“How do you do, Mrs. Harrington?  I am pleased to meet you.”

The voice was high and squeaky, like a boy’s voice when it is breaking.  The extended hand was soft and greasy in spite of its attempt at a firm grip.  With elaborate politeness he ushered Mrs. Harrington into her chair.  He took his place close beside her, crossed his fat legs, and stuck his thumbs into his arm-holes.

“I am your friend Ito,” he began, “your father’s friend, and I am sure to be your friend, too.”

But for the reference to her father she would have snubbed him.  She decided to give him tea in the lounge, and not to invite him to her private rooms.  A growing distrust of her countrymen, arising largely from observation of the ways of Tanaka, was making little Asako less confiding than of yore.  She was still ready to be amused by them, but she was becoming less credulous of the Japanese pose of simplicity and the conventional smile.  However, she was soon melted by Mr. Ito’s kindliness of manner.  He patted her hand, and called her “little girl.”

“I am your old lawyer,” he kept on saying, “your father’s friend, and your best friend too.  Anything you want, just ring me and you have it.  There’s my number.  Don’t forget now.  Shiba 1326.  What do you think of Japan, now?  Beautiful country, I think.  And you have not yet seen Miyanoshita, or Kamakura, or Nikko temples.  You have not yet got automobile, I think.  Indeed, I am sorry for you.  That is a very wrong thing!  I shall at once order for you a very splendid automobile, and we must make a grand trip.  Every rich and noble person possesses splendid automobile.”

“Oh, that would be nice!” Asako clapped her hands.  “Japan is so pretty.  I do want to see more of it.  But I must ask my husband about buying the motor.”

Ito laughed a fat, oily laugh.

“Indeed, that is Japanese style, little girl.  Japanese wife say, ’I ask my husband.’  American style wife very different.  She say, ’My husband do this, do that’—­like coolie.  I have travelled much abroad.  I know American custom very well.”

“My husband gives me all I want, and a great deal more,” said Asako.

“He is very kind man,” grinned the lawyer, “because the money is all yours—­not his at all.  Ha, ha!”

Then, seeing that his officiousness was overstepping the mark, he added,—­

“I know American ladies very well.  They don’t give money to their husbands.  They tell their husbands, ‘You give money to me.’  They just do everything themselves, writing cheques all the time!”

“Really?” said Asako; “but my husband is the kindest and best man in the world!”

“Quite right, quite right.  Love your husband like a good little girl.  But don’t forget your old lawyer, Ito.  I was your father’s friend.  We were at school together here in Tokyo.”

This interested Asako immensely.  She tried to make the lawyer talk further, but he said that it was a very long story, and he must tell her some other time.  Then she asked him about her cousin, Mr. Fujinami Gentaro.