fell forward upon the cushions.

* * *

When the girl regained consciousness the house was dark. Slowly she
recalled the event that had culminated the uneventful day. She
wondered if Goyu had been lying or had gone crazy. The darkness was
not reassuring--her father always came home before dark, and his
absence now confirmed her fears. She wondered if the old servant had
deserted her. He was a poor stick anyway; Japanese men who had pride
or character no longer worked as domestics in the households of
foreigners.

Ethel Calvert was the daughter of an American grain merchant who
represented the interests of the North American Grain Exporters
Association at the seaport of Otaru, in Hokaidi, the North Island of
Japan. Three years before her mother had died of homesickness and a
broken heart--although the Japanese physician had called it
tuberculosis, and had prescribed life in a tent! Had they not
suffered discomforts enough in that barbarous country without adding
insult to injury?

Ethel was bountifully possessed of the qualities of hothouse beauty.
Her jet black hair hung over the snowy skin of her temples in
striking contrast. Her form was of a delicate slenderness and her
movement easy and graceful with just a little of that languid
listlessness considered as a mark of well-bred femininity. She knew
that she was beautiful according to the standards of her own people
and her isolation from the swirl of the world's social life was to
her gall and wormwood.

The Calverts had never really "settled" in Japan, but had merely
remained there as homesick Americans indifferent to, or unjustly
prejudiced against the Japanese life about them. Now, in the year
1958, the growing anti-foreign feeling among the Japanese had added
to their isolation. Moreover, the Japanese bore the grain merchant
an especial dislike, for every patriotic Japanese was sore at heart
over the fact that, after a century of modern progress, Japan was
still forced to depend upon foreigners to supplement their food
supply.

In fact, they had oft heard Professor Oshima grieve over the
statistics of grain importation, as a speculator might mourn his
personal losses in the stock market.

* * *

For a time Ethel lay still and listened to the faint sound of voices
from a neighboring porch. Then the growing horror of the situation
came over her with anewed force; if her father was dead, she was not
only alone in