"Good," thought Reggie. "Thank G.o.d for the comic spirit. It will be easier to get through with this now."

His first action was to wash his hands. He had an unconscious instinct for symbolism. Then he sat down opposite his friend.

The action of sitting reduces tragedy to comedy at once,--this was one of Napoleon's maxims.

Then he opened his cigarette case and offered it to Geoffrey. This, too, was symbolic. Geoffrey took a cigarette mechanically, and sucked it between his lips, unlighted.

"Geoffrey," said his friend very quietly, "let us try to put these women and all their rottenness out of our heads. We will try to talk this over decently."

Geoffrey was so stunned by the shock of what he had just learned that he had thought of nothing else. Now, all of a sudden he remembered that he owed serious explanations to his friend.

"Reggie," he said dully, "I'm most awfully sorry. I had never dreamed of this. I was good pals with Yae because of you. I never dreamed of making love to her. You know how I love my wife. She must have been mad to think of me like that. Besides," he added sheepishly, "nothing actually happened."

"I'm sure I don't care what actually happened or did not happen. d.a.m.n actual facts. They distort the truth. They are at the bottom of every injustice. What actually happened never matters. It is the picture which sticks in one's brain. True or false, it sticks just the same; and suddenly or slowly it alters every thing. But I can wipe up my own mess, I think. It is much more serious with you than with me, Geoffrey. She has bruised my heel, but she has broken your head. No, don't protest, for Heaven's sake! I am not interested."

"Then what she says is absolutely true?" said Geoffrey, lighting his cigarette at last, and throwing the match aside as if it were Hope.

"For a whole year I have been living on prost.i.tutes' earnings. I am no better than those awful _ponces_ in Leicester Square, who can be flogged if they are caught, and serve them right too. And all that filthy Yoshiwara, it belongs to Asako, to my sweet innocent little girl, just as Brandan belongs to my father; and with all this filthy money we have been buying comforts and clothes and curios and rubbish."

Reggie was pouring out whiskies and sodas, two strong ones. Geoffrey gulped down his drink, and then proceeded with his lamentation:

"I understand it all now. Everybody knew. The secrecy and the mystery.

Even at my wedding they were saying, 'Don't go to j.a.pan, don't go.'

They must have all known even then. And then those d.a.m.ned Fujinami, so anxious to be civil for the beastly money's sake, and yet hiding everything and lying all the time. And you knew, and the Amba.s.sador, and Count Saito, and the servants too--always whispering and laughing behind our backs. But you, Reggie, you were my friend, you ought to have told me."

"I asked Sir Ralph," said Reggie candidly, "whether you ought to be told. He is a very wise man. He said, 'No.' He said, 'It would be cruel and it would be useless. They will go back to England soon and then they will never know.' Where ignorance is bliss, you understand?"

"It was unfair," groaned Geoffrey; "you were all deceiving me."

"I said to Sir Ralph that it seemed to me unfair and dangerous. But he has more experience than I."

"But what am I to do now?" said the big man helplessly. "This money must be given up, yes, and everything we have. But whom to? Not to those filthy Fujinami?"

"Go slow," advised Reggie. "Go back to England first. Get your brain clear. Talk it over with your lawyers. Don't be too generous.

Magnanimity has spoiled many n.o.ble lives. And remember that your wife is in this too. You must consider her first. She is very young and she knows nothing. I don't think that she wants to be poor, or that she will understand your motives."

"I will make her understand then," said Geoffrey.

"Don't talk like a brute. You will have to be very patient and considerate for her. Go slow!"

"Can I stop here to-night, then?" asked Barrington, plaintively.

"No," said Reggie with firmness; "that is really more than I could stick. I told you--truth or untruth, the mind keeps on seeing pictures. Pack up your things. Call a coolie. The evening walk down to Nikko will do you more good than my jawing. Good-bye."

An unreal handshake--and he was gone.

Then, of a sudden, Geoffrey realized that, how very unwittingly, he had deeply wronged this man who was his best friend and upon whom he was leaning in his hour of trial. Like Job, his adversities were coming upon him from this side and from that, until he must curse G.o.d and die. Now his friend had given him his dismissal. He would probably never see Reggie Forsyth again.

As he was starting on his long walk downhill a motor car pa.s.sed him.

Only one motor car that season had climbed the precipitous road from the plains. It must be Yae Smith's. Just as it was pa.s.sing the girl leaned out of the carriage and blew a kiss to Geoffrey.

She was not alone. There was a small fat man in the car beside her, a j.a.panese with a round impertinent face. With a throb of bitter heart-sickness Geoffrey recognized his own servant, Tanaka.

Next morning Reggie Forsyth crossed the lake as usual to his work at the Emba.s.sy. He met the Amba.s.sadress on the terrace of her villa.

"Good morning, Lady Cynthia," he said, "I congratulate you on your masterly diplomacy."

"What do you mean?"

Her manner nowadays was very chilly towards her former favourite.

"In accordance with your admirable arrangements," he said, "my marriage is off."

"Oh, Reggie," her coolness changed at once, "I'm so glad--"

He held up a warning hand.

"But--you have broken a better man than I."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"Geoffrey Barrington. He has learned who the Fujinami are, and where his money comes from."

"You told him?"

"I'm not such a skunk as all that, Lady Cynthia."

Her Excellency was pondering what had better be done for Geoffrey.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"He stopped the night at Nikko. He is probably in the train for Tokyo by now."

If she were a hero, a real theatre hero, as Geoffrey had been apparently, she would go straight off to Tokyo also; and perhaps she would be able to prevent a catastrophe. Or perhaps she would not.

Perhaps she would only make things worse. On the whole, she had better stop in Chuzenji and look after her own husband.

"Reggie," she said, "you've had a lucky escape. How did you know that I had any hand in this? You're more of a girl than a man. A rotten marriage would have broken you. Geoffrey Barrington is made of stronger stuff. He is in for a bad time. But he will learn a lot which you know already; and he will survive."

CHAPTER XX

THE KIMONO

_Na we to wa wo Hito zo saku naru.

Ide, wagimi!