“These four girls of mine seem to have acquired a monopoly over you, Mme. Fontaine,” observed Mr. Campbell, just returned from a short conference with Mr. Buxton in the library.  “They don’t give the rest of us half a chance.  They have fenced you around as if you were a sacred image of Buddha.”

“I feel that they have paid me a great compliment,” answered the widow, smiling, “To a lonely woman the friendship of four charming young girls is very sweet.”

Mr. Campbell somehow felt extremely sorry for this lonely lady.  Mr. Buxton also was touched with commiseration, and the younger men, too, were moved to cast glances of sympathy in her direction.

For the first time in her life Miss Campbell experienced the same sensation a young girl feels when she is left sitting against the wall at a dance while her friends are being whirled about.  At first she thought the sensation was a touch of indigestion which frequently brings with it, its near relative, depression.  But when the circle closed in around the Widow of Shanghai, and Helen Campbell, spinster, of America, was left sitting quite alone to contemplate the view, she decided that it was not indigestion nor any of its ramifications that ailed her.  What the sensation was she could not name, but she felt a profound and entirely human irritation with the Widow of Shanghai and her ingratiating methods.

Fortunately dinner was announced and on the arm of Mr. Buxton she led the way to the dining room with the air of an exiled queen.

Billie was very anxious about the success of her father’s birthday dinner.  She had herself assisted in decorating the table, and had insisted on placing a crystal bowl of goldfish in the center, although O’Haru had told her that goldfish were not carp, and therefore had no significance whatever with the day.

However, Onoye had caught the idea at once and had carried it out charmingly.  Hiding behind the screen, where she could see without being seen, her heart warmed with joy when she heard the exclamations of the guests.  The center of the table was arranged to resemble a little lake.  The shallow bowl of goldfish was placed on a flat round mirror, on the edge of which nodded groups of iris and their sword-like leaves planted in shallow green dishes; pebbles and water grasses hid the perforations which held them in place.  Two little boats sailed on the lake, and at one side was a miniature grotto formed of rocks and moss, and spanned by a little bridge.

“Isn’t it cunning?” asked Billie proudly, “and isn’t Onoye clever to have carried out the scheme so perfectly?”

“She is, indeed,” assented Miss Campbell, feeling suddenly glad to praise some one to counteract the unusual sensations that had possessed her a moment before.

“It is a part of every Japanese girl’s education to learn the art of arranging flowers,” said Mme. Fontaine.  “She is taught that, just as girls in other countries are taught music and languages.  It often takes several hours to arrange a group of flowers.  The object is, you see, to make them look as natural as possible in the vase.”