et you send to
Yokohama and select me another one."

Sending to Yokohama for anything had always been an event to me. It was
the only excitement I could think of. But Zura flung herself around at
me. "Hang your old hat! What is a hat to a man, and he the only friend I
have out here. I don't care if there was another girl! She can have him.
He was somebody to play with. It was something to do, a touch of home.
Oh! it's cruel! cruel!"

Though another ideal was gone to smash, I was almost ready to cry myself
with relief that it was only a playmate Zura wanted in Pinkey and not a
sweetheart. Even at that I was at my wit's ends again to know what to
say next when the door opened. Jane had heard the commotion, and there
she stood in her sleeping garments and cap, a kimono floating behind
her. In one hand was her candle, in the other the only ornament she
possessed--a stuffed parrot!

She came in and, as if talking to soothe a three-year-old child, she
coaxed, "Zury, Zury, don't cry! Look what Jane has to show you. This is
Willie. For a long time he was my only friend; then he died. I missed
him terribly at first; but don't you cry about Mr. Pinkey. There are
plenty more men in this world, just as there are plenty more parrots and
as easy to get."

"Oh, I wish everybody had died!" the girl sobbed on, heedless of Jane's
attempt at comfort. Suddenly, turning away from us, she stretched her
arms to the starlit space beyond the windows and cried, "I want my home!
I want my friends! I want life!"

* * * * *

Hours later the great golden moon rose from out the velvety shadows of
the mountains. It looked in the window, found a sleeping girl, and
kissed the heavy lashes still wet with passionate tears. Veering still
farther around to the balcony, it rested on two silent old women.

From the city there floated up to us the tinkling of the samisens in the
tea-houses; the high, sweet voice of a dancing girl as she sang the
story of an old, old love; the sad notes of the blind masseur as he
sought for trade by the pathos of his bamboo flute; the night-taps from
the far-away barracks. Off to the west we could see the
fast-disappearing lights of a Pacific steamer.

Neither sounds nor sights seemed to touch Miss Gray nor ruffle her
serenity. For a long time she had been looking steadily into space, as
if held by a mental vision of some spiritual glory.

"Jane," I asked at last, "what shall we do?"