as she sought to go this time he did not keep her. She walked to
the edge of the verandah and stared down into the garden.
Problematical ghosts and demons paled to insignificance before
this real trouble. She fought with herself gallantly, crushing
down her sorrow and disappointment and striving to regain the
control she had let slip. Her feminine code Was simple--complete
abnegation and self-restraint. And she had broken down under the
first trial! He would despise her, the daughter of a race trained
from childhood to conceal suffering and to suppress all signs of
emotion. He would never understand that it was the alien blood
that ran in her veins and the contact with himself that had caused
her to abandon the stoicism of her people, that had made her
reveal her sorrow. He had laughed at her undemonstrativeness,
demanding expressions and proofs of her affection that were wholly
foreign to her upbringing until her Oriental reserve had slipped
from her whose only wish was to please him. She had adopted his
manners, she had made his ways her ways, forgetting the bar that
separated them. But tonight the racial difference of temperament
had risen up vividly between them. Her joy was not his joy. If
he had been a Japanese he would have understood. But he did not
understand and she must hide both joy and sorrow. It was his
contentment not hers that mattered. All through these last months
of wonderful happiness there had lurked deep down in her heart a
fear that it would not last, and she had dreaded lest any
unwitting act of hers might hasten the catastrophe.

She glanced back furtively over her shoulder. Craven was
leaning forward in the cane chair with his head in his hands
and she looked away hastily, blinded with tears. She had troubled
him--distressed him. She had "made a scene"--the phrase, read in