Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/156

142 spotless matting, pretend to make a good meal off impossible dishes, as to the constituents of which, even now, after some years of experience, I am frequently in mysterious doubt! Oka, our cook, is of an inventive turn of mind, and to-day he serves on the tiny blue plates wee potatoes à la marrons glacés, and cherries in vinegar! But Mousmé pronounces them a success, and insists on leaning across the elaborate square of magenta silk worked with white cranes fishing, which she has instituted as a tribute to European ideas of a table-cloth, to put the larger of the cherries in my mouth on the end of a chopstick. All this is very frivolous, doubtless; but very charming. To be anything but gay with such make-believe surroundings, and Mousmé sitting opposite playful and smiling, would be out of place. I assert this to myself whenever the thought of Lou crosses my mind. I am compelled to