Billie smiled.  She was beginning to be very fond of this boyish, honest young man whose nature was not unlike her own.  Just at that moment they saw Yoritomo and Nancy strolling along a moonlit path.  He was talking to her in a low intense voice and she was smiling and dimpling as usual.  It occurred to Billie that Nancy was getting very grown up all of a sudden and for her part, she couldn’t see any fun in it at all.  She had noticed lately that Nancy did not enjoy their old-time girlish fun half so much as she used to.  She would rather stroll in the garden with a young man than with her four devoted friends, and “hen parties” as she called them, did not amuse her any longer.

Billie began to feel quite serious about the benighted state of her best friend.  Her nature was deeply tinged with sympathy and sweetness, but she was not yet old enough to feel tolerant with Nancy for growing up and craving beaux and flattery.

“I will speak to Nancy Brown,” she thought, and that night going home in the ’riksha by Nancy’s side she turned the matter over in her mind.  “But not to-night,” she decided, for Nancy had never seemed more adorable than on that ride, chatting with her friend about the evening’s pleasures.

CHAPTER XIII.

A FAILING OUT.

Several days went swiftly by and still Billie had not delivered the warning to her beloved Nancy.

After all, was it really necessary to warn Nancy not to talk too much and tell all she knew?  That was a man’s idea of a girl’s conversation:  to tell all she knew.  How absurd!  Besides, Nancy was not much of a conversationalist and it’s only people who talk all the time who tell secrets.  After they exhaust every other subject, they begin to draw on their confidential stock.

The more Billie turned the question over in her mind, the more far-fetched it seemed, and at last she determined not to mention it at all.

“Who am I to be scolding anybody?” she said to herself.  “I am sure I am far from perfect and it would look rather presumptuous to criticize Nancy who hasn’t done anything to be criticized for.”

But these noble and modest sentiments were not destined to remain unchanged in Billie’s mind.  By a curious chain of circumstances, the very thing she had concluded to avoid was brought about.

The circumstances began in the morning before breakfast and led up, one after another, to the first real quarrel the two friends had ever had since their friendship began.

It had been raining all night, a hot sticky downpour, and nobody in the house had slept well.  The atmosphere was oppressive, and breathing became a conscious effort; so that the American members of the household were fretful and out of humor after a disagreeable and restless night.  Even the most even-tempered and well-balanced natures are upset by a steaming, humid temperature which seems to creep into the soul and enshroud the brighter self with mist.