Before he could answer I offered him a cup of tea, hoping it would cool him off, and asked him to tell me his special grievance.

He said it was the custom in his house for each member of the family to go before the house-shrine and, kneeling, bow the head to the floor three times.  Zura had refused to approach the spot and, when he insisted, instead of bowing she had looked straight at the god and contorted her face till it looked like an Oni (a demon).  It was most dangerous.  The gods would surely avenge such disrespect.

It seemed incredible that keen intelligence and silly superstition could be such close neighbors in the same brain, for I knew Kishimoto San to be an honest man.  He not only lived what he believed, he insisted on others believing all that he lived.

He continued his story—­the girl not only refused to come to me for English lessons, but declined to go for her lessons in Japanese etiquette, necessary to fit her for her destiny as a wife.  She absented herself from the house a whole day at a time.  When she returned she said, without the slightest shame, that she had been racing with the naval cadets, or else had been for a picnic with the young officer from the ship.  Like a chattering monkey she would relate what had been done or said.

At least, thought I, the girl makes no secret of her reckless doings.  She is open and honest about it.  I said as much to my visitor.

He was quietly savage.  “Honest!  Open you name it!  There is but one definition for it.  Immodesty!  In a young girl that is deadlier than impiety.  It is the wild blood of her father,” he ended sadly.

I could have added, “Dashed with a full measure of grandpa’s stubbornness.”  But I was truly sorry for Kishimoto San.  His trouble was genuine.  It was no small thing to be compelled to shoulder a problem begun in a foreign land, complicated by influences far removed from his understanding, then thrust upon him for solution.  He was a faithful adherent of the old system where individuality counted for nothing and a woman for less.  To his idea the salvation of a girl depended on her submission to the rules laid down by his ancestors for the women of his house.  He was an ardent Buddhist and under old conditions its teachings had answered to his every need.  But both law and religion failed him when it came to dealing with this child who had come to him from a free land across the sea and whose will had the same adamant quality as his own.

While I was turning over in my mind how I should help either the girl or the man, I ventured to change the subject by consulting Kishimoto San upon important school matters.  The effort was useless.  His mind stuck as fast to his worries as a wooden shoe in spring mud.

Not least among his vexations was the difficulty he would have in marrying Zura off.  If she failed in filial piety and obedience to him, how could she ever learn that most needful lesson of abandoning herself to the direction of her mother-in-law?