But Thorn did not answer. At sight of the approaching figure he had drawn back abruptly. Now he turned sharply away into a path which led toward the temple. She saw him once glance swiftly back over his shoulder before he disappeared behind the hedges. * * * * * The man with whom Barbara had been talking went slowly up the temple steps. His face was haggard and drawn. There he paused and looked back across the yard. "_Credo in resurrectionem mortuorum_," he muttered--"Yes, I believe in the resurrection of the dead!" As he stood there the head priest pushed open the _shoji_. He bowed to the other on the threshold and came out. "To-day my abashed thought has dwelt on your exalted work," he said. "Is our new image of Kwan-on peerlessly all but done, perhaps?" Thorn shook his head. "It moves with exalted slowness. To-day I contemptibly have not worked." The priest looked at him curiously, through his gold-rimmed spectacles. "You are honorably unwell," he said. "It is better to lie down in the heat of the day. Presently I will say an insignificant prayer to the _Hotoké-Sama_--the Shining Ones--for your illustrious recovery." "I am not ill," was the answer. "Be not augustly concerned." He turned away slowly and crossed the little bridge to his own abode. CHAPTER XXII THE DANCE OF THE CAPITAL The Ginza--the "Street-of-the-Silversmiths"--is the Broadway, the Piccadilly, the _Boulevard des Italiens_ of modern Tokyo. Here old and new war daily in a combat in which the new is daily victor. Modern shop-fronts of stone and brick stand cheek by jowl with graceful, flimsy frame structures that are pure Japanese. Trolley-cars, built in the United States, fill the street with clangor and its pavements (for it has them) roar with trade.