then replied:

"I came across a little book of verses one day in the States. A friend of
mine, the president of a big railway, gave it to me. He does some
painting himself when he travels in his Pullman in the Rockies. Well, it
had some verses on just such a picture as that. Hits it off right, Miss
Raglan."

"Verses?" she remarked, lifting her eyebrows. She expected something out
of the "poet's corner" of a country newspaper. "What are they?"

"Well, one's enough to show the style. This is it:

"'Was I a Samurai renowned,
Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow?
A histrion angular and profound?
A priest? or porter? Child, although
I have forgotten clean, I know
That in the shade of Fujisan,
What time the cherry-orchards blow,
I loved you once in old Japan.'"

The verse on the lips of Mr. Vandewaters struck her strangely. He was not
like any man she had known. Most self-made Englishmen, with such a burly
exterior and energy, and engaged in such pursuits, could not, to save
themselves from hanging, have impressed her as Mr. Vandewaters did. There
was a big round sympathy in the tone, a timbre in the voice, which made
the words entirely fitting. Besides, he said them without any kind of
affectation, and with a certain turn of dry humour, as if he were
inwardly laughing at the idea of the poem.