My heart ached as I looked at him, for I longed for his happiness as I yearned to know he was clean of soul.

If some cruel mistake had darkened his life, why did he not say so and let us, his friends, help him forget?  Why not start anew with love as a guide?

It was another Page we were seeing that night.  Was it the magic of love that made him hopeful, almost gay?  Or was it for the moment he was permitted one more joyous flight in the blue skies of freedom before he was finally caught in the snare of the shadow?

For the time he sunned his soul in the garden of friendship and love and gave us, not only glimpses of other worlds, but disclosed another side of himself.  If the new man I was seeing in Page Hanaford captivated me the revelation of the undiscovered woman in Zura mystified and amazed me.  Till now her every characteristic was so distinctly of her father’s race, everything about her so essentially Western, that I was beginning to think she had tricked a favorite law of Nature and defied maternal influence.

As much as she loved pretty clothes, and regardless of the pressure brought to bear by her grandfather, she had refused to wear the native garb, preferring the shabby garments she brought with her from America.  I had never thought of her being Japanese; but that evening, when Page was announced and Zura walked into the room clothed in kimono and obi, my eyes were astonished with as fair a daughter of old Nippon as ever pompadoured her hair or wore sandals on her feet.

She was like a new creature to me.  Her daring and sparkling vivacity were tempered by a tranquil charm, as if a slumbering something, wholly of the East had suddenly awakened and claimed her.  With eyes half lowered she responded with easy familiarity to Page’s talk of other lands.  She said her father had traveled far and had spent many of their long winter evenings in spinning yarns of foreign countries for her enjoyment.  She’d been brought up more regularly on pictures than she had food.  Once they had copies of all the great paintings.  Mother sold the last one to get money to pay the passage to come to Japan.

And so they talked.  Jane, snug in her chair, was content to listen, and I, who had been blind, was now dumb with the startling surprises that the game of life being played before me revealed.

The girl glowed as softly bright as a firefly and the light lured the man to happy forgetfulness.  For once he let love have full sway.  He neither sought to conceal what he felt, nor to stem the tide which was fast sweeping him—­he knew not nor cared not whither so long as his eyes might rest upon the dearness of Zura’s face, as with folded feet and hands she sat on a low cushion, the dull red fire reflecting its glory in the gold embroidery of her gown.