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Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.

BROKEN BUTTERFLIES

BROKEN
BUTTERFLIES

BY
HENRY WALSWORTH KINNEY

TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY
Limited

Copyright, 1924,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
——
All rights reserved

Published February, 1924

Printed in the United States of America

BROKEN BUTTERFLIES

CONTENTS

BROKEN BUTTERFLIES

CHAPTER I

The black bow of the Tenyo Maru cut into the broad ribbon of moonlight stretching, interminably, straight into the vast spaces of the opalescent night. Somewhere ahead, bathed in that same pale illumination, invisible, lay Japan.

Arms folded over the rail, Hugh Kent looked forward into the opaque dimness. From the main deck below the plaint of a bamboo flute came softly up to him. The following wind brought stray bits of the dance music from astern where the cabin passengers were enjoying their last night at sea. Ahead the Orient, dim, mysterious, indefinitely veiled as the flute notes—behind him the virile, strident, restless clamor of the West; ever approaching, the two, East and West, seeking to blend, even partly blending, yet each as yet too strongly individual, mutually strange, to combine in full harmony.

The vastness of space, vagueness of translucent darkness, shimmer of niveous sparkle of foam cascaded before the tall prow and glimmer of phosphorescence flickering in the dark water below, all induced to introspection, reflection, vague wonder as to what lay before him, what new revelations would life in Japan bring to him.

It had surely changed vastly in the score of years which had passed since he had left it, at fifteen. He would find much that he knew though, would enjoy recapturing fluency in the speech which he had prattled expertly as a toddler in amah's care and as a boy in the streets and gardens of Kyoto. It would be a new, a more sophisticated Japan that he would see, spoiled without doubt; still how he had longed for years to return, to rediscover.

A shadow fell over his thoughts. How he had cherished that dream, a few years ago, during the first years of their marriage, to go there with Isabel. How they had both looked forward to it, to the time when he should attain a post as correspondent at Tokyo for one of the great dailies, to which his knowledge of the language gave him good reason to aspire. Even after the first years of marriage had passed, when in time they had gradually drifted apart, had become almost indifferent, he had hoped that when Japan should provide a new scene for their lives, it might be possible to revive interest, to make a new start. He had felt that it contained some vague potentiality of that sort, and when the offer came from the San Francisco Herald to be its Tokyo correspondent, he had felt certain that the opportunity had come for them, that she would appreciate it as well as he. For that reason he had said nothing to her about it until every arrangement had been made, the contract signed, that he might carry the glad tidings to her, complete, that the realization of all that this meant to them might sweep her off her feet and envelop her, as it had him. And then the shock of her absolute coldness, when he had brought his surprise to her; her absolute refusal to go to Japan. It had thrown him off his feet, confused him, so that when she reproached him with secrecy, with having taken this important step without even consulting her, trying to learn her wishes, he had been able to explain only confusedly how with the very best intentions he had meant to give her a splendid surprise; how, in fact, he had had to restrain himself from telling her when the first inkling of the great news came, just in order that he might make the marvel of the revelation more complete. As he had tried to justify himself, to explain, to convince her, her indifference had baffled him—surely, commonplace and torpid as their relations had become, he had never felt towards her the indifference which she apparently felt towards him. And this had been followed by her absolute refusal to go with him, accompanied by her statement that she did not object to his going, that, in fact, she could understand that he must not lose the great opportunity, that it really might be for the best for both of them to live apart for some time, for some years—she had veiled her speech in obscure indefiniteness, giving him, suddenly, the impression that she expected that they would never come together again.

It had been borne in on him that in her heart she welcomed this as an opportunity to end, through propitious circumstance, a relationship which had become apathetic, a marriage which had failed. He could understand her feeling—the thought was not unfamiliar to him—but she had evidently progressed much farther than had he on the road of indifference. Further conversations had brought the same result. She had resolutely refused to place credence in his belief that life in a new country might revive affection. She was not romantic, she had said, and it was plain that separation would cause neither of them to suffer. He had felt that had she given him but a little encouragement, the slightest sympathy, he might ardently have swept her over to his belief that here lay a chance for renewal of the affection of the first years; but her indifference had chilled him.

So they had parted, phlegmatically. Now he felt certain that this episode had come to an end. He had tried marriage, and it had been a failure. And such a stupid failure. There had been no other woman, and, he felt sure, no other man. It had failed simply through inanition. Still, it might have been worse. At least, there was no heartbreak, no anguish. He had tried the marriage experiment. Probably he would never have been content until he had tried it. Now, he had found that it did not work; yet he was not much the worse. He enjoyed the company of women only in the manner of a mild stimulant. Thus he would live henceforth. He would have his new work to occupy him, and curiosity to lift the curtain veiling the mystery of marriage would not affect him. Like men who regard lack of desire for liquor as an asset, thus he felt that his freedom from relation to, from craving for woman would be an advantage. It would make for a peaceful and well-ordered life.

His thoughts lost themselves in indefiniteness, a pleasant Nirvana of emptiness which resented the sound of footsteps approaching along the deck behind him. He turned, annoyed. Still, it was not so bad. He would rather have it be Lüttich than any of the others. The Russian had a fortunate faculty of sympathetic adjustment, of ever being able to attune himself to one's mood of the moment, serious, gay, reflective. And he admired his talents, the facility with which he spoke French, German, English, even Japanese, his easy mastery of the violin, and, above all, his unobtrusive friendliness. He felt for him, also, sympathy for his misfortunes and admiration for the careless manner in which he had adapted himself to new circumstances. Hardships as an officer during the war, imprisonment, escape through Siberia, and, finally, adjustment to a fairly precarious existence as a teacher of languages and the violin to Japanese, had caused no bitterness. "You never know what it is to be free from care until you have lost everything," he had explained to Hugh. "Nichivo!"

Lüttich pointed out into the night before them. "To-morrow, Japan. What will it bring?"

Hugh smiled. "Something like that. One dreams, reflects, speculates at the future."

The Russian snapped his fingers. "Unprofitable. If the dreams are pleasant, disappointment and disillusionment follow. If they are unpleasant, why, they are not worth having. The true philosophy lies in gathering the fullest measure of the pleasures of the moment. This is the last night on board, remember. They are short of men, as usual. Come on. Join the dance, and have a drink with me, auf wiedersehen in Japan."

They walked aft together, where the ship's orchestra played to the couples dancing in the obscure half-light of the moon and the Japanese lanterns strung crisscross in wavy lines. Along the wall of the deckhouse tables and chairs had been set close together so as to give room for the dancers. They sat down and had their drink. Hugh was still half immersed in reverie, but the Russian was active, febrile. Presently he joined the dancers. Hugh watched the scene languidly. He could always find enjoyment, food for idle speculation in the odd assortment of passengers, international, Americans and Japanese predominating; some falling into easily defined classes, missionaries, business men, tourists; others more definitely characteristic, individualistic; some particularly interesting in their baffling of curiosity, about whom ship's gossip had contrived fanciful fables.

At the table next to him sat Baron Saiki, returning after years of service at the Japanese Embassy at Washington, man of the world, polyglot, marvelously well informed in international politics, a striking contrast to his wife, who spoke little and who appeared to have retained, in spite of years of residence abroad, the self-effacement of Japanese women. Another contrast, again, was young Miss Suzuki, who sat with them, college educated in America, stylish, with even a French-like chic, in her fashionable gown and cleverly arranged hair. Farther over was Miss Wilson, an American stenographer returning to Yokohama, after a vacation in California, with Miss Elliott, who had lived long in Japan where she was beginning to make a success with her painting, water colors following largely the manner of the Japanese color prints, but combining therewith a hint of Maxfield Parrish, with intense blues and deft arrangement of light and shadow contrast, which she cleverly contrived to work out into a style quite peculiarly her own. She was one of the passengers whom Hugh hoped he would meet again in his life in Japan.

Still farther over was a group of tourists, guidebooks on the table before them, arranging the itinerary for a breathless chase through the most conspicuous marvels of Japan. Then a table with a couple of girls with bobbed hair, and a youth on his way to Shanghai. Farther over were others whose faces were half effaced in the shadows. The approach to land caused general animation. The dancers swung and gyrated to the rhythm of jazz. Good-bys were said and promises to meet in Japan made as drinks more numerous than usual marked the last night at sea.

"Are you glad to come back to Japan?"

It was Miss Suzuki who had turned to him. She spoke in Japanese. He had often practiced speaking the language with her, rejoicing at the facility with which he was regaining the once familiar tongue.

"Of course, though to me it will be like a new country," he answered. "But I know that you must certainly be happy to return."

He was surprised to see the wistful expression which came over her face. "I don't know." She spoke in English. He had noticed that she found greater facility therein than in Japanese. "I don't know. I was only eight when I left Japan. I am afraid I have become too foreign in my ways and my mind, and my parents are such old-fashioned Japanese. It may be very difficult; I am really quite afraid."

The orchestra crashed into a new dance. From the dimness beyond the lanterns the ship's Adonis strode into the light, a young fellow on his way to Tokyo as a student interpreter. He walked towards Miss Wilson. Hugh saw her straighten expectantly, eyes meeting the boy. But Adonis' roving eye had perceived Miss Kanae, a Japanese girl who with her parents had joined the ship at Honolulu. He changed direction, bowed, smiled, and the two glided in among the dancing couples.

Miss Wilson flushed angrily. Her glance swept away, encountered his for a moment, took in his companion with obvious disapproval.

"I don't see how a white man can bring himself to dance with one of these."

It was said loudly enough to carry across the tables. Evidently intentionally, with a desire to wound. Hugh saw the Baron wince almost imperceptibly. He knew that the girl at his side must have heard. The orchestra fiddled on to a crashing finish. The dancers called for an encore. The violins struck up again. Hugh turned to her.

"I wish you would let me have this dance, Miss Suzuki?"

He saw her flush. "I think I would rather not. I did not think you danced. I have not seen you dance at all."

"I have not." He did not care greatly for dancing. "But this is the last night, you know. Surely you will not deny me this one dance at parting."

She hesitated. He bowed ceremoniously. She arose slowly, and he led her out among the dancers. He was pleased to find how lightly she danced, elfin-like fine and graceful movements following his. The glare of Miss Wilson's eyes directly into his as they passed her gave him grim satisfaction. He knew that she knew what was in his mind. She would be implacable. How easy it was to make enemies in this world. He danced mechanically. The thought spoiled his enjoyment. Then his mind reverted to his partner. She was smiling up to him. What a shame it was to wound wantonly such a dainty child, for, after all, that was all she was.

"We shall dance often like this, in Japan, shall we not?"

"I don't know." Her smile became a little dubious. "I hope so. We shall see."

He made up his mind that he must try to come into touch with her in Tokyo. The music ceased. He led her back to her seat. The Baron smiled. "You will have a drink with me before we go below, Mr. Kent. It is getting late, but we shall have our nightcap." They drank slowly. "I hope to see you in Tokyo," said the Baron. "Your business will take you to the Foreign Office very often, I know. I expect to be in Japan for a while. Look me up there. I may be of some use to you. Good night."

After all, how easy it was to make friends, also.

They arose. The Baroness bowed to him silently. The girl gave him her hand. "Good night. Arigato de gozaimazu." She smiled to him and followed the others before he could collect himself to reply. She was a charming child. He hoped that he would come to know her better, in Japan.

The Russian came up to him. "Good boy." He patted him on the shoulder. So others had noticed. He looked over for the Wilson girl, but she had disappeared. Miss Elliott caught his glance, beckoned him over.

"You throw yourself into the battle quickly, even before you have reached Japan," she smiled. "You have chosen your side early. It may not be entirely wise, but I liked it. Thank you."

It embarrassed him. "But surely it was the only thing to do, you know. She heard it. It was so unexpected, so utterly undeserved."

"I know. Still, you will see much of just that kind of thing in Japan. I feel sorry for that poor girl. She will have a hard time, and she suspects it. You know, she went to America when she was only eight years old, was adopted by her uncle and aunt. They sent her to college. She has been thoroughly foreignized. Now they have both died and she is going back to her own family. I know of them. Her brothers have both been abroad and have the foreign manner, but they are Japanese. She is nothing, neither Japanese nor foreign, or, rather, she is both, Japanese body and foreign mind. And her parents are typically old-fashioned Japanese. She has learned to expect the courtesy, the deference paid our women, the 'ladies first' of our world. Now she will be forced into the strait-jacket of Japanese women. She will be beautifully dressed and will have motor cars and all that, but she will learn that her freedom is gone, her personality is gone, and that it is 'men first' always in Japan. That is the way it will be with her with the Japanese, and then, if she goes with the foreigners, if she is allowed to mingle with them well—you saw what happened to-night. It is fortunate for her that she will not live in Yokohama. In Tokyo it is better. There the foreigners are scattered, and they mingle more sympathetically, generally, with the Japanese; but in Yokohama, where all the foreigners live together in the Settlement, with their little cliques, and coteries, and constant gossip and observing what every one does, there a girl like she is much held at arm's length. It is the women mainly who cause it. They make the men feel that they must not show too much interest, or they suffer their displeasure."

"But a girl like that; why she's a mere child!"

"A mere child." She laughed. "I have so often wondered, when the men always say that about these girls, whether they really are so dense. Is it possible that the mere smallness and quaintness really blind them. Can't they see that they are as much women as we are, with the same thoughts, with passions as intense as those of all other women. Of course, many of the men must know better, must have learned——" She seemed to seek for words, gave it up, laughed. "You know, I am becoming involved in a delicate subject. After all, you must see for yourself and form your own conclusions."

The Russian was coming towards them. She rose. "It is late, and we must be up early if we are to see Fuji. If you want more information, ask Mr. Lüttich. Men can explain such things better. Good night."

"Lüttich," Kent turned to the Russian. "Miss Elliott was just hinting that the lot of the foreign-educated Japanese girl in Japan is not a very happy one. What do you know about it? It interests me."

Lüttich shrugged his shoulders. "One of the pangs of the transition that Japan is going through. It is the whole keynote to Japan to-day. The nation is trying to squeeze a feudal chain and mail outfit in under the white shirt front of modernity, and the process causes difficulties. The point is that, with all her modern veneer, railroads, electric lights, factories, street cars and all that, Japan is still feudal entirely in thought. Take your friend, Baron Saiki, for instance; as polished a diplomat as you can find in Washington or London. To-morrow, back in Japan, his mind will be as feudal as was that of his ancestors three hundred years ago. In fact, it has always remained so, but the Japanese have learned to put on a foreign suit of thought, just as they put on a foreign suit of clothes, and, under it all, the old feudal thought remains unchanged, just like their skins.

