window. Inquisitive fingers would no longer clutch at the long sleeves
of, crinkled silk, or try to probe the secret of the huge butterfly
bow on her back. She could step out fearlessly now like English women.
She could give up the mincing walk and the timid manner which she felt
was somehow inseparable from her native dress.

When she told her protectress that Geoffrey had consented to its
abandonment, Lady Everington had heaved a sigh.

"Poor Kimono!" she said, "it has served you well. But I suppose a
soldier is glad to put his uniform away when the fighting is over.
Only, never forget the mysterious power of the uniform over the other
sex."

Another day when her Ladyship had been in a bad mood, she had
snapped,--

"Put those things away, child, and keep to your kimono. It is your
natural plumage. In those borrowed plumes you look undistinguished and
underfed."

* * * * *

The Japanese Ambassador to the Court of St. James proposed the health
of the bride and bridegroom. Count Saito was a small, wise man, whom
long sojourn in European countries had to some extent de-orientalised.
His hair was grizzled, his face was seamed, and he had a peering way
of gazing through his gold-rimmed spectacles with head thrust forward
like a man half blind, which he certainly was not.