Hito no naka-goto Kiki-kosu na yume!_

It is other people who have separated You and me.

Come, my Lord!

Do not dream of listening To the between-words of people!

After a ghastly night of sleeplessness at Nikko, Geoffrey Barrington reached Tokyo in time for lunch. His thoughts were confused and discordant.

"I feel as if I had been drunk for a week," he kept on saying to himself. Indeed, he felt a fume of unreality over all his actions.

One thing was certain: financially, he was a ruined man. The thousands a year which yesterday morning had been practically his, the ease and comfort which had seemed so secure, were lost more hopelessly than if his bank had failed. Even the cash in his pocket he touched with the greatest disgust, as if those identical bills and coins had been paid across the brothel counter as the price for a man's dirty pleasures and a girl's shame and disease. He imagined that the Nikko hotel-keeper looked at his notes suspiciously as though they were endorsed with the seal of the Yoshiwara.

Geoffrey was ruined. He was henceforth dependent on what his brain could earn and on what his father would allow him, five hundred pounds a year at the outside. If he had been alone in the world it would not have mattered much; but Asako, poor little Asako, the innocent cause of this disaster, she was ruined too. She who loved her riches, her jewellery, her pretty things, she would have to sell them all. She would have to follow him into poverty, she, who had no experience of its meaning. This was his punishment, perhaps, for having steadily pursued the idea of a rich marriage. But what had Asako done to deserve it? Thank G.o.d, his marriage had at least not been a loveless one.

Geoffrey felt acutely the need of human sympathy in his trouble. By sheer bad luck he had forfeited Reggie's friendship. But he could still depend upon his wife's love.

So he ran up the stairs at the Imperial Hotel longing for Asako's welcome, though he dreaded the obligation to break the bad news.

He threw open the door. The room was empty. He looked for cloaks and hats and curios, for luggage, for any sign of her presence. There was nothing to indicate that the room was hers.

Sick with apprehension, he returned to the corridor. There was a _boy san_ near at hand.

"_Okusan_ go away," said the _boy san_. "No come back, I think."

"Where has she gone?" asked Geoffrey.

The _boy san_, with the infuriating j.a.panese grin, shook his head.

"I am very sorry for you," he said. "To-day very early plenty people come, Tanaka San and two j.a.panese girls. Very plenty talk. _Okusan_ cry tears. All nice kimono take away very quick."

"Then Tanaka, where is he?"

"Go away with _okusan_" the boy grinned again, "I am very sorry--"

Geoffrey slammed the door in the face of his tormentor. He staggered into a chair and collapsed, staring blankly. What could have happened?

Slowly his ideas returned. Tanaka! He had seen the little beast in Yae's motor car at Chuzenji. He must have come spying after his master as he had done fifty times before. He and that half-caste devil had raced him back to Tokyo, had got in ahead of him, and had told a pack of lies to Asako. She must have believed them, since she had gone away. But where had she gone to? The _boy san_ had said "two j.a.panese girls." She must have gone to the Fujinami house, and to her horribly unclean cousins.

He must find her at once. He must open her eyes to the truth. He must bring her back. He must take her away from j.a.pan--forever.

Harrington was crossing the hall of the hotel muttering to himself, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, when he felt a hand laid on his arm.

It was t.i.tine, Asako's French maid.

"_Monsieur le capitaine_" she said, "_madame est partie_. It is not my fault, _monsieur le capitaine_. I say to madame, do not go, wait for monsieur. But madame is bewitched. She, who is _bonne catholique_, she say prayers to the temples of these yellow devils. I myself have seen her clap her hands--so!--and pray. Her saints have left her. She is bewitched."

t.i.tine was a Breton peasant girl. She believed implicitly in the powers of darkness. She had long ago decided that the G.o.ds of the j.a.panese and the _korrigans_ of her own country were intimately related. She had served Asako since before her marriage, and would have remained with her until death. She was desperately faithful. But she could not follow her mistress to the Fujinami house and risk her soul's salvation.

"_Monsieur le capitaine_ go away, and madame very, very unhappy. Every night she cry. Why did monsieur stay away so long time?"

