It had not happened very often, but when it did, a nameless something seemed to cover us, and in passing, left a shadow which turned our happy evenings cold and bleak.

It was the custom for every member of my household to assemble in the living-room after supper for evening prayer.  Jane and I, the cook, and the two little maids were there because we found comfort and joy.  Old Ishi, the gardener, attended because he hoped to discover the witch that made the music inside the baby organ.  At the same time he propitiated the foreigner’s god, though he kept on the good side of his own deities by going immediately afterwards to offer apology and incense at the temple.

Often Page Hanaford came in at this hour and quietly joined us.

It was an incongruous group, but touching with one accord the border of holier things, banished differences of creed and race and cemented a bond of friendship.

One evening after the service Jane—­taking the maids and a heaped-up basket—­went to answer a prayer for daily bread she had overheard coming from a hut that day.  Page and I settled down for a long, pleasant evening, he with his pipe and book, I with a pile of English compositions to be corrected.  “Change” was the subject of the first one I picked up, and I read the opening paragraph aloud:  “The seasons change from one to the other without fuss or feather and obey the laws of nature.  All mens change from one thing to other by spontaneous combustion and obey the universal laws of God.”

My companion was still laughing at this remarkable statement and I puzzling over its meaning when Kishimoto San was announced.  I found a possible translation of the sentence in his appearance.  “Spontaneous combustion” nearly fitted the state of mind he disclosed to me.  The change in him was startling.  I had only seen the school superintendent outside his home.  In times of difficulty when his will could not prevail, which was seldom, he dismissed the matter at once, and found refuge in that fatalistic word “Shikataganai” (it can’t be helped).

But now his fort of stoicism was being besieged, and the walls breached by a girl-child in his home, who was proving a redoubtable foe to his will and his calm, for of course the trouble was Zura.  I learned this after he had finished acknowledging his introduction to Page.  The bowing, bending, and indrawing of breath, demanded by this ceremony, took time.  But it had to be.

Then I asked after the general prosperity of his ancestors, the health of his relatives, finally working my way down to Zura.

[Illustration:  The bowing, bending, and indrawing of breath]

Ordinarily Kishimoto San would have scorned to mention his affairs before a stranger, but his world of tradition was upside down.  In his haste to right it he broke other laws of convention.  Page had withdrawn into the shadow of the window seat after the introduction, but listened intently to the conversation and soon caught the drift of it.