_
_Just prior to the seventh false start a third sound contributes to the
subdued discord. It is a taxi outside. A minute's silence, then the taxi
again, its boisterous retreat almost obliterating the scrape of
footsteps on the cinder walk. The door-bell shrieks alarmingly through
the house._
_From the kitchen enters a small, fatigued Japanese, hastily buttoning a
servant's coat of white duck. He opens the front screen-door and admits
a handsome young man of thirty, clad in the sort of well-intentioned
clothes peculiar to those who serve mankind. To his whole personality
clings a well-intentioned air: his glance about the room is compounded
of curiosity and a determined optimism; when he looks at Tana the entire
burden of uplifting the godless Oriental is in his eyes. His name is_
FREDERICK E. PARAMORE. _He was at Harvard with_ ANTHONY, _where because
of the initials of their surnames they were constantly placed next to
each other in classes. A fragmentary acquaintance developed--but since
that time they have never met._
_Nevertheless,_ PARAMORE _enters the room with a certain air of arriving
for the evening._
_Tana is answering a question.
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