“Dear young lady,” he said, bowing low, “I come to you very humbly, for I am afraid that I am a deceiver.  I shall rob you of your pleasure, I fear.  I have put my name down for four dances, and, alas!  I do not dance.”

She made room for him by her side.

“And I,” she said, “am weary of dancing.  One does nothing else, night after night.  We will talk.”

“Talk or be silent,” he answered softly.  “Myself I believe that you are in need of silence.  To be silent together is a proof of great friendship, is it not?”

She nodded.

“It seems to me that I have been through so much the last fortnight.” she said.

“You have suffered where you should not have suffered,” he assented gravely.  “I do not like your laws at all.  At what they called the inquest your presence was surely not necessary!  You were a woman and had no place there.  You had,” he added calmly, “so little to tell.”

“Nothing,” she murmured.

“Life to me just now,” he continued, “is so much a matter of comparison.  It is for that, indeed, that I am here.  You see, I have lived nearly all my life in my own country and only a very short time in Europe.  Then my mother was an English lady, and my father a Japanese nobleman.  Always I seem to be pulled two different ways, to be struggling to see things from two different points of view.  But there is one subject in which I think I am wholly with my own country.”

“And that?” she asked.

“I do not think,” he said, “that the rougher and more strenuous paths of life were meant to be trodden by your sex.  Please do not misunderstand me,” he went on earnestly.  “I am not thinking of the paths of literature and of art, for there the perceptions of your sex are so marvellously acute that you indeed may often lead where we must follow.  I am speaking of the more material things of life.”

She was suddenly conscious of a shiver which seemed to spread from her heart throughout her limbs.  She sat quite still, gripping her little lace handkerchief in her fingers.

“I mean,” he continued, “the paths which a man must tread who seeks to serve his country or his household,—­the every-day life in which sometimes intrigue or force is necessary.  Do you agree with me, Miss Morse?”

“I suppose so,” she faltered.

“That is why,” he added, “it was painful to me to see you stand there before those men, answering their questions,—­men whose walk in life was different, of an order removed from yours, who should not even have been permitted to approach you upon bended knees.  Do not think that I am suggesting any fault to you—­do not think that I am forcing your confidence in any way.  But these are the thoughts which came to me only a little time ago.”