There are nights in the Japanese spring when the landscape, in its wondrous delicacy of tones, seems only an envelope of something subtler and unseen, the filmy covering of a beauty that is wholly spiritual. To-night it seemed so to Barbara. The close was very still, wrapped in a dreamy haze as soft as sleep, the mountains on the horizon wan shapes of silver mist, semi-diaphanous. It seemed to her that in this living, sentient breath of Japan, her father was nearer to her than he had ever been before. The thought brought to her vague memories of her mother and of her childhood. Old airs began to mingle with the chords, and on the shrill fairy sound-carpet woven by the myriad insect-looms of the garden, the bits of melody went treading softly out across the perfume of the wistaria. CHAPTER VIII "SALLY IN OUR ALLEY" She thought no one heard, but out by the azalea hedge, a man was standing, listening to the hushed chords floating through the open window. From the bungalow on the Yokohama Bluff, Daunt had come back to Tokyo with a sense of dissatisfaction deeper than should have been caused by his jarring talk with Phil. Perhaps, though he did not guess it, his mood had to do with a bulky letter in his pocket, received that day. It was from "Big" Murray, his chum at college, whom he had commonly addressed by opprobrious epithets that covered an affection time had not diminished. Of all the men in his class Daunt would have picked him as the one least likely to marry. Yet the letter had contained a wedding-invitation and a ream of the usual hyperbole. "Going to name me godfather, is he!" Daunt had muttered as he read. "The driveling old horse-thief!" For in some elusive way the intended distinction suggested that he himself was a hoary back-number, not to be reckoned among the forces of youth. Strolling from Shimbashi Station, under the clustered, gaily-colored paper-lanterns, swaying above the rustle and stir of the exotic street, this thought rankled. A vague discontent stirred in him. Tokyo had been the objective point of Daunt's six years of diplomatic career, and he had found the Kingdom of the Slender Swords a fascinating and absorbing study. He loved its contrasts and its contradictions, its marvelous artistry, the reserve and nobility of its people, and its savage, unshamed, sincerity of purpose. In the absorbing routine of the Chancery and the bright gaieties of the capital's diplomatic circle, the first year had gone swiftly enough. Since then the Glider experiments had lent an added zest.