"But now even Japan must adopt western civilization," he said bitterly. It is 'putting a lily in the mouth of hell!' Carpets, pianos, windows, brass-bands--to make Goths out of Greeks! Who would want them changed? Who would not love them as they are, better than the children of boasted western civilizations--industrious, pleasing, facing death with a smile, not because they are such fatalists as the Arabs, for instance, but because they have no fear of the hereafter. The old courtesy, the old faith, the old kindliness--will they weather it? Or vanish like snow in sun? The poetry, the legend, the lovely and touching observances are going fast. Modernism gives them foreign fireworks now, and forbids the ghost-boats of the Bon! I wish I could fly out of _Meiji_ for ever, back against the stream of time, into _tempo_ fourteen hundred years ago!" "The Bon?" she said. "What is that?" "I forgot," he said, "that Japan is all new to you," and told her of the Japanese All-Souls Day--the Feast of Lanterns, when the spirits of the dead return, to be fed with tea in tiny cups and with the odor of incense; how, when the dusk falls, on canal and river the little straw boats are launched with written messages and lighted paper lanterns, to bear back the blessed ghosts. Returning, Barbara led the way. Once she stooped over a single, strange blossom on a long stalk, whose golden center shone cloudily through silky filaments like the leaves of immortelles. "What is that?" she asked. "It is a wild flower I found on one of my inland rambles," he said. "Perhaps it has no name. I call it _Yumé-no-hana_--the 'Flower-of-Dream.' It will open almost any day now." "Have you quite forgiven me for breaking in?" she asked, as they walked along the stepping-stones. For the first time she surprised him in a smile. It lit his face with a sudden irradiation. "Will you do it again?" "May I--some time?" "Then you are not afraid? Remember I am a renegade, a follower of Buddha, and a most atrocious and damnable _taboo_!" "Afraid!" For a moment they looked at each other, and she saw a little quiver touch his lips. "I shall come again to-morrow--to see the flower." "Just one thing," he said. "I am a solitary. If you would not mention--to any one--" "I understand," she answered. He walked by her side to the bamboo gate. "I am glad," she said, "that I remind you of some one you liked." "Perhaps it was some one I knew in a dream," he answered. "Yes," she said. "Perhaps it was." As she spoke she saw him start. She looked up. Across the temple yard, through the entrance _torii_, she saw the bishop coming up the lane. He was walking absorbed in thought, his eyes on the ground, his hands clasped behind him. "Good-by," she said, and stepped through the gate.