ONE:Stupid? I am always stupid, he said. I{206} want to do something for everybody committed to my charge. I want to give myself to the drunkards and the drabs and the unbelievers. But I am like a foolish cook: I do not know how to serve myself up so as to become palatable.
THREE:Insidee mout'h he plenty cly
THREE:Gregg smiled. "After all," he remarked, allowing a suitable pause to follow the Doctor's impassioned words, "it will not be for you or[Pg 187] me to decide the matter. Our humble part will be to produce the object of the problem. Wiser men than ourselves will have to interpret its significance.""We'll stop now and say good-bye. We have seen China and Japan, and had a splendid time. We think we have learned a great deal about the two countries, and hope that what we have written about them has been interesting to those for whom it was intended. We have tried to see things, and think of them without partiality or prejudice. We believe that the people of the East have the same claims to respect that ours have, and that it is only a narrow mind that sneers at the ways of others because[Pg 421] they are not like its own. We know that there are many things in which we are superior to the Orientals, but we also know that we have our weak points, and might be profitably instructed by those whom some of us affect to despise. And the more we know these patient and industrious people, the more we shall be likely to respect them. We are soon to leave China, perhaps never to see it again; but both China and Japan will always be pleasant recollections to both
THREE:For one brief moment a certain clear-sightedness penetrated her infatuation, a certain business-like unidealising vision, inherited probably from her father, came to her aid, giving her a warning both peremptory and final. For that one moment she saw this adored priest as he was, more or less, to whom this baby-talk and this squeezing of hands and this lighting of matches were not symbols of anything that lay behind them, but only expressive of an amorous an?mia. Had he been in earnest with a hundredth part of her intention, he would have caught at it, made plain his want, and even if marriage was not within the scope of his desire, reached a hand to the love she brought him, and claimed the comradeship of it, even if he could do no more. But, in this moment of clear vision, she saw and she knew that he did not even do that. He but sat on the hearth-rug and wagged his tail and barked for biscuits.... Then the clouds of her own foolishness, derived perhaps from her mothers side, and strangely swollen by her individual temperament obscured that brief ray of common sense, and she yielded herself up to the{204} entrancement of having Mr Silverdale sitting on the floor at her feet and lighting his cigarette from her match.As the ship went on, the mountain grew more and more distinct, and by-and-by other features of Japanese scenery were brought into view. The western horizon became a serrated line, that formed an agreeable contrast to the unbroken curve they had looked upon so many days; and as the sun went down, it no longer dipped into the sea and sank beneath the waves. All on board the ship were fully aware they were approaching land.