"In that way you see these well-bred men and women of Japan attending social functions, dressed like us, acting like us, following our codes and manners, and that is about all you see of their lives, the modern, the outward part. But the everyday life, that which goes on behind the walls and shoji, which you seldom get even a glimpse of, that has not changed. There the old feudal era is persisting. The wife is subservient to her husband, the daughters must obey and serve their brothers. And after all, it works well; in fact, apparently better than our system. They have practically no marital scandals. The Empire is built on the foundation of the family and it seems to wear well; it would be foolish to tamper with it, to try to replace it with something, our system, for instance, which is hardly a success. And it is my firm belief that generally the Japanese women are happy, every bit as happy as those of America or Europe. That system is what they have always known. It may be the bliss which is born of ignorance, but as long as the ignorance remains they are happy.

"Now that is where the point comes in about girls like Miss Suzuki. She has become accustomed to our ways, our point of view. She expects to take the usual precedence, to receive the usual courtesies from men, to be waited on by them. And now, in her home, the men will walk in advance and she will follow. If she drops something she will pick it up herself, but if her brothers drop it, she will have to scramble after it, and if a servant is not handy, they will order her about like one. Now, if she had never seen anything else all her life, that would be natural; she would never give it a thought. But she has grown up under our conventions. She cannot help but long for the courtesy, the deference, which she has become used to, which she craves for. But, first of all, she does not go out much, as do our girls, for Japanese women don't attend, generally, social functions where both sexes are present, except garden parties, receptions and other boresome affairs. But even if she does go out, say to teas, hotel dances and such things, and even if she receives there from the modernized young Japanese the outward show of courtesy which is part of modern social usage, she knows that it is all for the moment only. Her brother who picks up her fan at the Imperial Hotel will send her scurrying for his slippers at home. If she marries the young blood who obsequiously leads her to her seat in the ballroom, she will jolly well walk behind him if she marries him.

"That, I think, is the tragedy of the modernized Japanese girl, that she has had a glimpse of ideals which she will probably never attain. Of course, there may be some heart-burning at the attitude of some of the foreign lady cats, who would prevent white men from associating with the Japanese girls. It is natural that they resent the charm which these girls have for many of the young men who should be the exclusive property of the women of their own race; but that obtains mainly in Yokohama, and very little in Tokyo, where the foreigners are scattered and where the biggest guns in the social world are undeniably Japanese. And outside of some isolated incidents like that to-night, I don't think that point counts much. The fact is that while the Japanese girl who has had some contact with foreigners undoubtedly wishes that our manner of treating our women might be extended to them, you will find that marriages of ladies of the aristocracy with foreigners are extremely rare. The man who thinks he is regarded as a prize simply because he is white is a fool. Among the lower and middle classes it is probably different. To many of these girls the courtesy and consideration shown by foreign men to their women must contrast sharply with the prospect of a life of constant obedience, subservience and drudgery, first to her brothers and then to her husband. They say that once a Japanese girl has had relations with a foreigner, at least a decent foreigner, she almost never wishes to take up with men of her own people. I've seen a lot of cases which make me believe that this is true. But girls of the class of Miss Suzuki are practically never allowed to marry foreigners, and foreigners of their class hardly ever marry Japanese. So they must be unhappy, poor dears. They despise the trammels of Japanese married life, and that which they have learned to wish for they can't attain. The lives of these girls, the pioneers of their sex in attainment of western culture, is one of the many tragedies of Japan in transition."

CHAPTER II

They arrived too late in the morning to see Fuji-san. Clouds lay over the mountain ranges and smoky haze obscured the land, only the nearest foreshore appearing, gray, formless, without detail. It might have been the California coast, any coast line, in fact. Only the sampans which passed them, standing out to sea, with their characteristic square sails, high galleon-like poops, indicated the Orient. They passed quarantine. A launch came up smartly to the ship's ladder. A tall man in pongee waved his big white sun-helmet up to Kent.

It was Erik Karsten. Kent had expected to see him. They had been friends, when Karsten was dramatic and art critic on the Herald, before he had gone to Japan some years ago. They had corresponded and Kent had looked after his son, young Mortimer Karsten, until the boy had graduated from the university and had gone to Europe for further study. Karsten had written him, when he had heard that he was coming to Japan, that he must make his home with him, at least until he decided to make other arrangements. It made it particularly pleasant. They were warm friends.

They climbed up the ladder, police officials, steamship agents, Karsten and the rest. The friends shook hands.

"By Cæsar, but it is good to see you," said Karsten. "I have been feeling a bit lonesome these last few years. I am glad you will stay with me, at least for a while. Here, give your trunk keys to Martin. He will see your stuff through the customs. It will be too late to get to Tokyo for tiffin, so we will eat at the Grand. Then you can take a turn about Yokohama, and we'll be in Tokyo in time for dinner."

He went through the usual form of police examination. The steamer crept up to the wharf. Yokohama was as he had expected, the foreign settlement drab and tedious as of old; the typically Japanese section had receded a bit farther into the background; there were a few more red-brick official buildings. The return brought no thrill. Even the rickshaw seemed commonplace after he had ridden in it a few minutes. He felt as if he had been away from Japan only a score of weeks rather than a score of years.

Though he had halfway expected this, he was disappointed. Karsten read his thought.

"Yokohama always disappoints, doesn't it? I shall never forget my shock when I first came to the Fabled Orient and found this nondescript changeling of a city. Tokyo is becoming spoiled, too. They are covering it with electric poles, tangles of wires, atrocious buildings, all the dreariness of civilization, which they have a positive genius for making as obtrusive as possible. It seems almost that when they copy our civilization they make a point of making the worst parts thereof the most conspicuous. They can endow them with a hideousness which you don't find in any other place in the world. Still, Tokyo is not as bad as Yokohama. You may still find large quarters which are Japan. I have found such a place. I hope you will like it."

They arrived at Karsten's house late in the afternoon. Hugh felt his hopes rise as they left the prosy, noisy main streets and their rickshaws began a tortuous journey through narrow alleys, through a typically Japanese quarter, with clean wooden houses, latticed paper windows, grilled entrances, bamboo fences, and daintily contrived roofed gates through which might be glimpsed miniature gardens, with dwarfed pines, stone lanterns, curved paths of broad gray stones.

A steep stone stairway, winding erratically up the hillside against which nestled the quarter below, brought them to Karsten's house. Thank God, here was a place such as he would wish to live in, which was in harmony with his dreams of the spirit of Japan. Japanese in every detail, set in a cool garden overlooking the cluster of houses through which they had passed. In the rear lay a great temple, set in extensive grounds, a cool, calm space shadowed by old trees conveying a feeling of vast, eternal peace.

"You see, I am almost literally between the devil and the deep sea." Karsten swept his hand before him. "These houses below are a geisha quarter, as you might know by the immaculate trimness and careful detail. It is more characteristic at night, when the lights are lit. You'll see. There, behind us, in the temple grounds, you may always find peace, rest. Can it be a sort of telepathic influence? I don't know; but it seems almost as if centuries of calm meditation, projection of their minds into the infinite by generations of priests, the devout prayers of hundreds of thousands of worshipers, from cradle to grave, have permeated the whole space with an atmosphere, an aura of infinite peace. I am absolutely pagan. I have no creed or religious philosophy whatever. Still, sitting alone in this place, letting my thoughts go, I come nearer the idea that there is something, some one, some force, above, beyond, eternal, dominant, controlling the universe. Buddha, God, call it by whatever name you like, but some vast, hidden, mysterious force. Anyway, if I am troubled, agitated, here I may always find peace."

They entered the house. A tall, handsome Japanese woman met them, bowed deeply, gracefully. "O hairi nasai. Please enter."

The soft, deep ring of her voice, its musical modulation; the richness of her silks in spite of their somber shades; the every evidence that here was a woman of refinement, a gentlewoman, startled Kent. Plainly this was no servant. Could it be that Karsten had contracted one of these indefinite Loti'esque temporary arrangements which are fairly common in Japan? Still, then he would have said something about it. He wondered.

But Karsten gave no explanation.

"Jun-san, this is Kent-san. Kent, Jun-san has been looking forward to your coming. She is pleased that you speak Japanese. She speaks no English."

She clapped her hands. A servant came, took their hats. They entered a large, cool room, upstairs, whence they had a full view of the clusters of geisha houses below. Jun-san followed, brought tea. He noticed that she drank also. Evidently not a servant; probably an "oku-san," after all? Still, in such case it was odd that Karsten had not mentioned it. Well, time would tell soon enough. He liked her presence there, sitting gracefully, Japanese-fashion, on a silk cushion, ever watchful, attentive to anticipate their wants. Her mere being there lent an air of rich, but delicate, exotic Oriental beauty to the room, as though she were some infinitely wonderful, gorgeous ornament, contrived to harmonize with, to add grace to the surroundings. He liked the soft, slow smile when she answered him in her grave contralto voice; but he noticed that when she was not speaking, when he and Karsten were conversing in English, when she took no part, she was ever watching Karsten, with an expression of sadness, it seemed to him, a hint of wistfulness. It oppressed him a little with its indefinite mystery. He tried to put the thought away, as he went on talking with Karsten, but he could not free himself from the sense of an oppression of sadness, vaguely permeating the house as might a breath of heavy incense. He felt himself seized, unaccountably, knowing no definite reason, with a feeling of compassion, of sympathy, for Jun-san.

CHAPTER III

Kent's office was in the rear of a building in the Shimbashi section, a corner room facing two sides on narrow alleys, neither more than four feet wide. His landlord, Nishimura, whose International Agency occupied the front, was holding forth volubly. He would talk inexhaustibly about his life, his affairs and, principally, about his manifold abilities, in English, for he had lived for years in the United States.

As he talked, Kittrick came in. Kent had known him years ago, in the San Francisco Press Club, before he had gone to Japan for the Universal Syndicate. He hoped that his arrival would put an end to Nishimura's talk, but the Japanese only waved a greeting to Kittrick—evidently he knew him. He bubbled on.

"I am very pleased that I can always help you, in anything, everything. If you want anything, ask Nishimura. I can get you access to all the big men, the ministers of state, the politicians, the big business men, everybody. I can get you anything, an interview, a clerk, invitations to the official functions, a streetcar pass, a sweetheart," he leered suggestively. "You have a unique advantage of situation, Mr. Kent, between knowledge," he pointed towards the region of the International Agency, "and pleasure," he waved his hand generally in the direction of the walls and paper-covered shoji appearing, familiarly close, through the office windows.

"It is a select neighborhood, Mr. Kent. The heart of the most refined geisha quarter, hidden, so discreetly, don't you think, behind our respectability, yours and mine. There, you see, is the Akebono machiai, one of the most famous waiting houses, where you may feast with geisha." He pointed across one of the alleys where the shojis had been drawn aside, the wide window opening displaying a large, immaculately clean room, furnished with the constraint usual in Japan, with only a low table and some silk cushions, a kakemono, hanging silk scroll picture, in the tokonoma recess. "A very quiet place usually in the day," he explained. "But at night, ah, what scenes of revelry, with happy guests disporting themselves with sake wine and the pretty geisha." He sighed and threw wide his arms, as would he, ravished, press to his breast one of the beauties of his imagination. "You shall see, Mr. Kent, even here," now he was pointing through the window in the other wall to a smaller house. The closed, opaque paper shoji, bamboo barred, were almost within arm's length. From beyond it came the strident whimper of samisen strings. "That is O-Toshi-san," he explained confidentially, impressively, "the famous O-Toshi-san. You shall see her often, there in her window; but, Mr. Kent, do not lose your heart there. No, don't," he became even more confidential, suggestively smiling. "She belongs to Mr. Kato, the police commissioner. He paid big makura-kin, pillow-money, oh, so big, I hear——"

A clerk entered and whispered to Nishimura. "I am so sorry," said the landlord. "My affairs. I must go, but I shall come and see you often. Good morning."

It was a relief. His chatter had filled the room, monopolized the situation. "I have certainly fallen into a queer neighborhood," said Kent. "I shall apparently have a liberal and inexpensive education in geisha matters. What did he mean by pillow-money, anyway?"

"That's so; you left Japan too young to know about such things," said Kittrick. "Well, the institution differs considerably, according to locality, I think, but it means ordinarily a sum paid to a geisha who then becomes, so far as love favors are concerned, the exclusive jewel of the man who pays it. She may, of course, continue to entertain other guests as a singer or dancer and so forth, but that man is, or is supposed to be, her only lover. In fact, you know, you are not as queerly situated as you think you are. The geisha quarters are scattered in various parts of the city; you find them rubbing up against business and office quarters in lots of places. They are not bad neighbors at all. You may come to like these girls. For while some of them are just common women, many are quite exclusive, as, for instance, your neighbor lady appears to be, with just one lover; and not a few are absolutely clean morally, virginal, even though they make their living by singing, and playing, and entertaining men in their idle hours. For the Japanese they are institutional. In many cases important business deals are closed only in the machiai, with geisha adding grace to the occasion. Statesmen discuss their affairs in their presence. The Japanese tired business man, when he wants a change from the formality of family life, finds relaxation in a few hours with them, drinking, chatting, listening to their singing, enjoying their bright wit; often, as a rule, I think, that is all, though, of course, it frequently goes further. I myself have come to appreciate very much the Japanese point of view. There is so little to do in Tokyo, no theaters or concerts to speak of; only the cinemas. So occasionally, when time hangs on my hands, I go to some clean little tea house, call a geisha or two, lie about comfortably, lazily, enjoy their chatter—they are such merry, charming children. You get complete relaxation. It is easy to understand how the Japanese men, whose wives, as gentlewomen, could not and would not think of unbending to the gay fripperies of such talk and play, find their amusement with these girls. Of course, many of the men have sweethearts, mistresses, mekakes, concubines, as they commonly are called, but these things are not as greatly different from similar phenomena in America and Europe as you might think, and I am under the impression that the characteristically Japanese concubine system, if there is such a thing, is gradually dying out.

"However, I didn't come here to talk geisha. If you want me to show you the ropes as a newspaperman, I'm going now to the Foreign Office, and you had better come along."

The first glimpse of the Foreign Office attracted Kent—the great wall, with white mortar forming big lozenges, the only glimpse of typical Japan in the vicinity where great red brick buildings, the Navy Department, the courts, and, gray and forbidding, imposing even while its walls were crumbling, the Russian Embassy, formed the nucleus of official Japan. But once inside the iron grilled gate, the Foreign Office buildings were unimpressive, tediously modern. They did not even go to the main structure, but went to the right into a long, drab edifice.

"This will be one of your main points in your work," said Kittrick, as they waited while the solemn old commissionaire shuffled upstairs to announce them. "This is the information bureau of the Foreign Office, the main function of which is to see that foreign correspondents are kept satisfied with as little information as possible. We are now about to see the head oracle, Mr. Kubota. He was in London and Washington for years, and Japanese officialdom speaks highly of his abilities. He has to be quite a diplomat, you know, to answer a great many questions and still give out next to no information, anyway."

The commissionaire appeared and ushered them into Kubota's office, a large, simply furnished room. A middle-aged, pleasant-faced man, immaculate in frock coat, rose to greet them. His English was perfect. He was courteously cordial. One liked him instinctively. They chatted awhile about Kent's plans, how he liked Japan, the usual trivialities. "I hope you will come here often. We shall all be glad to be of every service possible to you, I and my assistants."

He called over a young man who had been sitting in the background. "My chief assistant, Mr. Kikuchi," he introduced. Kikuchi, more interesting at first sight than his chief, was a typical young aristocrat, in rich silk kimono, with long, sensitive fingers, urbanely smiling. Kent learned later on that he was regarded as one of the rising men in the Foreign Office, a man with brains as well as prestige. His father, Viscount Kikuchi, was considered, in the most intimately informed circles, to be the leading mind of the Privy Council.

"We have heard of you already from Baron Saiki," said Kikuchi, shaking Kent's hand firmly. "We shall be glad to become your good friends, if we may. In fact——" he glanced towards his chief.

The older man smiled. "Yes, Mr. Kittrick, we had, in fact, thought of having one of our little tea parties as a welcome to Mr. Kent and for Mr. Jones, you know, who came a few weeks ago for the New York Chronicle. To get them acquainted, just a few of us from the office here and the newspapermen. We have these little informal, friendly gatherings now and then, Mr. Kent. Do you think you should like to come?"

Kent thanked him. They chatted for a while. Kent was introduced to a few more officials, all pleasant, extremely urbane, fluent in English. Then they came away.

"It should be pleasant to come here," commented Kent. "They seem intelligent and friendly. I like them."

"They are pleasant," replied Kittrick. "And clever too, though, queerly enough, it is the common thing for the Japanese to regard the Foreign Office as a pretty stupid institution. Although it has done mighty well, it seems to me, disentangling the foreign policy mess left by Terauchi and his ilk, cleaning up the Yap, Shantung, Chinese and Siberian questions, the Japanese people and press seem to think that they are a pretty poor lot. Of course, they have had a fairly hard time of it with the War Office, the General Staff. Many people think that they are unduly under the thumb of the militarists, but the very fact that the army and navy Ministers are not responsible to the Cabinet makes running the foreign policy harder, as the militarists have had the habit of letting the Foreign Office propose, and then doing the disposing themselves, and that seems to me to make what our diplomatic friends have done the more praiseworthy.

"Yes, you will find the Foreign Office crowd pleasant," he continued. "But as a source of information you'll find them disappointing. Like all the rest of the officials, they are obsessed with the national mania for secrecy. All the officials seem to think that they may get into all kinds of trouble by telling the press something; that they can never get into trouble when they tell nothing. The great cry of the Japanese is constantly that they are misunderstood by the rest of the world, and still when we fellows who honestly want to bring about understanding try to help them along, they won't help us or themselves. Say, for instance, that some fool report against Japan crops up in Washington, or London, or Paris, and you come here to get the thing straightened out, to get Japan's side; you will, as a rule, find it is like pulling teeth, and often, when you do get the story, they won't let you quote the Foreign Minister, or even the Foreign Office generally. They want you to cable that 'it is reported,' or 'it is said' or 'there are indications that,' taking all the value out of the statement. Then, if you want to see one of the Ministers or some other big gun, they will probably arrange that you see him—they are tremendously obliging, I admit—but it will take a week or more before the interview can be arranged, and in the meantime the harm has been done abroad. Your story, Japan's version, has become old as Genesis, it has gone cold. And then they sit up and wail that the world misunderstands them. All this talk you hear about the infernally clever, insidious Japanese propaganda is plain rot. If there is one thing they don't know a thing about, it is propaganda. They have their propaganda newspapers, it is true, particularly in China, but everybody knows them, and they don't count. This talk about the Foreign Office handing out huge sums to writers and others is funny. The War Office people have the funds, and I daresay they spend them where they think it will do good. The General Staff, that is the secret force in the Japanese Government, and you and I never hear what goes on in there. See its headquarters, that old, gray building with the green copper roof; that's the last remaining stronghold of militarism, in its good old form, on this earth; and General Matsu, the chief, is the proper high priest, the simon-pure militarist, with ethics as primitive as those of a cave man. They are giving in now. They have to, for Japanese public opinion about spending great sums on armies is the same as it is in the rest of the world, but they are clever. They feel—it is probably their sincere idea of patriotism—that Japan can be great only by militarism, and where they reduce the army by two soldiers, they probably buy one machine gun, making up in strength in one way what they lose in the other. They probably feel that if they can't preserve Japan's strength openly on account of public opinion, they must do it quietly, for Japan's good. But there, under that green roof, lie the forces of old Japan, and there, on the other side of the city, in the students' quarter in Kanda, in the laborers' quarters of Honjo and Fukagawa, the forces of new thought are stirring and fermenting. It is medieval feudalism as opposed to modern industrialism, with a lot of more 'isms thrown in, Socialism, Communism, Sovietism even, new ideas, half understood, misunderstood, but grasped at with passionate eagerness, the young generation and the workers seeking such morsels of new thought, often the worse thought, that they can find, and swallowing them, half digested, or not digested at all.

"There is danger in all this. There is a turbulence of too precipitate transition. It needs wise handling. There is good in it all, this passionate desire for making Japan modern, but all these young, restless forces should be directed, led along wholesome paths, and all that the powers-that-be—the militarists, the capitalists, the police—seem to know is repression. I can see lots of good in both sides, the cautious conservatism of the old generation which clings desperately to the ancient virtues which it sees spurned; and which sees all that is bad, unwholesome, in the new movement; and the young generation which wants to create a new Japan in a day, which wants to walk before it has learned to crawl, which is prone to discard the virtues and values of old Japan before it has learned to understand and use modern, Western civilization. It is a game for high stakes which is going on here under our eyes, where immeasurably precious values of an old civilization, unique, irreplaceable, are likely to be lost, to be thrown ruthlessly aside; and, on the other hand, there is loss every day that the intentness, the eagerness of the younger generation, of the masses in the cities where they have acquired zest for modernism, is suffered to waste itself in futile groping after lots of unwholesome stuff, which they think must be good fruit mainly because it is forbidden; especially when all this eagerness to learn, this ambitious energy might, with a little sympathy, a bit of understanding wisdom, be made into a tremendous power for constructive good. The longer you live here, Kent, the more you will come to see that what Japan needs to-day, what she must have, is another Meiji, some strong, wise directing force, a truly big man—but there is no such man to-day."

CHAPTER IV

A row of shoes in the entrance of the tea house told them that most of the others had already arrived. A flock of maidservants met them, took their hats and canes, waiting while Kent and Kittrick took off their shoes. Kikuchi appeared. "We are nearly all of us here," he smiled. "Come in. Make yourself at home, Mr. Kent, Kittrick-san will tell you that we don't stand on ceremony."

In a large room, unfurnished save for a few kakemono pictures, they found Kubota and half a dozen Foreign Office men, with six or seven correspondents, talking, smoking. Butterfield of the Times and Templeton of the Express were old hands, with many years in Japan behind them. Most of the others were far more recent arrivals. Some of them showed by the self-conscious lack of ease of the white man when he first finds himself, socially, in stocking feet, that they were still new in Japan. Kent was introduced. The conversation flowed on, in groups. Tea and cigarettes were served.

A maid slid aside some of the partitions and they looked into a large room with small, individual lacquered tables set in three sides of a square, each with a cushion on the matting. "Please take your seats, gentlemen," Kubota waved them in. "Take your places where you please."

They squatted on the cushions. Kent was pleased to have on one side young Kikuchi. He had taken an instinctive liking to him. On the other side was Jones, a dumpy, solemn-faced man, fidgety, ill at ease. Beyond him was Kittrick. Farther along, on both sides, sat the rest, Japanese and foreigners mingled. Conversation flowed easily, mostly in English.

Soup was brought in lacquered, covered bowls, and a cloud of geisha appeared, a score or more, brightly clad in shimmering silks, with huge brocade obi scarfs fashioned in elaborate bow-like arrangements. The curious whitening of the faces, with the black, delicately arched eyebrows, almond eyes, crimson lips, fantastically high headdress, tastefully contrived contrasts of color, all served to provide an exotic air, to produce the impression that, after all, this was Japan, a unique country, different from all others. The deadening effect of trite modernism produced by the modern garb of the Japanese hosts, their perfect foreign polish, faded into the background. The geisha scattered among the tables, seating themselves with the guests, smiling to them, attending to their needs. As he looked across the table into the pretty face opposite him, Kent experienced a sense of grateful relief. Thank God, the bloom and charm of old fairy-tale-like Japan had not all faded away yet.

He fumbled with his chopsticks. He had almost forgotten the art of using them. The geisha gently took them from him, smiled engagingly, showed him how to use them. "So desho."

He thanked her in Japanese. Her finely formed hands, small like a child's, came up in surprise. "But you can't use chopsticks; you are new in Japan; and still you speak Japanese. Bikuri shimashita. I am surprised."

The spirit of the thing swept over him. He felt as if he had played with geisha all his life. "It is true. I have just come. But I looked into your bright eyes, and see, the words have come to me. It is a gift."

"I think you lie." She eyed him dubiously. Japanese girls are disposed to take literally even the unbelievable. "Kikuchi-san, he lies, doesn't he?"

But Kikuchi smilingly upheld him. "It is true. He has just come. You know, these foreigners are truly wonderful people."

"It is wonderful." She clapped her hands delightedly, called over other girls that they might share in the marvel. They twittered like birds. Kent suddenly found himself the center of attention, enjoyed the exhilaration of flashing jeu de mots, though he found that his childhood's vocabulary served only haltingly in the bright thrust and parry repartée with the geisha.

"I didn't know you could speak Japanese. What are they saying?" It was the querulous voice of Jones. Kent felt a quick pang of sympathy for him; he had been forgotten, neglected even by the geisha in the excitement.

"Oh, I lived here as a child, and I remember a little, but I told that girl that I was learning the language from her eyes; such is the gay foolishness with geisha, irresponsibility, laughter, that is the charm." But he could not draw Jones in. "I see," was his only reply, and he turned to the food before him.

More food was brought, course after course, daintily served, strange dishes, often puzzling as to how they must be eaten. The geisha fluttered about, changing from table to table, staying a few minutes with this guest, a bit longer with this other, charmingly gay, beautiful creatures, woman bodies in butterfly raiment, and with the radiant spontaneous happiness of children. And with all their laughing familiarity, intimacy almost, they were constantly watchful, alert to attend the men, with bewildering skill picking the bones from the trout, which were served whole, leaf-garlanded, on richly ornamented porcelain. Sake was brought in, hot, in small stone bottles. Guests and geisha lifted steaming little cups, laughed, drank, the girls constantly refilling the tiny bowls. The atmosphere titillated with laughter and talk. The men stretched themselves more easily on their cushions. Some rose and went visiting at other tables. The room was electric with gayety, staccato Japanese and guttural English words mingling, accompanied, set off by the rippling laughter of the geisha.

Kubota had begun the journey which is the function of the host. From table to table he proceeded, offering a cup of sake to each guest. The guests drank; each rinsed the cup in the bowl of water on the table before him, the ones who were old in Japan doing it expertly, immersing the bowl and withdrawing it suddenly so that the water was sucked in by the vacuum with a gurgling cluck. Then the guest would hold the bowl out towards the geisha. She filled it, and he handed it to Kubota, who drank ceremoniously, said a few words of polite greeting, and passed on to the next guest. He passed his cup to Kent. "I am glad to greet you here as a new friend," he said. "I hope we may often enjoy ourselves together." They drank.

Kubota passed on to Jones' table, held out his cup, but Jones waved it away. "Thanks, but I disapprove of liquor." A look of blank surprise crept over Kubota's face. The hand with the cup remained outstretched. It took him a moment to adjust himself to the surprising situation. Then he smiled engagingly. But Jones remained solemn, impassive. Kittrick came to the rescue. "Are you not going to drink with me, Mr. Kubota?" The incident passed, but Kent felt his sympathy for Jones turning to disgust. He turned impatiently to the geisha.

But there was a stir among the girls. A number of them were running towards the space where there were no tables. Samisens were brought in. Three of the girls seated themselves, began tuning the instruments. Three others ranged themselves in line and stood waiting. Suddenly ivory plectra smote taut strings. In a loud treble, almost stridently, the voices of the singers rose over the noisy clamor of the music. The dancers postured for a moment, each with a fan, closed, held straight before her. A chord was struck. Instantly the three fans were snapped open, simultaneously, with a graceful, wide sweep of arms, deep, fluttering sleeves following the undulating movements of small, bejeweled hands. The guests leaned back, watching the brilliant picture, the three girls, faces set in conventional expressionless masks, rich, gorgeous silks waving and sweeping in rhythmic movement, synchronizing with the bizarre cadences of the samisens and the voices, a picture of graceful lines, swaying and changing harmoniously, waves of radiant, flaming colors and shimmering, indefinite tints. The real Orient finally, gorgeous, rare, exotic. A wave of pleasure, satisfaction, swept over Kent. Impulsively he turned to Jones.

"Barbaric." The cold, hard tone cut in like a discord. Kent stared at him. Great heavens, what a point of view! He was about to turn impatiently towards the dancers, but Jones cut in quickly. It was as if anger, resentment, disgust, had been accumulating in him, from one phase of the entertainment to another, had been pent up, gathering volume until he must free himself of his thoughts. He seemed to clamor for Kent's attention, to demand it, speaking nervously, jerkily, finger tips drumming on the table top in emphasis.

"I wish I hadn't come. It is a shock to me to see these men, high officials of the Government, publicly, brazenly disporting themselves with these women, common women, singers, dancers. And, I really can't help saying it, to see white men, Americans, entering into this degradation. Look at it," he swept his hand towards the dancers, swaying in soft, seductive movement before his irritated eyes. A small hangyoku, geisha apprentice, sitting close by, saw his outstretched hand. She glanced at him, puzzled, eager to be of service, and hastily handed him a cup of sake. He swept it aside, and she gazed at him, wondering, black child's eyes large with surprise against the white powder of her face, quaint doll features contrasting oddly against the high coiffure.

Jones went on urgently, as if in competition with the whimper and cry of the samisens, the strident voices. "It seems to me that we white men should set them an example, that we have a duty to perform, that even as we are newspapermen, we should assist the missionaries, act as missionaries here——"

Kittrick's attention had been attracted. He cut in. "If you will pardon me, Mr. Jones, I think we have too many missionaries here already. Japan has far less misery and crime than there is in our big cities, New York, Chicago, San Francisco. Why don't they clean up at home first, where they are needed, maybe, before they come out here. You take my word for it, Mr. Jones, Japan can get along quite nicely without them, and so can the rest of us. But what is the use of talking. If you can't enjoy the hospitality you have accepted, at least have the decency not to criticize it. Here, little beauty," he turned to the hangyoku. "Fill the cups, please. Have a drink with me, Kent."

An uproarious twang of the samisens marked the end of the dance. The guests clapped. The dancers sank to the floor, bowed in deep salutation, ran down among the guests. The men rose from their places, new groups formed. Kent was glad to escape. He went up to Kubota, expressed his pleasure. He felt as if he must make some atonement for Jones, wondered whether the Japanese had noticed him. He sensed a soft pressure on his arm. It was the geisha who had first waited on him at table. She had plucked from her hair an ornament, a cluster of artificial flowers, curiously and intricately wrought, with little polished metal bits faintly tinkling and glittering among the red and purple petals. She offered it to him. "You are a nice stranger," she smiled up to him. "I want you to have this. It is a katami, a souvenir." He glanced to Kubota, a little at a loss. The diplomat laughed. "It is all right. Take it. It is an omen that Japan likes you. I hope that you may like Japan."

It was getting late. The foreigners began to leave. The Japanese remained behind. "They always do," commented Kittrick. "I have an idea that now the real fun begins. But we never see it. Almost always only the surface, here in Japan."

"He came near spoiling the evening, that man Jones," he remarked, as they walked from the tea house. "Of course, he has a right to his point of view, but why drag in the missionary question on such an occasion. It made me angry. In fact, he made me say more about the missionaries than I really meant."

Kent laughed. "It seems an odd thing how it crops up in all sorts of incongruous places, isn't it; in steamer smoking rooms, in hotel bars. Do you people really dislike them so?"

"It is a big jump from geisha to missionaries," said Kittrick. "Still, since you ask, I should say that on the whole I don't. In some ways the missionaries do a lot of good for the standing of the white man in the Orient, men like Doctor Wheelwright, for instance, men of broad education and culture, who in a way serve as demonstrations to the Japanese that the West, our race, has culture and high ideals, something beyond mere lust for gain and pleasure. You know otherwise the rest of us—most of us, at least—might easily give the Orientals the idea that we are entirely materialists, that we stand a poor comparison with their own scholars and men of culture. But then there is the other class of missionaries, the fellows with little minds, who can't see beyond the narrow vision they gained at their seminaries, who are forever deploring what they call the evil example set by the worldly white man, you and me, finding fault with our conduct, ever criticizing us, and, for business reasons, taking the side of the Japanese if we happen to criticize Japan. I feel as if the good done by the one class is about evened up by the nuisance caused by the other. I am thankful that I have friends among the first class; the others I carefully avoid. As for the good they do among the Japanese, I don't know. They undoubtedly do some good, but, on the other hand, personally I can't help being a bit suspicious of the native Christian. So many of them go in for Christianity on account of material advantages. It is an easy way to learn English, for one thing, and then, undoubtedly, many of them, the class of Japanese who want to be modern, who grasp at any modern movement, be it French art, opera music, Communism, or jazz, take up Christianity with sort of an idea that it is up-to-date, haikara they call it. It is only fair to say, though, that all the smoking-room talk you hear about the missionaries living at ease on the fat of the land is largely rot. Most of them have to live modestly enough, on mighty small salaries. I am willing to give them credit, most of them, of being sincere enough. I am neutral. I am willing to let them alone, if they will leave me alone. There is the missionary question in the Orient in a nutshell. Well, here I take my car. Give my regards to Karsten—and to Jun-san. Good night."

CHAPTER V

Kent drifted into his daily routine quickly and easily. His Japanese clerk watched the papers for him, read over the headlines, and translated into queer, but fairly understandable English the articles which Kent called for. He had made friends with several Japanese newspapermen, keen, elderly men, always pleasantly ready to comment on and to amplify the news of the day, popular tendencies and drift of thought, and who often took pains to keep him informed of the spot news. Then he visited the departments, Foreign Office, Home Office, War and Navy departments, a rather tedious and not very remunerative procedure, interviewing second-rank officials, laboriously extracting formal information, always meeting the unfailing courtesy and polite blankness which makes the Japanese the hardest men to interview in the world. The highest officials, Ministers, for instance, might as a rule be interviewed only by submission of written questions. It seemed as if the human element, the touch of man to man, was constantly deliberately shrouded in an impenetrable veil of bureaucratic formalism. Was it instinctive passion for secrecy, suspicion of the foreigner in general, or merely the deadening influence of worship of official form? He could not make up his mind, but he wished it were possible to talk frankly and openly, with return in openness and frankness, and not always under the peculiar feeling of restraint, of necessity of being constantly en guard, as if one were fencing with an adversary in the dark. They were always talking about frankness, about their desire for it, and yet he felt that it was always one-sided, that all the frankness came from the foreigner, but that for him there could be no penetrating through an impalpable wall of instinctive reserve, into the real, innermost thought of the Japanese.

Still, it was after all a pleasant life and, generally, an easy one. He concluded that Japanese reserve was racial, rather than consciously, deliberatively individual. And still there were times when they would be surprisingly frank, almost incredibly outspoken. Even about such a subject as the Imperial House they would sometimes, even officials, like young Kikuchi, speak in terms entirely democratic, as would an American, expressing carelessly ideas which he knew were well within the "dangerous thought" category of the police. It amazed Kent, left him a little at a loss as to how to reply, careful as he felt that he must be in such matters. At first he thought that the opinions were merely thrown out as bait, to draw him out, sound his views, but he soon concluded that this was not the case, that the spread of liberalism had extended far beyond the masses and was finding converts among the young aristocracy, even among some of its older men. Some of it was pose, he felt, the constant desire to show the foreigner that Japanese were as advanced in modern thought as was he, but at the same time he became convinced that substantially, generally, these men spoke truthfully, just what they thought.

He was speaking about it one morning at his office, to Kittrick, when the door opened noiselessly, and Terada appeared, drifted in, floated in rather, as if without movement. He had introduced himself a few weeks after Kent's arrival as an official of the police department, whose business it was to keep a watchful eye on foreigners, particularly correspondents. Since then he had come at intervals of a few weeks. The door would open, and he would enter, soundlessly, almost apologetically. In his gray kimono, gray felt hat, he seemed like a sort of genii out of Arabian Nights; it was almost as if he materialized, a smoky, indefinite figure, mysteriously growing out of the empty space of the room. It was his habit to make some commonplace observation and then sit smoking, for ten minutes often, before he would make his next remark, also quite commonplace, about the weather, the cherry blossoms, anything. Thus he would sit for an hour at a time, a courteous, self-effacing gentleman, saying something entirely inconsequential; then smoking silently, thinking up his next triviality. But out of the dozen or score of remarks would always be one which Kent felt was the one that counted, the question which he evidently hoped would pass unnoticed among all the others. Who was going to be the new correspondent for the Post, what did he think of the action of the Cabinet on such and such a matter? There would come some more camouflage remarks, polite leave-taking, and he would vanish, dissolve, fade away, leaving Kent to wonder whether he had really managed to get any information that he had come for.

He made his usual remarks. Everything seemed to stop, while they waited for him to frame the next one. It became a bore. Kittrick's patience gave out.

"Do you really know so much about us foreigners, Terada-san?" he asked banteringly. "What do you really find out about us?"

"Oh, we know. You were at Ringo-san's tea house last Monday night, with Sato-san, but you only stayed till ten," he smiled sourly. "You got a new cook yesterday. Mr. Kent is to dine at Baron Saiki's to-morrow night."

He smoked for a while silently. Then he faded away.

"He's a queer bird," said Kent, as Terada disappeared. "I'm sure I don't see what he gets out of coming to me? His questions are too transparent, with the main one so carefully sandwiched in among all the rot that he so laboriously contrives. What does he do with it all, the back-door gossip that he gathers so painstakingly?"

"Oh, it all goes down in reports, I daresay, good, bad and indifferent," said Kittrick. "It is all stored away somewhere. It is all a part of their marvelously ramified secret service system, which they copied from Germany. It is a good system. On the whole, it is a good idea for the authorities to keep track of every one, foreign and Japanese, and I don't see why any one should object. The bad ones should be watched. The innocent ones shouldn't mind; in fact, they get protection from the others in that way. I know that some foreigners object to the detectives, but the police are usually polite. Old-timers who have detectives following them often make friends with them—you know they don't hide the fact that they are trailing you—and use them to buy railroad tickets, to help with the luggage; they are willing enough to act as kind of free couriers. Of course, there are some damned stupid officials who look on every foreigner as a potential spy, but much of the talk of newcomers about their being followed by detectives is buncombe. They like to think they are being shadowed. It gives them a sense of importance."

"Ishii-san, run out and get me a package of Golden Bats, please." Kent waited until the clerk had left the room. "I wanted to get him out of the way," he explained to Kittrick. "The fact is that I know positively that my desk is being systematically examined. I lock it; still I find things disarranged. I keep nothing of consequence in it, but it annoys me to have some one constantly going through my private letters, and I don't know who it can be."

"I don't think it is Ishii," said Kittrick. "I have reason to believe that he is a young man inclined to have 'dangerous thoughts.' That is one reason why I picked him out for you; so he wouldn't be a spy. It is far more likely to be your good landlord. I'm pretty certain that he is in Foreign Office pay. I have had several indications. Tokyo is full of them, people who get information for the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the police, the militarists. They are clerks, rickshaw men, business men, high and low, all kinds. You see, they not only copied the system, but they tried to elaborate on it. But all they got, as usual, was the form, but not the intelligence. They go through the motions of a secret service, but the whole thing is ramified in numberless useless ways. They dovetail and overlap and get all kinds of stupid information. I often wonder at what they do with all they get, all the stuff about my being at a tea house and getting a new cook and the like; but I think that it all goes down in reports, that many of them don't care much what they get, as long as they get something they can put in their reports, any old thing to fill the pages. And still, you know, from all the trash they must undoubtedly get something worth their while every now and then. At times you find evidences of really skillful and clever work. And after all, why should you or I care? They are discreet enough. Nothing comes out of what little foibles they may learn about. Probably they don't care. Remember that, as far as personal freedom is concerned, this is truly The Land of the Free, where no one gives a hang if you have a drink or kiss a pretty geisha behind the shoji."

"But how are they in business?" asked Kent. "Do they watch the stuff we send out?"

"I wish I knew. I think every correspondent wishes he knew," said Kittrick. "Sometimes I think a copy of every cable we send goes to the Foreign Office. There is no reason why it shouldn't; in fact, I can see no great objection. Still, I never knew them to interfere with our cables. I have sent stuff that I thought would be stopped; but it went through. At the time of the so-called 'serious affair,' when old Prince Yamagata tried to interfere with the engagement of the Crown Prince, and the whole nation was whispering about it, and the censors were working overtime to keep the thing quiet, I cabled the whole thing. Now, if they ever interfere, they would have done it then; but the cable went. I know most of us feel a bit suspicious, and once or twice old Kubota has quoted almost word by word cables which I had sent the day before. It may have been coincidence, but it is funny. It makes you wonder. In fact, you will find that most of the fellows send mail stuff that they want to be sure of, through friends who are going across to the States, but, frankly, I don't actually know how far we are being watched."

"By the way, I heard that you were going to dinner at the Saiki's," he added. "If he is a friend of yours, you will find him a good one."

Kent had hoped that the dinner at the Saiki's would be given in Japanese style, that he might thus have an opportunity to get a glimpse of the more intimate life in an aristocratic Japanese household, but the moment he and Karsten drove into the grounds, it was plain that he would be disappointed in this. The house was a large hybrid affair, with a foreign style section and another part purely native, weird and ungainly combinations which are becoming common in Tokyo and which do their share in degrading the architecture of the city. The Japanese part lay in semi-darkness, but the other wing was brilliantly lighted. Servants in foreign livery took their things, and they were ushered into a large drawing-room, furnished punctiliously in French fashion, almost too correct. One suspected immediately the hand of the professional decorator behind it all. There was even less to indicate Japan than is usual in foreign homes in Tokyo. The pictures, the bric-a-brac, all was European. A splendid cloisonné vase in a corner was the only bit characteristic of Japan; but then such a thing might be found in any drawing-room in Paris or London. At table it was the same,—a cocktail, then French courses, wines, decorations, served by servants in black and gold livery. The kimonos of some of the women, the high helmet-like coiffures of a few, served only to accentuate the European atmosphere: and then some of the younger women, even though they wore kimonos, dressed their hair in the foreign mode which was becoming fashionable in Tokyo, the hair arranged, in its natural softness, without the usual oily dressing, in soft rolls hiding the ears.

Kent found himself seated between Baroness Saiki and Miss Suzuki. Farther on sat young Kikuchi, then another Miss Suzuki, then Karsten, with Kikuchi's sister at his right. Among the others were Templeton of the Express and Butterfield of the Times. The rest were all Japanese officials and their wives.

Conversation was carried on in English and Japanese. The men were all fluent in English. The women, even when they spoke it, smiled much, charmingly, but said little, seemed to be a peculiarly happily contrived background rather than a material element of the affair. Kent found himself absurdly ill at ease when Baroness Saiki insisted on speaking Japanese. He knew that only few foreigners attain the perfection where they may venture with safety to attempt the language of the aristocracy, with its honorifics and a vocabulary containing many words and idioms entirely different from those of the common tongue. He felt as might a Frenchman who had learned his English on the Bowery and who suddenly finds himself under necessity to speak with a grande dame of ancient Boston lineage. He tried it, hesitantly, fearing momentarily that he would make a faux pas; then he made a clean breast of his trouble to her. She was amused, encouraged him to go on; but even then it was irritatingly difficult to devise subjects which might interest her. Books, the opera, mutual friends, all the usual topics were useless. It was almost like trying to interest a woman who had come forth, suddenly, from the seclusion of a seraglio. Fortunately she had been abroad. He grasped at the usual banalities: how did she find Japan after Washington and Paris. She answered quietly, always smiling, charming, gracious; but she would reply in only a sentence or two. Then he must find something new. She had always, when he knew her on the steamer, been very quiet, discreetly non-assertive, but even with that it seemed as if she had changed, become even more retiring, self-effacing since she had come to Japan. He had to think hard to devise pabulum for conversation and began to get a little desperate. It was a relief when Kubota addressed her and she turned to him.

It gave Kent an opportunity to speak to Miss Suzuki. He had been relieved to see that she still wore foreign dress. Evidently her family had not Japanized her to the extent of insisting on her wearing kimono, as did her sister, an extremely pretty girl, in gorgeous silks, with, however, her hair dressed in the modern mode. Kent was extremely pleased to meet Miss Suzuki again; he had thought of her often and had wondered how he might manage to see her, but it had seemed oddly impossible; there had seemed to be no way of contriving to meet her. But she did not seem as spontaneously gay as she had been on the Tenyo. Momentarily a hint of her American animation would appear like a glint of heat lightning, a vivacious bit of high spirits, but it flashed out, subdued into a vague, intangible quietness, smiling gentleness, suggesting a sense of restraint, an almost imperceptibly subtle change in manner and mind.

Baron Saiki addressed him from across the table, a matter of current politics. Templeton and Kubota came into the discussion. Gradually the conversation became general among the men, the presence of the women being sensed, rather than forming an equal part, as a lovely and delicately enchanting obligato beside the dominating pervasion of the men.

Later, in the drawing-room, he found chance to meet the Suzuki girls again. They formed a striking contrast, Kimiko, the younger, resplendent in brilliant silks, gracefully drooping, wide kimono sleeves, stiff brocade obi, recalling a picture of imagination, a fanciful Oriental fairyland vision, picturesque, fantastic almost, against the modestly cut pink evening gown of the sister. Here, removed from the immediate presence of the others, she proved a lively, capricious little damsel. She extended her hand frankly when the elder girl introduced her to Kent.

"Don't you think that I am not modern, just because I speak no English and have always lived in Japan," she flashed at him. "Nous sommes moderne, nous autres Japonnaises, n'est-ce-pas, Kikuchi-san?" It suited her. French harmonized better with her air of being a resplendent illusion of whimsical imagination.

Kikuchi came over. "Of course, we are modern, le dernier cri. We must show Kent. Now, how would it be if we all went to Tsurumi, to Kagetsuen. We will show him how Japan and jazz mix. I am sure my sister can fix it so you girls can go. Would you like it, Kent? I'm sure you would. All right, I'll let you know the day later."

The girls were radiant. "You must not think, Mr. Kent, that because we wear the kimono, we can't dance," bubbled Kimiko, protestingly. "I have been dancing for two years now, even at some of the public places, like Kagetsuen. But they are beginning to make a fuss about it, the newspapers and the old fogeys. I hope they don't stop it. My sister has never even been to Tsurumi. We'll have—what is it you say in English, Tsuyuko, oh, yes, a hellu off a time."

"Oh, be careful," the sister glanced about hastily. "Kimiko is so crazy to be modern that she wants to learn English phrases, and she likes the swear words best, I'm sorry I taught her. She won't be careful. She is irresponsible. Please pardon her. I wonder what Baroness Saiki would say."

Karsten came over, but even his rather grave manner could not daunt Kimiko-san. It seemed as if she wished to startle the sister, to impress her with the fact that she, at least, was not old-fashioned. "You look so grave, Mr. Karsten, so dignified, just like our old-fashioned Japanese men. You should be a Japanese, and have a Japanese wife, old-fashioned, of course. Would you like to have one?" She was laughing up at him, like a pretty, mischievous child enjoying its naughtiness.

Karsten laughed. "But I am so stupid about women. Now, if I do, will you find me one, a pretty one? Will you be my nakodo, my go-between?"

"Certainly. Of course, an old-fashioned man like you must have a marriage by arrangement, through a nakodo; but Tsuyuko and I, when we marry, we are modern, we shall marry for love, l'amour, n'est-ce-pas? We shall——"

"Ssst." Kikuchi made a quick warning gesture. Baroness Saiki came over to them. There was no perceptible hush, but the bright sparkle of the manner of the girls changed. They were still smiling, conversing, but it was the gentle, quaint loveliness of the Orient. The moment of glitter had gone. It was nothing as definite as palpable restraint which had come over them; still there seemed to be an indefinite barrier.

The groups broke up, changed, reformed. Every one left early. Kent saw the girls again only when they took leave. He thought he sensed a barely perceptible, still almost definite pressure of Kimiko's hand, as she said good-by, the slightest hint of a glint in the dark brilliancy of her eyes. But he could not be sure; he wondered.

The Saiki mansion was close to the Karsten house, and they walked home in the moonlight, through the streets of the geisha quarter with the opaquely lighted shoji contrasting, brilliantly white, against the dark walls, tinkle of samisen and ripples of women's laughter coming out to them in the night.

"Well, back in Japan again," said Kent. "For what we saw to-night wasn't really Japan, was it? Still, it wasn't America or Europe either. What do you think?"

"It is hard to say," said Karsten. "Even if what we saw to-night is not Japan now, it is certain to become more and more so, while this——" he pointed to a machiai just ahead. The shoji had been drawn aside, and they could see a geisha, resplendent in gold and crimson, languidly posturing, fan slowly sweeping before her in obedience to the rhythm of an unseen samisen in the background. "This is not the real Japan, either. The other was Japan to-morrow. This is Japan yesterday. It is difficult to say what is Japan to-day."

CHAPTER VI

Even as they made their way up the hill, among the booths, animal cages, swinging bridges and slides of the amusement park which formed an adjunct of the Kagetsuen, the crash and cry of the jazz orchestra came down to them. Dancing began early and a number of couples filled the floor of the large hall. The musicians, some fifteen of them, were all Japanese, but they had mastered their peculiar art, the latest phase of the modernity invading Japan. Emphasis seemed to have been laid on modernity. With the exception of a few Japanese lanterns, some characteristic masks, the arrangements were entirely in foreign style. Wicker tables and chairs lined two sides of the hall, where tea was served, English fashion. For a moment this modern air struck Kent as disappointing. Then he looked about at the people, the dancers, those sitting at the tables, and the feeling vanished. A glitter of color shimmered and moved inside this tedious frame, brilliant kimono, gorgeous obi, rich silk, blazing reds, radiant blues, color in all shades and tints scintillating in motion. The colorless space, the commonplace garb of the men, seemed rather to heighten the effect of the exotic radiance of the women.

Kipling's "For East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet" came to his mind. It might be true, but the scene before him seemed to belie it. Was there ever such a melting-pot, raiment of a civilization thousands of years old, substantially unchanged, absorbed in the arms of extreme modernism, the unimaginative West and the evanescent romance of the Orient moving and mingling in the rhythm of jazz. It was bizarre, discordant, but it made a picture odd, almost incongruously anachronistic, but interesting, strikingly illustrative of New Japan.

They found a table and sat down to tea, Kikuchi, his sister, the Suzuki sisters and Kent. They made up programs, but Kent reserved only a few dances. He wished to have opportunity to watch, to study this heterogeneous potpourri of humanity.

Japanese predominated, the men all in European clothing, most of the women in kimonos, though many wore foreign dress, generally simple, but well tailored, becomingly worn. There were many Europeans and Americans, nearly all men. It was difficult to determine their status; they were so much alike, most of them in pongee. Of the women many were apparently business girls, stenographers from Yokohama probably, though here and there might be seen one a bit indeterminable, who caused the mind to hesitate for a moment, in question.

Then there were the Eurasians, slim young men, inclined to be a shade dandified, smooth, graceful dancers; the girls slim also, but with a svelte luxuriance of body, a starry-eyed, almost tropical hint of potentialities of fiery passion slumbering lightly behind their sinuous grace. But, after all, his eyes would revert constantly to the kimonos. They made the high light and luster of the scene, stirring the imagination to wonder who were they, what were they, what were the thoughts, the ambitions, the desires and passions, in these faintly contoured breasts held tightly under silken folds above the stiff brocade sashes? Difficult as it was to determine the character of the others, Europeans and Eurasians, he felt himself utterly baffled by the Japanese women. Any one of them might be a daughter of the aristocracy, or she might be a geisha, for all he could know. All the usual minute signs, the hints conveyed by dress, speech and gesture familiar in white women, the indescribable, subtle nuances, which made it possible at home to distinguish between the gentlewoman and the demimonde, were unknown to him here. It added to the fascination, the bewildering sense of not being able to know, to determine, even to guess with reasonable certainty, as if one were hesitatingly, cautiously venturing into a marvelously fascinating, strange, unexplored country.

A hundred questions clamored for explanations. Who was this one; what could that one be? But his companions gave him little information. They did not know these people, they said. Their tone conveyed to him that he must restrain his curiosity. It was plain that they insisted on being exclusive. They showed acquaintance with only one or two other groups, a party, much like their own, in which young Watanabe, son of the shipping magnate, was the leader; another composed of the sons and daughters of wealthy silk merchants from Yokohama. These, quite evidently, formed a set aside, remote from the gay throng about them.

He had indicated a girl who had passed them in the dance, rather full-figured, Eurasian apparently, with large, languid eyes, who moved with a slow swaying grace before them. It was the sense of dreamlike voluptuousness that had attracted him.

"Eurasian. I hear she is a moving-picture actress," answered Kikuchi. "It is democratic, you see. There are all kinds here, girls of gentle birth and geishas, stenographers and actresses. It is queer to have that kind of thing here in Japan, don't you think? Our girls couldn't come into such mixed company abroad, you know. But we must dance, and there are only these places, this and a few smaller ones in Tokyo; and the management is strict; in fact, I believe they pretend to keep out the geisha element, though I'm sure they wink at their coming so long as they behave themselves. It is really entirely respectable, and our girls are quite all right here so long as we keep to ourselves."

Kent took the hint. He would have liked to have mingled at close range with the others, to venture into the tangle of dazzling, mysterious femininity where your partner of chance might turn out to be a demoiselle of ancient samurai lineage or a motion-picture queen, a stenographer or a geisha. Still, he enjoyed his growing intimacy with the girls in his own party. The fact that they were confined mainly to their own circle brought them together, made it necessary to dance more often with his companions than would otherwise have been the case. He found special pleasure in Kimiko-san. It was his first experience in dancing with a girl in kimono. He enjoyed the strange sense of grasping about the thick, stiff obi; it was something new. He was surprised at her agile vivacity. The orchestra was playing an amazing adaptation of "Zigeunerweisen," stolen almost bodily by the enterprising pseudo-composer, retaining the gipsy fire and sparkle of the original, and she seemed to radiate the electric tingle, the flushing abandon thereof, confusing with the sense of odd contrast of hot, pulsing passion contained within the feudal conventionality of her gorgeous costume.

They sat out the next dance. They were alone at their table. "Do you like to dance with me? Can I dance?" Her eyes flashed at him.

"It is marvelous. It seems so impossible that you can be so wonderful. And in zori; how do you do it?"

She laughed, delighted, looked about. Then she slipped from her small foot, clad in tabi, the mitten-like white silk covering which takes the place of a stocking, a zori, sandal-like flat footgear, held in place by cross bands. She passed it to him in the shadow of the table. "See, it is slit. We have them made especially for dancing."

It seemed almost impossible that this might be such a prosaic thing as a shoe, this dainty, small object in his hand, surfaced with figured crimson and gold brocade, like a precious work of art, with its red silk cross bands.

"It simply adds to the illusion," he told her. "Out of the mysterious Orient has come to me a gorgeous Cinderella slipper."

"Who is Cinderella?"

He explained, tritely and mechanically at first, restrained by the oddness of bringing forth such a puerility. But she was interested, leaned towards him intently. He warmed to the telling. How was it possible that she might be so interested in such a simple thing? A moment ago she had been a woman, palpitating, warm, in his arms. Now she was a child, listening with eager wonder to a fairy tale. What was she; what were they, anyway, these girls,—children or women, or both? He enjoyed her intentness; tried to apply in the telling all the skill and artistry that he could contrive.

"Oh, what a lovely story! I didn't know you could tell stories. You must tell me many more. I love it." She was radiantly delighted. It pleased him immeasurably. It would be a novel thing, a new experience in life, to recall to memory the half-forgotten childhood tales and to dress them up for her, in terms suitable to fanciful Oriental setting, enjoying the tremulous reactions which he might thus cause in this beautiful creature with the clear, innocent mind of a child, clothed in the budding curves of the body of a woman.

They were silent for a moment, then she placed her hand on his arm. "But you still have my zori."

He had forgotten it. It lay in his hand, absurdly small and elegant. "If it were not really necessary for you to have it, I should like to keep it, as a souvenir, a reward for my story."

"But I can't give it to you now, you know," she was smiling, with just a shade of seriousness. "But you shall have your reward, if you really want such a trifling thing as this, for I wish to have many more stories from you. You must see me often and tell me many just like Cinderella."

After that telling stories to Kimiko-san became a regular part of their evenings at Tsurumi. They came often, and he fell into the habit of thinking up his tales in advance, finding his themes among the rich treasures of the West, from mythology and history, folk tale and medieval romance, even from the Old Testament. It amused him to take the essential dramatic values, coloring the action so as to render it understandable to the Japanese mind, dressing the material in Oriental form. Samson became a valiant samurai and Delilah a perfidious geisha. Hercules performed his prodigies in the atmosphere of the legendary Momotaro. He became interested as the thought began to take definite form that here was an idea that he might some day work out into more concrete shape, and in the meantime he enjoyed the breathless interest, the childishly intent response which he always awakened in the girl.

It brought them closer together. Their intimacy became recognized gradually by tacit understanding in their little group. He became her acknowledged cavalier. He wondered at times why this girl had become so much more attractive to him than the elder sister. He was still fond of Tsuyuko-san, but the feeling remained the same, neither increasing nor decreasing, while he sensed that Kimiko-san and he were coming constantly nearer to each other, more intimately parts of each other's thoughts. Could it be that what attracted was in its intrinsic essence the glamor of the East, the charm of the seductive, unknown Orient? The question would come to his mind—were they drifting towards a more definite relation; might not the love element already be germinating, unconsciously developing? He recalled the words of Miss Elliott that these girls were not children, that they were moved and driven by the same passions as those which dominate the more sophisticated women of the West. But he put the thought from him. His moral code was a simple and rigid one. He was married, and he must keep the faith. Even though marriage had been a failure, as long as the bond existed he would play the game. He, at least, would keep his record clean, and while the relation remained there would be no dalliance for him with other women. So in the case of Kimiko-san, as with other women, there could be no question of love relations. There were times when a lingering of her hand, a sidelong glance from dark almond eyes would cause a nervous titillation of agreeable unrest, would quicken his blood, give a flashing hint of something pleasantly, subtly dangerous, but sweet; but it was so evanescent, so intangible. The next moment she would be the gay, virginal child.

He felt that it was rather stupid, an absurd exaggeration of caution; still he had made opportunity to tell her of his wife, in California; but she had not been interested. "Oh, she is far away," had been her only comment, carelessly laughing, with no accentuation of meaning; and she had turned instantly to light chatter of the moment. Quite apparently it meant nothing to her. So the play kept on. He allowed himself to take pleasure from her radiant presence, her beauty, to rest his eye on her flower-like features, dark eyes, to enjoy the slenderness of her fingers, sense the palpitating magnetism of her lithe body and inhale the perfume of her hair, as he held her, swaying, in the rhythm of the dance. He felt pleasure in the thought that he might enjoy all this rich beauty, as one might that of a flower, a butterfly, unvitiated by sordid taint of sex interest.

But his delight in the charm of Kimiko-san did not dull his interest in the others, the great throng of women, shimmering about him in their glimmering silks, unknown, mysterious to him. They piqued his curiosity. He wanted to know who they were, what they were, what were their lives, their thoughts, to come to know them as intimately as did these care-free youths who held them in the dance, chattered gayly with them at the tables. He felt as if he were being withheld from the familiarity of the charmed circle, resented a little the restraint which he was under when he was with Kimiko-san and her sister. Finally he decided that he would come alone. Lüttich seemed to be there always. Through him he would contrive himself to become a part of this marvelously fascinating butterfly whirl of strangely unknown femininity.

