breathlessness and the engaging, almost shy glances she gave me as she curled up on the bed to play it, that she was inordinately proud of it.
“You lig hear me pray?” she murmured.
The word “pray” came to me with a curious shock in this place. Then I remembered the Japanese confusion of our r and l sounds, and knew that she meant “play.”
I nodded.
She drew from a fold of her dress a pitch-pipe contrived of six little bamboo tubes bound together by means of a copper wire, and tuned all the thirteen strings. Then she played for quite a long time, characteristic melodies of the Orient that floated vaguely and hauntingly between the major and the minor. I was able to get a fairly clear idea of the scale she used before I decided upon the nature of the records I wished to make of it. I moved a table over to the phonograph, and, by resting the koto on small boxes that I found on the bureau, I contrived to place it almost against the horn of the phonograph. Then I had her play, first the scale of the open strings, followed by those two or three of the melodies that had particularly interested me.
It had grown dark some time before this, and she had lighted a lamp. Now, feeling on the whole well satisfied with the ten records I had made, I looked at my watch, and was astonished to learn that it was half-past eight in the evening. I at once set about packing up my apparatus.
She stood close to me, watching the process. Occasionally she put out her small hand and stroked my hair. When I had done, she came still closer and, with momentary hesitation, placed her arms about my neck.
“You go 'way?” she whispered.
“Yes,” said I, “I must go now.”
“You doan' lig me?”
“Why, yes, certainly,” I replied, “I like you very much. And you have sung and played very prettily for me.”
“Oh,” said she, looking somewhat puzzled, “you lig that?”
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