than this had underlain the Japanese mind when it made its quick
decision Craven could not determine; the code of the Oriental is
not that of the Occidental, the demands of honour are interpreted
and satisfied differently. Life in itself is nothing to the
Japanese, the disposal of it merely the exigency of a moment and
withal a personal prerogative. By all the accepted canons of his
own national ideals Yoshio should have stood on one side--but he
had chosen to interfere. Whatever the motive, Yoshio had paid his
debt in full.

The weeks at sea braced Craven as nothing else could have done.
As the ship neared France the perplexities of the charge he was
preparing to undertake increased. His utter unfitness filled him
with dismay. On receipt of John Locke's amazing letter he had both
cabled and written to his aunt in London explaining his dilemma,
giving suitable extracts from Locke's appeal, and imploring her
help. And yet the thought of his aunt in connection with the
upbringing of a child brought a smile to his lips. She was about
as unsuited, in her own way, as he. Caro Craven was a bachelor
lady of fifty--spinster was a term wholly inapplicable to the
strong-minded little woman who had been an art student in Paris
in the days when insular hands were lifted in horror at the mere
idea, and was a designation, moreover, deprecated strongly by
herself as an insult to one who stood--at least in her own
sphere--on an equality with the lords of creation. She was a
sculptor, whose work was known on both sides of the channel.
When at home she lived in a big house in London, but she travelled
much, accompanied by an elderly maid who had been with her for
thirty years. And it was of the maid as much as of the mistress
that Craven thought as the taxi bumped over the cobbled streets.