Kamura-san's father was an Austrian, and therefore she was a half-caste. That, however, was told me in confidence, and the fact I must not repeat, since it would interfere with her future. The mother had been his Japanese wife, and she had loved him very much. After a time the Austrian had been obliged to go home. He left the mother well provided for--gave her a house and a good deal of money. But she was, she said, young and foolish and extravagant, made bad investments, and lost it all. It was then that she sold Kamura-san to the tea-house. She would be very glad to have the little girl live with her at home, and wanted her to go to school. Her father, her mother said, would be humiliated and chagrined if he knew that Kamura-san was a geisha, and she wanted her daughter to give the life up. Before the interview was over I could see very plainly that the mother was still expecting the daughter to follow in her own footsteps. The three went to the amateur theatrical performance that night, and from another part of the house I could see the little girl explaining it to her friend and to her mother, and the next night at the tea-house she rehearsed several features of it to her fellow-geishas, and her imitation of a barytone soloist, the way he stood, lifted his shoulders, opened his mouth and puffed out the volume of sound, was very funny, and made her companions squeak with laughter. Now, there was a young American officer who was going around with me on these expeditions, who was having considerable fun over my philanthropical purpose, and was scornfully sceptical of any success. He was on hand that night and suddenly Kamura-san said: "My mother says I must not love young and handsome gentleman." "Why?" I asked. "Because young and handsome gentleman changes his heart." "Well, I suppose I fill the bill." "Yess," she said, "you are a little handsome and a little old." "But you aren't going to love anybody, you are going to school." "Yess," said Kamura-san obediently. Once more that night I tried to explain that we did not rob cradles in America, and again she looked dreamy and seemed to understand, but when I started to go, she beckoned me behind a screen: "Did you bring the 750 yen?" * * * * * It was the interpreter of the tea-house that made me permanently hopeless. The interpreter was soft-voiced, gentle, and spoke excellent English. She had lived several years with an American missionary--a woman whom she had loved, she said, very tenderly. The interpreter had been a widow for several years, and had a little girl. She would never marry again, she said, because she would have to give up her child. So she spoke English in the tea-house and taught the children of the master for a pitiful salary. I cannot recall ever having met such frankness in Japan, and this is what she said: