The man in the hammock was not asleep, for in spite of the lazy, lounging attitude, and the hat which hid the gray eyes beneath, he was very much awake, and keenly interested in a certain small individual who was sitting on a mat a short distance removed from him. He had invited her several times to reduce that distance, but up to the present she had paid no heed to his suggestions. She was amusing herself by blowing and squeezing between her lower lip and teeth the berry of the winter cherry, from which she had deftly extracted the pulp at the stem. She continued this strange occupation in obstinate indifference to the persuasive voice from the hammock.

“I say, Yuki, there’s room for two in this hammock. Had it made on purpose.”

She continued her cherry-blowing without so much as making a reply, though one of her blue eyes looked at him sideways, and then solemnly blinked.

“What’s the matter, Yuki? Got the dumps again, eh?”

No reply.

“Look here, Mrs. Bigelow, I’ll come over and elope forcibly with you if you don’t obey me.”

She dimpled scornfully.

“Ah, that’s right! Smile, Yuki. You’re so pretty, so bewitching, so irresistible when you smile.”

Yuki nodded her head coolly.

“How you lige me smiling forever?” she suggested.

“That wouldn’t do,” he said, grinning at her from beneath his tipped hat.

“That would be tiresome.”

“Tha’s why I don’ smiling to-day.”

“Why?”

“All yistidy I giggling.”

He shouted with laughter at her.

“Move your mat here, Yuki,” indicating a spot close to his hammock. “I want to talk to you.”

“My ears are—”

“Too small to hear from that distance,” finished her husband. “Come.”

“Thangs,” with great dignity, “I am quide comfor’ble. I don’ wan’ sit so near you, excellency.”

“Why, pray?”

“Why? Hm! I un’erstan’. Tha’s because I jus’ your liddle bit slave.”

“You’re my wife, you little bit fraud.”

“Wife? Oh, I dunno.” She pretended to deliberate.

“Then you’ve tricked me into a false marriage, madam,” declared her husband, with great wrath.

“Tha’s fault nakoda.”

“What is?”

“Thad you god me for wife, and,” slowly, “servant.”

“Fault! Come here, servant, then. Servants must obey.”

“Nod so bad master, making such grade big noises,” she laughed back daringly. “Besides, servant must sit long way off from thad same noisy master.”

“And wife?”

“Oh, jus’ liddle bit nearer.” She edged perhaps half an inch closer to him. “Wife jus’ liddle bit different from servant.”

“Look here, Mrs. Bigelow, you’re not living up to your end of the contract. You swore to honor and obey—”

She laughed mockingly.

“Yes, you did, madam!”

“I din nod. Tha’s jus’ ole Kirishitan marriage.”

He sat up amazed.

“What do you know of the Christian marriage service?”

“Liddle bit.”

“Come over here, Yuki.”

“You like me sing ad you?”

“Come over here.”

“How you like me danze?—liddle bit summer danze?”

“Come over here. What’s a summer dance, anyhow?”

She ran lightly indoors, and was back so soon that she seemed scarcely to have left him. She had slipped on a red-and-yellow flimsy kimono, and had decked her hair and bosom with flaming poppies.

“Tha’s summer sunshine,” she said, spreading her garment out on each side with a joyous little twirl. “I am the Sun-goddess, and you?—you jus’ the col’, dark earth. I will descend and warm you with my sunshine.” For a moment she stood still, her head thrown back, her face shining, her lips parted and smiling, showing the straight little white teeth within. Then she danced softly, ripplingly, back and forth. The summer winds were sighing and laughing with her. Her face shone out above her lightly swerving figure, her little hands and bare arms moved with inimitable grace.

“You are a genius,” he said to her, when she had subsided, light as a feather blown to his feet.

“Tha’s sure thing,” she agreed, roguishly.

Her assurance in herself always tickled him immensely. He threw his hat at her with such good aim that it settled upon her head. She approved his clever shot, laughed at him, and then, pulling it over her eyes, lay down on the mats and imitated his favorite attitude to a nicety. He laughed uproariously. He was in fine humor. They had been married over a month now, and she had not left him save that first time. He was growing pretty sure of her now.

She perceived his good-humor, and immediately bethought herself to take advantage. She put the rim of his hat between her teeth, imitated a monkey, and crawled towards him, pretending to beg for her performance. He stretched his long arms out and tried to reach her, but she was far enough off to elude him.

“You godder pay,” she said, “for thad nize entertainments I giving you.”

He threw her a sen. She made a face. “That all?” she said, in a dreadfully disappointed voice, but, despite her acting, he saw the greedy eagerness of her eyes. All the good-humor vanished.

“Look here, Yuki,” he said, with a disagreeable glint in his eyes, “you’ve had a trifle over fifty dollars this week. I don’t begrudge you money, but I’ll be hanged if I’m going to have you dragging it out of me on every occasion and upon every excuse you can make. You have no expenses. I can’t see what you want with so much money, anyhow.”

“I godder save,” said Yuki, mysteriously, struck with this brilliant excuse for her extravagance.

“What for?”

“Why, same’s everybody else. Some day I nod have lods money. Whad I goin’ do then? Tha’s bedder save, eh?”

“I’ve married you. I’ll never let you want for anything.”

“Oh, you jus’ marry me for liddle bit while.”

“You’ve a fine opinion of me, Yuki.”

“Yes, fine opinion of you,” she repeated after him.

“There’s enough money deposited in a bank in Tokyo to last you as long as you live. If it’s ever necessary for me to leave you for a time, you will not want for anything, Yuki.”

“But,” she said, argumentatively, “when you leaving me I henceforward a widder. I nod marry with you any longer. Therefore I kin nod take your money.” This last with heroic pride.

“Boo! Your qualms of conscience about using my money are, to say the least, rather extraordinary.”

“When you leaving me—” she commenced again.

“Why do you persist in that? I have no idea of leaving you.”

“What!” She was quite frightened. “You goin’ stay with me forever!” There was far more fear than joy in her voice.

“Why not?” he demanded, sharply, watching her with keen, savage eyes.

“My lord,” she said, humbly, “I could nod hear of thad. It would be wrong. Too grade sacrifice for you honorable self.”

He was not sure whether she was laughing at him or not.

“You needn’t be alarmed,” he said, gruffly. “I’m not likely to stay here forever.” He turned his back on her.

Suddenly he felt her light little hand on his face. She was standing close by the hammock. He was still very angry and sulky with her. He closed his eyes and frowned. He knew just how she was looking; knew if he glanced at her he would relent ignominiously. She pried his eyes gently open with her fingers, and then kissed them, as softly as a tiny bird might have done. Gradually she crawled into the hammock with him, regardless of non-assistance.

“Augustness,” she said, her arms about his neck now, though she was sitting up and leaning over him. “Listen ad me.”

“I’m listening.”

“Look ad me.”

He looked, frowned, smiled, and then kissed her. She laughed under her breath, such a queer, triumphant, mocking small laugh. It made him frown again, but she kissed the frown into a smile once more. Then she sat up.

“Pray excuse me. I wan’ sit ad your feet and talk ad you.”

“Can’t you talk here?” he demanded, jealously.

“Nod so well. I gittin’ dazzled. Permit me,” she coaxed. He released her grudgingly. She sat close to him on the floor. She sighed heavily, hypocritically.

“What is it now?”

“Well, you know I telling you about those moneys.”

“Yes,” he said, wearily. “Let’s shut up on this money question. I’m sick of it.”

“I lige make confession ad you.”

“Well?”

“I god seventeen brudders and sisters!” she said, with slow and solemn emphasis.

“What!” He almost rolled out of the hammock in his amazement.

“Seventeen!” She nodded with ominous tragedy in her face and voice.

“Where do they live?”

“Alas! in so poor part of Tokyo.”

“And your father and mother?”

“Alas! Also thad fadder an’ mudder so ole lige this.” She illustrated, bowing herself double and walking feebly across the floor, coughing weakly.

“Well?” he prompted sharply.

“I god take all thad money thad ole fadder an mudder an’ those seventeen liddle brudders an sisters. Tha’s all they god in all the whole worl’.”

“But don’t any of them work? Aren’t any of them married? What’s the matter with them all?”

“Alas! No. All of them too young to worg or marry, excellency.”

“All of them too young?”

“Yes. Me—how ole I am? Oldes’ of all! I am twenty-eight—no, thirty years ole,” she declared, solemnly.

He nearly collapsed. He knew she was a mere child; knew, moreover, that she was lying to him. She had done so before.

“Even if you are thirty, I fail to see how you can have seventeen brothers and sisters younger than yourself.”

She lost herself a moment. Then she said, triumphantly, “My fadder have two wives!”

He surveyed her in studious silence a moment. Her attitude of trouble and despair did not deceive him in the slightest. Nevertheless, he wanted to laugh outright at her, she was such a ridiculous fraud.

“Do you know what they’d call you in my country?” he said, gravely.

She shook her head.

“An adventuress!”

“Ah, how nize!” She sighed with envious blissfulness. “I wish I live ad your country—be adventuressesses.”

“How much do you want now, Yuki?”

She pretended to calculate on his fingers.

“Twenty-five dollar,” she announced.

He gave it to her, and she slipped it into the bosom of her kimono. He watched her curiously, wondering what she did with all the money she secured from him.

All of a sudden she put this question to him.

“Sa-ay, how much it taking go ad America?”

“How much? Oh, not much. Depends how you go. Four hundred, or five hundred dollars, possibly.”

She groaned. “How much come ad Japan?”

“The same.”

She sighed. “Sa-ay, kind augustness, I wan’ go ad America. Pray give me money go there.”

“I’ll take you some day, Yuki.”

She retreated before this offer.

“Ah, thangs—yes, some day, of course.” Then, after a meditative moment: “Sa-ay, it taking more money than thad three-four hundled dollar whicheven?”

“Yes; about that much again for incidentals—possibly more.”

She sighed hugely this time, and he knew she was not affecting.

A few days later, poking among her pretty belongings, as he so much liked to do—she was out in the garden gathering flowers for their dinner-table—he found her little jewel-box. Like everything else she possessed, it was daintily perfumed. At the top lay the few pieces of jewelry he had bought for her on different occasions when he had taken her on trips to the city. He lifted the top tray, and then he saw something that startled him. It was a roll of bank-bills. He took it out and counted it. There was not quite one hundred and fifty dollars. He calculated all he had given her. It amounted to a little over twice this sum. She had been saving, after all! What was her object?

And, his suspicions awakened by this discovery, he searched uneasily further through her apartments, and discovered, rolled like a huge piece of carpet and covered over by a large basket, the crÉpe and silks she had protested were stolen.