"Who was the very young gentleman with red cheeks who was here with you the other night?" The man told her. "Why?" he asked. "He came back to see me alone. He wanted to see me here alone, and he wanted the nesan to leave the room, but I would not let the nesan leave the room, and I did not understand." That innocence aroused considerable interest in everybody and, later, the young gentleman's cheeks got redder still, when the incident was told him. Three days later I went to the tea-house again. Kamura-san, baby that she was, was to be sold soon to a Japanese. * * * * * She already spoke such excellent English and was so very intelligent that I wondered straightway if it might not be feasible to buy little Kamura-san myself and send her to school. Her mother, I was told, wanted her to go to school, and Kamura-san said that was what she wanted to do--how sincerely I was soon to learn. That mother had sold her several years before to the master of the tea-house and to get his money back the master of the tea-house must sell her again. So the price of the child, body and soul, was 750 yen or $375 in gold. For $50 a year she could be sent to school in Tokio, and I doubtless could find people to take care of her, though Kamura-san said that she would live with her mother and go to school, which was better still. So I set about negotiations, which were many and intricate. I had to see her own mother, her house-mother, with whom she and other geisha girls lived in Tokio, and who made engagements for her and them to dance at various tea-houses (she would be a female manager of chorus-girls in this country), and I would have to see the master of the tea-house. I saw them all, and not one of them believed that my purpose was what I said it was, though all of them, except Kamura-san herself, politely pretended to believe. As Kamura-san had played with American children and knew English well, I told her about America, and strove to explain. She sat with her little face downcast, her eyes dreamy and apparently taking in every word I uttered. When I got through she said simply: "Yess, you will buy me out; you will give me a house; I will be your Japanese wife and wear European clothes." With her next breath she would be saying how much she wanted to go to school. * * * * * The mother of Kamura-san lives in Yokohama. Soon there was an amateur theatrical performance there and I got the mistress of the tea-house to let Kamura-san and a friend go down to see it. In the afternoon I went to see the mother, who was young, pretty, and very lady-like. The little girl acted as interpreter, and from her mother's lips told this story: