the missing cashier Mr. Chalmers left behind a suggestion that was as
hateful as it was painful and haunting.

* * * * *

Page spent that evening with us. He was lighter of heart than I had ever
seen him, more at ease and entertaining, and as far removed from crime
as courage is from cowardice.

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.