So he came alone, one afternoon, and sought out Lüttich.

"I shall be glad to show you about," said the Russian, "but the fact is that I have little time. I am busy. You see, I am here professionally. For the moment, at least, dancing has taken the upper hand over music with young Japan, so I have become a dancing teacher. I have more than I can do. I dance from morning till night, giving lessons. It is not bad. They learn more easily than you would think. Then, when they become a bit proficient, I take them out here; but I must dance with them myself, at first, to give them confidence. A lot of these girls, and men, too, for that matter, are my pupils. So you see I am busy as a matter of duty. N'importe. It pays, and one must live.

"However, let us sit down for a moment. Have a drink." He called a boy. "You want to know who they are. Well, they are a mixed crowd. All kinds; that's part of the charm, is it not? See that pretty young woman over there, just passing the pillar. She is the wife of the Buddhist priest of the big temple on the other side of the hill. The young fellow with her is an American boy in some company in Yokohama. Priestess and office clerk. Odd, isn't it? Bizarre. Still, I daresay mighty few of them realize it, or give it a thought. See that cadaverous Eurasian with his Japanese wife? They are pupils of mine. They dance well, don't they? Well, two years ago they had never danced a step. Now that is all they do; it is their whole life interest, a new step, the latest fox-trot. You can still see when she walks that she has not gotten over the duck-walk that they get from Japanese geta; but you don't see it when she dances. These two have reduced life to terms of fox-trot. That has become their sole standard of measurement; they regard people as good or bad, according to how well they dance."

It was interesting. "Tell me about more of them," said Kent. "I have an absolutely insatiable curiosity."

"I'll do what I can, when I get the chance, but, as I told you——" He caught by the arm a young chap who was passing. "Here, Dick, I want you to look after my friend, Kent. He wants to know some of the girls. Show him about." He turned to Kent. "Dick here can do the honors better than I can. He knows nearly all of them. Duty calls, I am off. Be good."

Dick grinned pleasantly. Kent had noticed him often, a slim, vivacious man of about thirty, always laughing behind his small mustache, radiating effervescent vitality, infectiously bubbling over with joy of life.

"First of all you must know Madame Hirano," he said. "She's the boss. It pays to be on the good side of her. She rules with a hand of iron in a velvet glove, not so much velvet, either, if she should catch you here with a girl too much on the off side. Then she'd give you the quick bounce. She's done it often enough. But she's a good fellow really. Come along over and I'll introduce you."

They went over to a corner where the tyrant had a place of vantage, whence she might survey the entire hall. She was an elderly woman, handsomely dressed. As she sat there, surrounded by a small court of girls from the neighborhood, attached in an indefinite way to the establishment, with her sharp, black eyes constantly roving among the dancers, it was easy to see that here was one of these rather exceptional Japanese women with will power and executive ability; that she was, as Dick had said, the "boss."

She acknowledged the introduction graciously, with the slightest hint of condescension, consciousness of her power. It was evidently in Kent's favor that he was a newspaperman. She told him, annoyedly, of the inimical attitude towards foreign dancing of the Japanese press. They were so stupid, she complained, so old-fashioned. He began to ask her questions about the dancers. She looked at him sharply, as if a bit suspicious. He explained his motive—curiosity—how all these types which were familiar to her were strange to him. He wanted to become acquainted with the new woman of Japan. For instance, he should like to meet some of the motion-picture actresses, a type which seemed so characteristic of the most modern tendencies of the country.

Yes, some of them came here, she acknowledged, but she let it go at that, and gave him no information. He tried to press the subject. A slight, vivacious girl, in a splendid kimono in the black and white checkerboard-like pattern which was fashionable that year, fox-trotted nimbly past them. He had often noticed the passionate pleasure which she took in the dance, the cat-like grace with which she swung her body in intoxicated undulations, clinging to her partner, smiling up to him, teeth flashing in an alluring smile—a Japanese Theda Bara, it seemed to him. There now, he ventured, was undoubtedly a lady of the screen.

"But no," she was shocked, with quick intake of breath. "What a mistake. That is a go-fujin, a lady of good, oh, extremely fine family. Certainly not."

Kent saw he had made a faux pas. He was glad when the cadaverous dance-mad Eurasian led her off into the dance.

Dick was laughing. "You certainly got off on the wrong foot, Kent. I'd better do the honors. I know most of them. I ought to. I have lived here all my life. So, fire away."

It was fascinatingly interesting. He was a complete "Who's Who," able to sketch in a few sentences the entire curriculum vitæ of most of the dancers, go-fujin, actresses, stenographers, married women, rich men's daughters, geisha, girl students, who they were, whence they came, approachable or otherwise. Before them, past them, moved the dancing couples, unconscious of the fact that their lives were being laid bare, their characters stripped, good-naturedly, laughingly, but with a sure, quick touch.

"That girl in pink foreign dress, with pink slippers, that's one of the Thompson girls, Eurasians; father is in silk. They live in Honmoku. There are three of them, but one's married. That one, in red, the one with the pink beads, that's a stenographer with the Standard Oil in Yokohama. Now, that one, with the big, gold obi, I am not quite sure, but I think she is geisha. They say she's from Shimbashi. It is odd, you know, most of the fuss in the Japanese papers has been stirred up by the geisha guilds. They are afraid that if the men get used to foreign dancing, it will raise the devil with the geisha business, that they will come to these dances instead of spending fifty or a hundred yen an evening on geisha. And still the geisha themselves can't keep away from the dance places. The lure has got them, too."

He went on. One after one these elusive, dazzling women, who had so baffled Kent's ventures at guessing, were singled out for brief, concise description, as if they were picked out individually, suddenly, by a searchlight, moving hither and yon in the throng, illuminating each one in intense glare for a moment, then allowing her to slip back into the background of the crowd, as the beam shifted to, rested on, stripped the mystery from another kimono-clad enigma; then moved on to still another.

"Now, there are the Kincaids," he went on. Kent had been curious to know who they were, a middle-aged, quiet American, and a young woman, whose kimono, with its marvelously delicate texture, glorious though subdued luxuriance, was noticeable even in that dazzling kaleidoscope of rich Oriental stuffs. He had taken the man to be some wealthy foreigner, "import and export" man probably, who took pleasure in showering his wealth on this slight, fairy-like beauty, to indulge his fancy by arraying her in constantly changing ornate frames for her enchanting loveliness.

"Kincaid is a teacher in one of the most exclusive girls' schools in Tokyo," Dick was going on. "She was a pupil there, comes from an old samurai family, blood blue as indigo, but family estates, riches, glory, the whole business gone, all but pride, tenacious grasp on the old traditions. She's a beauty, isn't she? Exquisite. Kincaid was smitten. How he ever managed to see her alone is a mystery. It was romance. Imagine yourself, in this day of wireless and gasoline, conducting a courtship after the fashion of feudalism, the infinitely obscure and meaningless minutiæ of the days of the Shogunate. It can't have been anything else. The family must have insisted on it. Kincaid is a deep Oriental scholar. He could do it if any one could. He may even have enjoyed it, taken it as a sort of top examination, a supreme test, if he thought of it in that light. I don't know. Nobody knows just what he went through. But he had the devil's own time. Luckily, he had influential Japanese friends, blue-blooded, too, but modern, and they helped him out. And then the girl was infatuated with him, crazy after him. You know they get all kinds of new ideas, these girls, Socialism, free love, careers of their own, art, literature, foreign husbands, it may be one fad or another, anything. Hers evidently was a foreign husband, or, at least, Kincaid. So at last the family gave in; but that was only half the game. Then came the wedding. It had to be Japanese style, most formal ritual, san san kudo, three times three cups of sake drunk by bride and groom and all that. That didn't bother Kincaid. Probably he liked it. But the expense! You know these high-class Japanese weddings sometimes run up to hundreds of thousands of yen. There are all kinds of expensive gowns for the bride, kimonos, obi, ornaments, God knows what. Then the banquet, hordes of guests, at fifteen, twenty, thirty yen a plate, something like that. And then, finally, the presents. You know in Japan the wedded folk must give return presents, usually about twice the value of those they get. You get married. I give you something utterly useless, a vase, a kakemono, and then you must come back with something quite as useless but worth twice the price. They say it cost Kincaid thirty thousand yen, which wasn't so bad under the circumstances. He spent every yen he had. That was over two years ago, and they are still saving, paying off their wedding debts, living in a couple of rooms. She does most of the housework, but they are both happy. You can see it. He gets his pleasure taking her here and there, his prize, in her wonderful kimonos, the trousseau, intensely proud of her; and she adores him. Look at her. Her eyes are always on him. She has realized her dream; he has his. No room for regret, no thought of it. Romance, the new, modern West and the age-old East, they have become one. So it works sometimes."

The orchestra blared into a new dance. Dick went off for a partner somewhere in the other end of the hall. Kent leaned back, summarizing, trying to classify his new knowledge. In a way the glib explanations, the reduction into terms of commonplace of these people, these women, dimmed the picture a little, detracted from its attraction of being unknown; still, he had had but a glimpse behind the veil. What he had learned would but serve to initiate him further, to penetrate more deeply, to insinuate himself more intimately into this attractive, strange world of utterly foreign thoughts, fashions, modes of life.

Behind him, in the garden outside, staring through the open windows, a fringe of Japanese, the ordinary folk who found their pleasures in the slides, and swings and other marvels of the park, were discovering rare entertainment in watching the dancers, the strange new foreign custom of women, gentlewomen at that, dancing together with, in the arms of, men. Abstractedly he listened to their churlish comment.

"They have the luck, these chaps," a burly fellow of the rickshaw man type nudged his friend. "For two yen they can put their arms about these girls, pretty girls, ladies. It's cheaper and better fun than playing with geisha."

The voice of a woman cut in; her hair, dressed high, with a great, heavily oiled knot, proclaimed that she was married. "I don't like it. It's dirty."

A girl sitting next to Kent laughed. She had noticed that he had caught the remark. "Funny, isn't it?" she remarked to him. He aroused himself from his thoughts. He had not noticed her. It was the priestess. She chatted on. He had not been introduced, but, would she dance? Why, certainly; he was a friend of Dick's. So he found himself in the midst of the whirl, enjoying the thought that he, himself, had now become part of this bewildering inconsistency, fox-trotting with a Buddhist priestess, absurd, amusing, but delectable. She danced with full-bodied enjoyment, chatting vivaciously, with a nimble, flash-like wit. When they had returned to their seats, he led her to tell him about the others. She knew them well, as did Dick, but he enjoyed her characterizations, the Japanese point of view.

The full-figured Eurasian girl, whose dreamy voluptuosity had attracted his attention the first night, when he had been with the Suzuki girls, passed in the dance, nodded over her partner's shoulder to the priestess.

"Do you know that girl? I hear she is a motion-picture actress?"

"Naruhodo," she was noncommittal. "Yes, I see her often here. I have spoken to her."

"Then introduce me, please. I know so few people here."

She hesitated for a moment, overcame her doubts. "All right, come."

The dance had finished. The girl was sitting at one of the large tables, with two or three other girls and some young foreigners. He hesitated in his turn. It was a bit awkward. Still, the die had been cast. He must see it through. The priestess laid her hand on his sleeve. "This is Mr. Kent. He wants to meet you."

The girl nodded to him slightly, looking at him, her big eyes wide in surprise. The others at the table stared. Utter silence. He wished he were a hundred miles away. But he was in for it. "Please, Miss ——" Hang it, the priestess had not even given her name. He slid over it. "I am quite strange here. I wonder if you would be kind enough to give me a dance?"

"I am sorry. My dances are all taken." The others still stared. He bowed. The priestess was already in retreat. He trailed after her, to the corner of the lady tyrant. Damn it. He bit his lip in resentment. Who was she, this Eurasian, to hold herself too high, too precious, as if he were not good enough for her? Still, of course, the girl was right. What a fool he was immediately to think of race, when he had always insisted, did, in fact, maintain that he had no race prejudice. Good for her, whoever she might be. But he had been an ass. He had made a bad beginning.

Dick appeared. Kent told him. He laughed. "By Jove, but that's funny. You do need a guardian. The moment I leave you, you start adventuring on your own. That's a very respectable girl, a stenographer in Tokyo, nice parents, you know. She's no motion-picture lady. You can't do like that. If you are so anxious to meet the motion-picture folk, why didn't you tell me. The fact is that there are a couple right here. I had sort of a halfway date with them. Come on. We'll take them to dinner down in one of the tea houses below in the park. You eat Japanese chow, don't you?"

The two girls were at a table at the farther end of the hall. He had noticed them often. One of them, the elder, he had guessed to be professional of some sort, theatrical, because of her kimono, a bit too bright, and especially her unusual coiffure, after some eccentric foreign fashion, in a mode which he had never seen, a sort of high, long cone, reminiscent of an Assyrian helmet, which showed to advantage her luxuriant hair, black with a faint tinge of chestnut, effective, but odd. The other was one of the girls who had eluded classification. She had puzzled him, with her large, voluptuous mouth, slow smile showing teeth which might really be described as pearly, but with her quiet manner, almost diffident, giving the lie to those sensuous lips.

"O-Tsuru-san. Kin-chan." There was no trouble over these introductions. The girls laughed, made room at the table. "No," said Dick. "It's time to eat. Let us go below."

The tea house was typically Japanese. They slipped off their shoes and squatted down at a low table, on zabuton. The girls were at ease, friendly. He felt as if he had known them for years. Kin-Chan, the elder, evidently lived for excitement. She drank continuously. "Dick-san," she complained, "we should have had a koku-tail before we came down here, but, never mind, we'll have some by-and-by."

She chattered incessantly, flitting from subject to subject, light gossip of Tokyo, dancing, acting, kimono styles, fashions in rings—she let it be known that she was fond of rubies set in platinum—places to go to, hot spring resorts, how she liked foreigners, the wiles of geisha. It amused him to listen to her. As they went back to the dance hall, up the hill, she leaned on his arm confidentially. The perfume from her hair came to him pleasantly. He inhaled it, enjoying it, and her warm, close presence, the bewildering chatter affording flash-like glimpses of the mind of an engaging phase of modern feminine japan.

As they danced, she chattered on, touched on this subject and that, one thought crowding away the other before it had been more than half expressed, giving him a sense as were he surrounded, enveloped, in an aura of bright, strange, girlish musings, a glimmering of myriad fragmentary ideas, oddly, entrancingly interesting. He was beginning to learn what lay inside these budding breasts under the tensely tightened kimono silks—at last.

The other girl said little, smiled, with glimmer of white teeth behind her full, soft lips, but she seemed to absorb her pleasure by feeling it, through the senses, silently. Little by little he tried to induce her to tell about herself. Was she, too, a motion-picture actress? Oh, no! She went to higher school. She lived with her parents.

