Mrs. Todd flushed crimson. Mrs. Stunt turned away to hide her satisfaction. A public slight to Gwendolen generally meant, for Mrs. Todd, attempted annihilation of the offender. She turned angered eyes to Mrs. Wyndham, and would have spoken, but Gwendolen pressed her arm. "No, mother dear, don't defend me; I deserve it. Let me speak. Mrs. Wyndham, I am mother's despair at the Legation. I forget reception-days half the time. I--I--" here she lowered her voice to a delicious, confidential whisper, "the fact is I--I _shirk_ them. So many old frumps, you know! It's getting to be a regular hen-roost. But, honest, I am sorry I was out last Tuesday, and I want you to give me another chance." Gwendolen could generally be irresistible when she chose. Now she chose not only to win Mrs. Wyndham, to whose high-bred English face she had taken an instant liking, but to deal another blow to her enemy Mrs. Stunt. In both efforts she was successful, though Mrs. Wyndham did not capitulate all at once. The sparkling hazel eyes and the gray ones met. Suspicion lived a little longer in the latter. "Please," murmured Gwendolen. Suspicion died. "I am always at home on my Wednesdays," said the Englishwoman. "I'll be there," laughed Gwendolen. "Have me a place set at your breakfast-table!" Yuki had vanished to perform her duties of hostess. Mrs. Todd and her small party took the "sunshine" seats, and a Japanese lady whom they had not met brought them foreign sewing materials. Work had not begun with them when a low, plaintive voice leaned to Mrs. Todd's large ear. "Please, please, help me in all ways you can, dear Mrs. Todd. This is much worse than that reception I held downstairs. So many foreign ladies are come,--and they all look at everybody so very hard! Ask kind Mrs. Wyndham to sing just as soon as she are ready, and soon, please." Mrs. Wyndham rose instantly, and looked with composure over the sea of lifted heads. Every chair was now taken, and servants brought up new ones from the rooms downstairs. She was used to audiences, also to commendation. In her hands she held a roll of music. Mrs. Wyndham was one of those colonists--a large class in the Far East--who never forgive Japan for not being England. She emphasized her homesickness by withdrawal from all native interests, except, as now, when she could give pleasure and assistance by her voice. It was her pride that she ate no Japanese products. Everything on her table was "imported." Even her garden held only English flowers. That great sea of spiritual and physical beauty which lies in Japanese character, and in its environment, was to her nonexistent. Such dwellers in the East are like children who, in springtime, search the grass for fallen apples, and never once lift their disappointed faces to the pink canopy of bloom.