them.  They look as if made for decoration only, and with a flirt of their sleeves they bring out a surprise that turns your ideas a double somersault.  Here they were, laughing and chatting like a bunch of fresh schoolgirls for whom life was one long holiday.  Yet ten out of the number had recently packed away their gorgeous clothes, and laid on a high shelf all royal ranks and rights, for a nurse’s dress and kit.  Apparently delicate and shy they can be, if emergency demands, as grim as war or as tender as heaven.

It was a blithesome day and if it had n’t been for that “all gone” sort of a feeling, that possesses me when evening draws near and Jack is far away, content might have marked me as her own.  As it was I put off playing a single at dinner as long as possible by calling on a month-old bride whom I had known as a girl.  With glee I accepted the offer of an automobile to take me for the visit, and repented later.  Two small chauffeurs and a diminutive footman raced me through the narrow, crowded streets, scattering the populace to any shelter it could find.  The only reason we didn’t take the fronts out of the shops is that Japanese shops are frontless.  I looked back to see the countless victims of our speed.  I saw only a crowd coming from cover, smiling with curiosity and interest.  We hit the top of the hill with a flourish, and when I asked what was the hurry my attendants looked hurt and reproachfully asked if that wasn’t the way Americans liked to ride.

Mate, this is a land of contrasts and contradictions.  At the garden all had been life and color.  At this home, where the wrinkled old servitor opened the heavily carved gates for me, it was as if I had stepped into a bit of ancient Japan, jealously guarded from any encroachment of new conditions or change of custom.