The endless files of lean pack-horses, laden with bags of rice and other provisions, the ruddy s.e.xless girls who lead them, and the women who have been foraging for wood and come down from the mountain with enormous f.a.ggots on their bent shoulders, provide a foreground for the Chuzenji landscape.

Geoffrey was sleeping upstairs in his bedroom. Yae was sleeping downstairs on the sofa. He had expected her to return to the hotel after lunch, but her att.i.tude was that of "_J'y suis, j'y reste_."

He awoke with a start to find the girl standing beside his bed.

Afterwards he became sure that he had been awakened by the touch of soft fingers on his face.

"Wake up, big captain," she was saying. "It is four o'clock, and the Ark's coming."

"What Ark?" he yawned.

"Why, the Emba.s.sy boat."

Out of sheer devilry, Miss Smith waited for the arrival of Lady Cynthia. The great lady paid no more attention to her existence than if she had been a piece of the house. But she greeted Geoffrey most cordially.

"Come for a walk," she said in her abrupt way.

As they turned down the village street she announced:

"The worst has happened--I suppose you know?"

"About Reggie?"

"Yes; he's actually engaged to be married to the creature. Has he told you?"

"In the greatest confidence."

"Well, he forgot to bind his young lady to secrecy. She has told everybody."

"Can't he be recalled to London?"

"The old man says that would just push him over the edge. He has talked of resigning from the service."

"Is there anything to be done?"

"Nothing! Let him marry her. It will spoil his career in diplomacy, of course. But he will soon get tired of her fooling him. He will divorce her, and will give up his life to music to which, of course, he belongs. People like Reggie Forsyth have no right to marry at all."

"But are you sure that she wants to marry him?" said his friend; and he related his conversation with Yae that morning.

"That's very interesting and encouraging," said Her Excellency. "So she has been trying her hand on you already."

"I never thought of that," exclaimed Geoffrey. "Why, she knows that Reggie is my best friend; and that I am married."

The judicial features of Lady Cynthia lightened with a judicial smile.

"You have been through so many London seasons, Captain Barrington, and there is still no guile in you!"

They walked on in silence past the temple terraces down a winding country lane.

"Captain Barrington, would you care to play the part of a real hero, a real theatre hero, playing to the gallery?"

Geoffrey was baffled. Had the talk suddenly swung over to amateur theatricals? Lady Cynthia was a terrible puller of legs.

"Did you ever hear of Madge Carlyle?" she asked, "or was she before your time?"

"I have heard of her."

She was a famous London _cocotte_ in the days when mashers wore whiskers and "Champagne Charlie" was sung.

"At the age of forty-three'" said Lady Cynthia, "Madge decided to marry for the third or fourth time. She had found a charming young man with plenty of money and a n.o.ble heart, who believed that Madge was a much slandered woman. His friends were sorry for the young man; and one of them decided to give a dinner to celebrate the betrothal. In the middle of the feast an urgent message arrived for the enamoured one, summoning him to his home. When he had gone the others started plying poor Madge with drinks. She was very fond of drinks. They had splendid fun. Then one of the guests--he was an old lover of Madge's--suggested--Good-bye to the old days and the rest of it!"

"But what did he think of his friends?" asked Geoffrey. "It seems a low-down sort of trick."

"He was very sore about it at the time," said Lady Cynthia; "but afterwards he understood that they were heroes, real theatre heroes."

"It looks like rain," said Geoffrey, uneasily.

So they turned back, talking about London people.

The first drops fell as they were pa.s.sing through the wicket gate; and they entered the house during a roar of thunder. Reggie was alone.

"I see that my fate is sealed," he said, as he rose to meet them.

"'The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes!'"

CHAPTER XIX

YAe SMITH

_Nusubito wo Toraete mireba Waga ko nari_.

The thief-- When I caught him and looked at him, Lo! My own child!

A week of very hard work began for Reggie. The Amba.s.sador was reporting home on every imaginable subject from political a.s.sa.s.sination to the manufacture of celluloid. This was part of Lady Cynthia's scheme. She was determined to throw Yae Smith and Geoffrey Barrington together all the time, and to risk the consequences.

So Yae though she had her room at the hotel, became an inmate of Reggie's villa. She took all her meals there, and her siesta during most of the afternoons. She even pa.s.sed whole nights with Reggie; and their relations could no longer be a secret even to Geoffrey's laborious discretion.

This knowledge troubled him; for the presence of lovers, and the shadows cast by their intimacies are always disquieting even to the purest minds. But Geoffrey felt that it was no business of his; and that Reggie and Yae being what they were, it would be useless hypocrisy for him to censure their pleasures.

Meanwhile, Asako was writing to him, bewailing her loneliness. So one morning at breakfast he announced that he must be getting back to Tokyo. A cloud pa.s.sed over Yae's face.

"Not yet, big captain," she expostulated; "I want to take you right to the far end of the lake where the bears live."

"Very well," agreed Geoffrey, "to-morrow morning early, then; for the next day I really must go."