He mentioned it to Dick, in English. It was delightfully safe, even right in front of the girls.

"She's a liar," said Dick bluntly. "She's an actorine of some sort at the Imperial. Probably a minor one. I don't know. But in a way she's my girl, for the present. She probably wants to throw you off, to hold you off. They have more guile than you think, these girls, behind all their childishness."

So Kin-chan, Little-Gold, fell to Kent, and he saw the girls home, to Tokyo, as Dick lived in Yokohama. He enjoyed Kin-chan, arranged with her to come to Tsurumi again. After that, when the Suzukis could not come, she was often his companion.

He found constant pleasure in studying her thoughts, in seeing Japan, Japanese life, through Japanese eyes; learned that in her he might experience a frankness which could never be obtained from the men. It was evident that she liked him. At times she even quite openly encouraged him, as if she were impatient with his slowness in response. As they became more intimate, she told, without reserve, of her life. Impatience at the drudgery and bonds of a lower middle-class family. Then she had begun to go to foreign motion-picture shows. At first it had been the pictures of foreign children which had taken her fancy. Kawaii; they were so dear! So she had run away, to Yokohama, where there were many foreigners. She had wanted to take care of children. Then, after a while, she had become an actress.

Gradually, as their friendship became older, she gave more detail. He was amazed at the frankness with which she displayed to him her intimate life. At last, one evening when they were alone in a discreet little tea house in Tokyo to which she had taken him—she had become his wondrously efficient guide into the innermost mazes of the great rambling metropolis—she threw an arm about his neck, as they were sitting at a window, looking out over the roofs and told him about herself.

It was a girl friend who had persuaded her to come to Yokohama, and she had taken her to a house, a bad house, where foreigners came. She had been frightened, she had cried. She had wanted to return home; but she was afraid of the parents. And it had been a nice class of foreigners who had come there. They had treated her courteously, been kind to her, kinder than the Japanese men had been at home. So—shikataganai, it couldn't be helped. But she had hated it. She had stayed only a few months. She had learned to be independent. And then luck had come her way. One of the foreigners, who was in Japan selling American films, had obtained employment for her with a Japanese company which made pictures. Oh, that wasn't the end; she smiled bitterly. The Japanese men were just like the rest, one must let them have their way if one would succeed. "But now I have succeeded, and I can be independent of them. And I am. There are only half a dozen real Japanese stars, and I am one of them. Pictures of me go abroad. I get two hundred yen a month."

It surprised him, the wage, so infinitesimally small as compared with the fortunes harvested by the Pickfords, the Chaplins, in the United States. Why?

"Oh, it is these Japanese men. They never want to give us women a chance. They won't advertise our names. They won't feature us, as they do in America. They are afraid that then we should get popular and ask for more money." But she was impatient at the interruption. This phase of the matter was not what she wanted to dwell on. "I don't like Japanese men. They don't treat us nicely, courteously, as do you foreigners. If they do, it is only in the beginning. In the end, very soon, they are all the same. I like foreigners. I am not a bad girl any more. I never wanted to be. But, sometimes I feel that I should like a sweetheart, a foreign sweetheart, who would love me, as foreigners do, and be good to me——" The clasp of the arm about his neck tightened. The fragrance from her hair, the subtle, evanescent perfume which he delighted in, which had become to him characteristic of her, became overpoweringly sweet. She would be his. She was his now, if he cared to take her. They were tempting, these Japanese girls, with their quaint, childlike ways, unsophisticated, even though this one had passed through the mud. The charm of the Japanese women! Kimiko-san flashed into his mind. It was difficult to hold out against their seductiveness. Still, he had made up his mind to play the game with his wife. And yet? He felt that he was hovering. How deliciously soft she was as she clung to him, closer.

The sliding door behind them clattered. A maid came in. The tenseness dissipated. It was like a shock in its suddenness. Trite common sense came back to him, over him, like a shower of cold water, irritating, but dominatingly. By Cæsar, it had been a close call.

CHAPTER VII

The return to Tokyo of Sylvia Elliott at this very time seemed an especially kind dispensation of Providence. Kent had seen practically nothing of her since his arrival in Japan. In his eagerness to immerse himself in the Japanese life, to steep himself therein, he had felt as if he had no time for intermingling with the foreign element, had almost resented its intrusion where he had not been able to avoid it. The whites, Americans, British, French and the rest were, after all, commonplace, incapable of affording the stimulus of the new, the attraction of the unknown, the piquancy of the constant zest to peek and penetrate beyond the mysteries behind the shoji. He had known people like that all his life; now, in Japan, he wanted to be with the Japanese; in that way only was it possible to attain to the full the charm of living in a foreign country, strange, picturesque, exotic, to taste with the critical appreciation with which a connoisseur sips a rare vintage, in slow sips, the impressions and sensations derivable from the colorful life stirring all about him.

And then she had been in the country most of the time, on sketching tours in the mountain regions about Nikko, Chuzenji, Ikao. He had noted with half-attentive curiosity that in spite of his instinctive avoidance of the foreign element he was pleased to see her again, that she formed an exception. As he came to see her more often, he was surprised, delighted, that instead of intruding as a discordant note in the symphony of life which he was trying to compose by blending his life in tune to his surroundings, she fitted herself into it, even enhanced his pleasure therein. She had the capacity for enjoyment, the appreciative understanding of the essential soul of Japan, which is so rare with foreign women, who, though their eye for beauty admits and even admires the charm of carved temple gate, or picturesquely gnarled pine projecting from rocky crag, stop short with the externals, refuse to extend sympathetic understanding to the people themselves, the Japanese, blinded by the instinctive resentment of the white woman at the competitive charm of womankind of another race. She had none of that. As he did, so she chose to overlook the blots that they might not disturb her enjoyment of the colors. Possibly it was that the artist in her was stronger than the woman. He concluded that it must be so—but what was the difference! He found that when he was with her, delight in the discovery of beauty, of landscape, a bit of garden, the harmonious blending of color in a woman's dress, or even a beautiful face, became heightened, keener, as if concentrated, more clearly defined, through the doubled capacity for appreciation of two minds which functioned harmoniously as one.

For a while they saw much of each other, were constantly together on expeditions into the surrounding country, or, oftener, on haphazard rambles through remote quarters of the great, labyrinthic capital, voyages of discovery in unknown streets where every turn of the road might lead to new adventure, or bizarre incident which might be added to the treasures in their common storehouse of memories. They delighted to lose themselves entirely in some section unfrequented by foreigners, where one might wander about through the whole day without seeing a white face, and then to exercise their ingenuity in finding their way precariously through the maze to some guiding landmark.

"My God, if my wife had only been like that," or rather, he hastened to amend the thought, if only Isabel had been with him and he might have taught her, guided her to become like this. But instantly his intelligence interrupted disturbingly; Isabel couldn't. She would be like the majority of the women, instinctively antagonistic, magnifying the stupidity of a cook, the petty rascality of a peddler to the point where they warped her entire view of all Japan. It persisted as a voice clamoring at him, and he forced himself to try to think otherwise, as if he might, by forced violence of the voice of his will, over-shout, drown utterly the insistent sardonic irony of his intelligence.

So he came to compel himself to resist the thought, to think of other matters, politics, money, even to work out in his head mathematical problems. But it was difficult at times. After a day with Sylvia, permeated with her presence, returning through winding lanes, past bamboo fences, when the thrill of cicadas mingled with the whimper of unseen samisen, and the moonlight transformed the world into a glamorous black-and-white tracery of silhouetted branches, sharply drawn roof-tree contours standing out against a translucent sky, his entire being would be singing within him, and he would step lightly, head thrown back, whistling, enamored with the world, with life.

And then like a pang, sharply, suddenly, like a stitch in the side, would snap into his brain the inspiration of the devil: "Why all this gayety?" It was as if the damnable thought took shape, personified itself into a hideous, leering, grinning imp, with an insidious wink. "You fool, of course, you are in——" But he was used to it, was on guard, too quick for the imp; would fling him a mental kick, indignantly, "Shut up, of course, I am not, you beast." But again, "It is no use. You can't deceive me. You can't even deceive yourself. You know damned well that you are in——" Would come again violation of his thoughts to calculation of algebra, enumeration of bills due at the end of the month, any beastly thing. He had even tried to think tenderly of Isabel, to recall the high lights of courtship, red-letter days of early marriage, to try to conjure a reluctant hope, to compel himself to wish that she might come back to him, make another attempt to blow into flame the ashes of dead love.

For, of course, he did not love Sylvia. He snapped his defiance back into the teeth of the grinning satyr-face popping forth, irritatingly, from the corners of his mind. He did not love her—with thought of her came weakness, softness—at least, he could not love her, would not. It was impossible; not to be thought of. So long as he was married to Isabel, he would play the game, keep his side of the slate clean, not place himself in the wrong. Popped into his mind an incident of a few days before. He had been dancing with Sylvia at a tea dance at the Imperial Hotel. The orchestra leader, slim, debonair, one of these men who seem capable of radiating vitality, joy of life, had been singing, eyes flashing across the length of his fiddle, leaning forward towards the couples swaying to his rhythm before him, infusing them with his flame. It had been a trivial thing, one of the myriad of new fox-trots which spring forth like lush weeds, the words utterly banal. As Hugh was passing, he had glanced up, his eyes had met those of the happy fiddler for the flash of a moment, and as he sang the words, the silly, inane stuff, "When you play the game of love, are you playing fair," he had laughed to him. It seemed almost as if there had been the slightest suggestion of a knowing wink, conveying the suggestion that he, the fiddler, was sharer of a secret between the two, and as if he had, friendlily insinuating, tilted his head toward Sylvia. Even at the moment, Kent had been certain that it was all a play of imagination, a trumpery pleasantry sardonically contrived by his accursed imp familiar, but the thing had stuck in his mind with absurdly exaggerated force.

Confound it! It was exactly the opposite thing. He was playing fair. There was not even suggestion of a game of love, of love at all. Platonic love, then? It was almost as if the suggestion had been shouted at him; he could even perceive the ring of sarcastic intonation, the incredulous sneer with which the world usually accompanies the phrase. It made him angry. Why that stupid sneer? Why, after all, should not platonic love be possible? To swine no, of course not. But he did not expect to be a swine, was not one, in fact. If the majority, the ruck of humanity, were too gross to conceive of the possibility, the worse for them. That was none of his affair. He could be, he was capable of intimate association with a beautiful woman unblemished by thought, suggestion, even hint of sex.

The idea came to please him. It seemed capable of placing at an end the indefinite suggestiveness of his thoughts, reduced the whole matter to a concrete basis, the definitiveness of something recognized as an existing phenomenon. His mind became easier. Might flash before him a glimpse of what Karsten, for instance, would say should he have divined his conclusion. He saw in his mind's eye the friendly irony of his indulgent smile. Karsten was not unimaginative, just the contrary: still he had dulled fineness of perception by over-indulgence in affairs of love. History had examples of it, Dante and Beatrice, and Petrarch and Laura, and—— For the moment he could think of no others. Instantly the imp. "Damned rare, eh!" He snapped his fingers. What was the difference; the rarer, the more precious.

So he drifted on, more happily, more at peace with himself; felt that he might safely, without feeling of guilt or apprehension, continue in this delightful relation; need not studiously, conscientiously confine himself to enjoying only the mind, the sympathy of thought with this woman, but might allow himself, continently, to find pleasure in the play of light on her hair, in letting his eye rest with satisfied appreciation on the curve of her cheek, the contour of her svelte figure. Life was being good to him. Even if an inspiration of a moment might pounce upon him when least expected, "What if there had been no Isabel?" He had gotten himself in hand now; his course was set, he had but to steer watchfully, carefully, but, after all, safely.

And then, just as he had contrived to reduce his problem to safe and definite tangibility, the whole thing dissipated, shattered abruptly into a baffling void as does a glorious, iridescent bubble shimmering brilliantly in the sunlight suddenly vanish into utter nothingness without Visible cause or agency. She became elusive. The accustomed places saw her no more. On rare occasions he might run across her, but the circumstances were almost inauspicious,—a meeting on the Ginza, at the Imperial, always with a background of entirely inconsequential persons irritatingly intruding their irritating presence. Even when he might manage to attain an occasional moment alone with her, nothing was gained. She was not cold, not even formal, but without appearing to wish to avoid him, she contrived to do so. There were always reasons, each one manifestly valid, why she could not accept this or that invitation. There were no more rambles together, no more dances. He marveled at the skill with which she maintained the appearance of continuance of the old friendliness and yet erected, with deft sureness, an invisible barrier. He felt like a fly dashing itself against a clear pane of glass, hopelessly frustrated by the unsurmountable opposition of the invisible. What the devil could be the matter? He racked his brain, trying to seek a cause, to recall whatever incident, some error of omission or commission, careless or clumsy phrase, but always with the same result. He could think of nothing; there was nothing. And she was manifestly not capricious, not a flirt endeavoring to season more highly a man-woman relationship by the spurious artifices of coquetry. It was disquieting, irritating, maddening. What a damnable capacity for torment was possessed by even the best of women! Was that one of the traits of the eternal feminine, an unescapable remnant of the Old Eve, just as all men must have in them some trace of the Old Adam? Probably the phenomenon was nothing very intricate or perplexing to men who knew women, who had experience in diagnosing such symptoms. He had never envied Karsten; had rather been inclined to pity him as one who had dulled his capacity for enjoyment of the best things in female companionship by over-indulgence; still, for the purposes of this occasion, at least, he wished that he possessed his facility with women, whatever advantages his experience might give him for grappling with such problems.

Then, Karsten came to his aid unexpectedly. They were smoking after dinner. Nothing much was being said. Karsten was wandering up and down the floor, chewing the stem of his pipe. Suddenly he blurted out, apropos of nothing whatever, pipe-stem waving in the direction of Kent:

"I say, Kent, mind you, I am not trying to intrude on your affairs, but, I just wonder, have you ever mentioned to Miss Elliott anything about your wife, anything about your being married?"

"What? What's that?" He was gaping at him surprised, fish-like. "I say, old man, what in the devil are you driving at, anyway?"

He had been thinking of Sylvia just then, forcing his mind to travel wearily over the same old ground, trying to discover some tangible foothold from which to gain his way out from the baffling intangibility, the vagueness of it all. Karsten's question was right in line with his thoughts, fitted in as a marvelously apposite thing, as if he had been trying to work out a fretwork puzzle and Karsten had, by some surprising intuition, dumped before him one of the pieces for which he had been looking to effect the solution. He shook himself together. It seemed as if he must know something, have some idea, anyway, some kind of factor which might aid in puzzling it all out.

He repeated, "And what are you driving at, anyway?" Absurdly, he felt his chest contracting, the pulses in his temples swelling. He had no business to be so excited.

