At the sound of wheels the man turned all at once toward them. As his gaze met Barbara's, she thought a startled look shot across it. At side view his face had seemed a dark olive, but now in the vivid sunlight it showed blanched. His eyes were deep in arched orbits. One, she noted, was curiously prominent and dilated. From a certain bird-like turn of the head, she had an impression that this one eye was nearly if not wholly sightless. All this passed through her mind in a flash, even while she wondered at his apparent agitation. For as he gazed, he had dropped the child's hand. She saw his lips compress in an expression grim and forbidding. He made an involuntary movement, as though mastered by a quick impulse. Then, in a breath, his face changed. He shrank back, turned sharply into the park and was lost among the trees. "What an odd man!" exclaimed Patricia. "I suppose he resented our staring at him. He's left the little chap all alone, too. Stop the horses a moment, Tucker," she directed, and as they pulled up she called to the child. But there was no reply. Ishikichi looked at her a moment frowningly, then, without a word, turned and stalked somberly after his companion. "What an infant thunder-cloud!" said Patricia as the carriage proceeded. "That must be where our precious prodigy gets his English. Poor mite!" she added. "He was the inseparable of the son of Toru, the flower-dealer opposite the Embassy, Barbara, and the dear little fellow was run over and killed last week by a foreign carriage. No doubt he's grieving over it, but in Japan even the babies are trained not to show what they feel. I wonder who this new friend is?" "I've seen the man once before," said the Ambassador. "He was pointed out to me. His name is Thorn. His first name is Greek--Aloysius, isn't it?--yes, Aloysius. He is a kind of recluse: one of those bits of human flotsam, probably, that western civilization discards, and that drift eventually to the East. It would be interesting to know his history." So this, thought Barbara, was the exile of whom Daunt had told her, who had chosen to bury himself--from what unguessed motive!--in an oriental land, sunk out of sight like a stone in a pool. When he looked at her she had felt almost an impulse to speak, so powerfully had the shadow in his eyes suggested the canker of solitariness, the dreary ache of bitterness prolonged. She felt a wave of pity surging over her. But the carriage leaped forward, new sights sprang on them and the fleeting thought dropped away at length behind her, with the overhanging cherry-blooms, the little green park, and the strange face at its gateway. CHAPTER XVI "BANZAI NIPPON!"