"Well, I was wondering. I came across the fag end of a bit of gossip to-day at the Imperial. Old Mrs. Tinker, the chief lady cat, you know, called me over to her table, at tea. She doesn't usually so favor me, you know. She's had enough to say about my foibles, what she could find out and what she could imagine. But she simply couldn't contain herself. She had just gotten hold of something that was too good to keep, that she must get off her chest to some one, any one, I fancy, and then I was your friend. I must have been just like a find. Maybe the old lady has some kind of rudimentary, perverted sense of the dramatic—or she may have hoped to get something more in the way of detail out of me. Anyway, she was full with it right up to the neck. She couldn't even show a bit of finesse. She just blurted it at me. She knew, of course, that you were a great friend of mine, and of Sylvia Elliott's, and that you were a man of honor, a gentleman. She took pains to repeat that, several times. But she wondered, she said, 'You know I'm an old woman,' she said, and God knows, she spoke the truth for once in her life. She wondered, the dear old soul, whether you had realized that with a young, innocent girl like Sylvia—And then it came again, like a refrain; she kept saying it, she must have said it a dozen times, 'I am an old woman, you know,' but she wondered, the foul old beast, whether you could really perceive the seriousness of it, the woeful consequences of toying with the affections of an 'innocent girl.' You know how such an old woman can say it so it becomes almost an insult. Good God, even the worst of us have a pride in taking the innocence of such a girl for granted, but such an old cat can contrive to use the term with the most insidious innuendo. Why the devil do our absurd rules of conduct prevent one from kicking an old beast like that. I felt like doing it more than I've ever done it with respect to any man. But there I must stand, deferentially, with a teacup waving in my hand, with a show of courtesy, while she meandered on. You know, it strikes me that such an absolutely useless old woman, an encumbrance on earth, with no apparent purpose than that of making it a worse place to live in for all the rest of us, can, while employing apparently all the ordinary polite phraseology of courteous intercourse, produce more of an effect of the most vicious foulness than can the most common harlot or the roughest obscenity of a salt-water second mate. By the gods, it seems to me——"

"Yes, and when you get through cussing old lady Tinker, I'd be obliged to know what the deuce it was all about." Generally Kent enjoyed Karsten's vivid circumambience, but now it seemed to him almost irritatingly studied, as if the other were playing him, like a fish. "Get on with your tale." He felt that the elusive thing, the explanation which he had been ransacking heaven and earth for, was at last within hand's reach.

"Yes, of course, I beg your pardon. Well, the long and the short of it was that the old girl had been informed that you had not told—that you had taken pains not to tell, was the way she put it, with that sickly, kindly, leering smile which she affects—that you were married. Oh, yes, she had just heard of it. And I was a friend of yours, and didn't I think that we older people—the smile again—just like that, she and I in the same category, hand in hand—I'd given a thousand yen for the privilege of heaving my tea in her face, hot tea—but would it not be best if you were spoken to about it, given a hint, though—you could see the satisfaction she got from spitting forth the full load of venom she had been gathering from the start—she was happy to know that Miss Elliott had been informed, fully informed, from a reliable source, most reliable, in fact, from the very source from which she, herself, had her information.

"And then she let me go. It must have seemed a good day's work to her, letting loose that bit of trouble on the world. I can imagine her sitting at home now, with her cat, or her parrot or whatever she has got, and turning that bit of mischief over in her mind, cocking her head on one side and scheming how she may elaborate on it, add a few details, artistic touches, and where she may carry her tale to-morrow where it may have the most effect. And, by the way, I wondered at the time who her source of information might be, and it struck me—she had just been sitting with that red-headed Wilson girl from the American Auto Company, the two of them with their heads together thick as thieves—I was wondering whether she might not be the serpent. Do you know her?"

So that was it. For the moment Kent was confused by a clash of conglomerate emotions; relief that, petty as the whole thing was, he at least knew now the exact state of affairs, had gained a foothold whence he might find his way out of the wilderness of uncertainty—and then, on the other hand, the abominable, spiteful malignity of that girl, that Wilson individual. Flashed into his mind the incident at the dance on board the Tenyo Maru, and his intuitive premonition that from the incidentally aroused enmity of this woman would come eventually a venomous sting of malice.

Oh, the damned——cat. He felt that he had never so absolutely detested, utterly contemned a woman. "Yes, I know her. I chanced—she was such a wantonly malicious beast—to offend her on the Tenyo. Karsten, for what inscrutable reason does Providence create such women and allow them to cumber the earth?"

"And why not?" The other shrugged his shoulders. "The question arises with all kinds of women. Have you not at times, when you have fortuitously chanced on some woman, some seductive beauty who by the mere contact of a moment, glance of an eye, soft murmur of a few words, smashes down whatever defenses you may have laboriously contrived against being enveloped in the net of the charm of women—and then, when quietude of mind, the state of being tranquil, at peace, normal, is, against your will, in spite of all you may do, abruptly shattered, and when you feel yourself again racked in the nervous tension of desire, passion, love, whatever you may call it—have you not then, Kent, found yourself asking God whatever can be His intention in letting loose upon earth women like that whose sole purpose seems to be to steal away from men what little chance they may have of being at peace? And as it is with that kind, I suppose it is with the others, the plain women, envious, malicious, mischief-making. What can be the purpose of their existence, unless it is to counterbalance those others, to add the other ingredient with which it has pleased Providence to contrive this madhouse of conflicting elements of humanity which make up this world."

But Kent was paying no attention. What the deuce could he do? He felt that now, when he had through fortuitous good fortune obtained the solution of the riddle, his problem should have been almost solved; but, incongruously, he seemed to have made no headway whatever. Now, what should he do? His brain seemed to be void, to be incapable of functioning. The feeling that Karsten was watching him, was expecting him to pursue the subject, to carry on with it, made him feel uncomfortable, irritated him, as if Karsten had been insistently curious.

"I wonder what the Cabinet intends to do about the Russian policy question." The remark escaped him almost involuntarily. He might as well, he felt, have suggested a query as to what the weather was likely to be the day after to-morrow, anything, however irrelevant. The fierce pudicity which causes a man to shrink from having bared before the eyes of another man the intimate processes of his affections, made him wish, desperately, to steer Karsten to some other subject. He repeated it nervously, and even as he was speaking he felt the futility thereof. "Now, I wonder what the Cabinet will do?"

"Yes, what will the Cabinet do?" Karsten was leaning back in his chair, regarding him ironically. "Oh, hell!" He turned and went over to fill his pipe.

And, now he had driven Karsten away from the subject, it came to Kent that that was just what he did not want to do. His own brain was as inert as mud. Suddenly he was overcome with need for advice, sympathy, with the desire to discuss the thing, talk it over, to get a helping hand to swing his mind over the dead-center where it was now hanging.

"I wish I knew what to do." He blurted it out. Even that—to get the thing articulated, to place it in form of words—seemed to make an advance, to make it more concrete. "Now, what can I do to set myself right with Sylvia?"

"You love her?" Rather than a question, it seemed like the seeking of definite confirmation, for the purpose of establishing a postulate for further logical treatment of the problem. Of course, that wouldn't do. The uneasy sense of evasion, of making the very beginning with what—he could not evade it—was not essentially true, irritated him. He snapped back, "No, of course, not." The harsh abruptness of his tone grated in his own ears. That was no way to talk to a man who was, after all, offering sympathy, a friend. He hastened to smooth it over.

"I like her. I am extremely fond of her. I think more of her than of any other woman, except——" He had been about to say "my wife," but he caught himself, disgusted at the facility with which he had almost slid into smug hypocrisy. "I am fond of her, I say; I place every possible value on her friendship, yes, platonic friendship, if you please." He glared at Karsten, ready for fierce rejoinder, anticipating ironic drawing of the mouth, incredulous gesture.

But Karsten let it pass. "And what have you yourself thought of doing?"

"But, hang it, man, that's just it. What the devil can I do? If she were a sweetheart of mine, if there had been any sort of a love relation, or even the possibility of the establishment of one, the potentiality existing when a man who is free, marriageable, has been on terms of fairly intimate friendship with a woman, then I might reasonably go to her and make some kind of explanation. But now, what can I do? I can't go up to her and say, 'Here, my dear, I am sorry if I've overlooked telling you that I'm married. I'm sorry if I've caused you to have futile expectations'—or just go up to her and remark, quite casually, 'Oh, by the way, you know I have a wife.' I fancy that if I had the wit, the experience that you have, for instance, I might manage to contrive some subtle means, something to set this thing straight, for, honestly—you'll have to take my word for it—what I have said about the whole thing being just friendship is absolutely and literally true."

"Just like with a man?"

"Yes, just like with a man."

"Then, that's the answer. Treat the affair just as if she were a man. If gossip had placed you in a false position with a man, you would go to him, wouldn't you, and have a straight talk with him? Why can't you give a woman, a woman whom you think so much of, credit for having as much broadmindedness, intelligence, as a man? You hint about my experience with women, about subtleties. Listen, if you will take advice from the depths of my ignorance, I will tell you one thing—and it is something that I was stupid enough not to discover for years—the sort of thing that is so obvious that you pass right over it without seeing it—which is that with women, at least the right sort of women, the best course, the only sensible course, is to tell them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To some men, those who think that in dealing with women one requires some specially intricate means, that would seem the very culmination of subtlety, but it is, I am earnestly convinced, the one and only way."

Yes, it sounded easy. He ruminated, turned the suggestion over and over. The theory seemed all right, but when he came to translate it into action, when he came to think of how he would approach her, how he would open the subject, what he would say, it became utterly impractical, impossible.

Karsten read his mind. "Yes, I know that it is easy to give advice in such matters and quite another thing to carry out the suggestion. But the only thing for you to do is to keep turning the thing over in your mind, familiarize yourself with the idea. Then, gradually, as the strangeness thereof wears away, when it no longer stuns your brain with the impact of something astounding, precipitate, you will find it becoming more rational to you. Eventually you may find that working out the thing becomes fairly natural, even relatively easy. What is there about it that sticks you, anyway?"

"Blessed if I know; no one particular point, the whole thing more or less. I know how I myself have always been able to see just what the other chap should do, how it has irritated me often to see some fellow pursue an absolutely foolish course with respect to some woman, doing exactly what he shouldn't do, purblind to the absolutely obvious. I have felt like taking him by the shoulder and saying, 'Here, Tom, Dick, or Bill, or whoever you may be, can't you see, you fool, that what this particular girl wants is this, that, or the other. It is like watching a chess game. The onlooker sees the approaching mate much sooner than the man who is playing the game. And in this kind of a thing another can't possibly see into, or appreciate just what is going on in the other chap's mind; estimate the infinitely fine manifestations, the super-delicate emotional vibrations so imperceptible that the man himself can only barely feel them without being able to analyze them. And, for one thing, I think just one of the flaws in your theory is that the premises are not altogether well taken. You say, 'If the relation is just like that of man with man, then treat it like that.' And in a way it is; but then again, in another way it isn't. It can't be. With a man the idea of sex relation is necessarily absent, but with a woman, even when neither has it in mind at all, it cannot be avoided altogether, ignored. Take this case. I'm sure that I never thought of it. In fact, I'm sure that she never thought of it either. The very circumstance that quite likely I never did mention my wife, that I've not the slightest recollection whether I ever did so or not, shows, doesn't it, that my mind was entirely free from the idea. So, with a man, there would be no problem at all; but with a woman, with Sylvia, no matter how delicately I approach the matter, the suggestion must come into evidence that one fears, one thinks, that she must, to some extent at least, have had in mind the fact that she is a woman and I a man. It is virtually as if one said, 'Here, I'm afraid that you may not be quite clear that this is purely a friendly relation, that sex doesn't enter into it.' Damn it, I can't express the thought without getting it into phrases that are blunt, clumsy; but you get the idea, don't you? I'm hanged if I can see how I could do it without becoming positively insulting.

"And then there's another thing, something that really hurts me more than any other phase of it all, and that is, Why should a girl like Sylvia, clean, sweet-minded, sensible, be affected by a thing like that? It is almost as if she, in fact, did suspect me of having really had in the back of my mind all the time some such insidious intention. And still, I am absolutely sure that she cannot have. By the gods, Karsten, the ways of women are something absolutely inscrutable to me."

"Oh, that's simple enough. It takes no mysterious knowledge of sex to explain that. Use your common sense, man. I'll admit that that struck me also, for a moment, and I was a bit disappointed in her; but, if you reason for a moment, it is plain enough. It's not that, not with Sylvia. It is nothing to her whether you mentioned your wife or not, whether you have a wife or not. She's not the kind of a girl who looks upon every male who is fortuitously thrown in her way as a potential husband, whose entire scheme of existence is bound up in the idea of ensnaring a provider. And I'm sure that she cannot believe that you had any philandering in mind. Trust a woman for that, especially one so delicately constituted as Sylvia. And even the most stupid ones, any woman, since it is part of the very essence of being a woman, knows instinctively, by intuition, when the sex element, however subtly, is hovering about. No, what has affected Sylvia, the reason why she keeps you at arm's length, is the manner in which the thing has been presented to her. Can't you imagine the insidious, slimy suggestiveness of that Wilson individual, coming to her with her, 'You really ought to know, my dear'; how noisome the mere idea must have been to her that any one, the Wilson thing, all the rest of the gossips, were turning this thing over and over on their salacious tongues, this innocent, patently clean relation existing between her and you. It must have been immeasurably offensive to her, intolerable. Put yourself in her place for a moment. Probably she may have been as reluctant as you are to give up this pleasant friendship. But what could she do? Being a woman, hedged in by the myriad conventions which tie up a woman's freedom of action much more than they do a man's, she'd find herself in an even more difficult position than that which you are in and which puzzles you so. No, old man, that's all plain enough; and if you find that you can't bring yourself to take the bull by the horns and talk it out with her, why, the only thing you can do is to let the thing rest for the time being. Neither seek her nor evade her. Don't increase her difficulties by asking her to go about with you; to a girl so essentially honest and honorable it must be extremely annoying to be forced to resort to the small lies, the petty prevarications of convention, to invent excuses—but don't evade her either. Be as courteous, friendly and frank as ever, and, above all, be natural. As time passes the gossips will find other victims and eventually you can, if you are careful, tactful, drift back into the old relation. Yes, it's rotten, isn't it, that in this world such damnable machinations as breaking up a clean, beautiful relation as that between you and Sylvia can be possible, and that it can be carried out triumphantly, in the name of purity, of virtue. By the gods, I think at times that if the prudes were less busy, the world might be a much cleaner place to live in."

Karsten was right. Kent felt an intense gratitude to him for having dispelled thus surely, by the incontrovertible logic of plain sense, the rankling doubt that had assailed him, strive as he might against it, about Sylvia. It placed the whole situation in a much better light. Sylvia was all right. The essence of the relation between them had not been vitiated. All this was but the disturbing echo of something from outside, annoying, distressing, but in the end surely ineffectual. So he would follow Karsten's advice. Everything would come out all right.