"It was only a fortnight," expostulated Geoffrey.

"For the first parting it was too long," said t.i.tine judicially.

"Every night madame cry; and then she write to monsieur and say, 'Come back.'" Monsieur write and say, 'Not yet.' Then madame break her heart and say, 'It is because of some woman that he stay away so long time!'

She say so to Tanaka; and Tanaka say, 'I go and detect, and come again and tell madame;' and madame say, 'Yes, Tanaka can go: I wish to know the truth!' And still more she cry and cry. This morning very early Tanaka came back with Mademoiselle Smith and mademoiselle _la cousine_. They all talk a long time with madame in bedroom. But they send me away. Then madame call me. She cry and cry. 't.i.tine,' she say, 'I go away. Monsieur do not love me now. I go to the j.a.panese house.

Pack all my things, t.i.tine.' I say, 'No, madame, never. I never go to that house of devils. How can madame tell the good confessor? How can madame go to the Holy Ma.s.s? Will madame leave her husband and go to these people who pray to stone beasts? Wait for monsieur!' I say, 'What Tanaka say, it is lies, all the time lies. What Mademoiselle Smith say all lies.' But madame say, 'No come with me, t.i.tine!' But I say again, 'Never!' And madame go away, crying all the time: and sixteen rickshaw all full of baggage. "Oh, _monsieur le capitaine_, what shall I do?"

"I'm sure, I don't know," said the helpless Geoffrey.

"Send me back to France, monsieur. This country is full of devils, devils and lies."

He left her sobbing in the hall of the hotel with a cl.u.s.ter of _boy sans_ watching her.

Geoffrey took a taxi to the Fujinami house. No one answered his ringing; but he thought that he could hear voices inside the building.

So he strode in, unannounced, and with his boots on his feet, an unspeakable offence against j.a.panese etiquette.

He found Asako in a room which overlooked the garden where he had been received on former occasions. Her cousin Sadako was with her and Ito, the lawyer. To his surprise and disgust, his wife was dressed in the j.a.panese kimono and _obi_ which had once been so pleasing to his eyes.

Her change of nationality seemed to be already complete.

This was an Asako whom he had never known before. Her eyes were ringed with weeping, and her face was thin and haggard. But her expression had a new look of resolution. She was no longer a child, a doll. In the s.p.a.ce of a few hours she had grown to be a woman.

They were all standing. Sadako and the lawyer had formed up behind the runaway as though to give her moral support.

"Asako," said Geoffrey sternly, "what does this mean?"

The presence of the two j.a.panese exasperated him. His manner was tactless and unfortunate. His tall stature in the dainty room looked coa.r.s.e and brutal. Sadako and Ito were staring at his offending boots with an expression of utter horror. Geoffrey suddenly remembered that he ought to have taken them off.

"Oh, d.a.m.n," he thought.

"Geoffrey," said his wife, "I can't come back. I am sorry. I have decided to stay here."

"Why?" asked Geoffrey brusquely.

"Because I know that you do not love me. I think you never loved anything except my money."

The hideous irony of this statement made poor Geoffrey gasp. He gripped the wooden framework of the room so as to steady himself.

"Good G.o.d!" he shouted. "Your money! Do you know where it comes from?"

Asako stared at him, more and more bewildered.

"Send these people out of the room, and I'll tell you," said Geoffrey.

"I would rather they stayed," his wife answered.

It had been arranged beforehand that, if, Geoffrey called, Asako was not to be left alone with him. She had been made to believe that she was in danger of physical violence. She was terribly frightened.

"Very well," Geoffrey blundered on, "every penny you have is made out of prost.i.tution, out of the sale of women to men. You saw the Yoshiwara, you saw the poor women imprisoned there, you know that any drunken beast can come and pay his money down and say, 'I want that girl,' and she has to give herself up to be kissed and pulled about by him, even if she hates him and loathes him. Well, all this filthy Yoshiwara and all those poor girls and all that dirty money belongs to these Fujinami and to you. That is why they are so rich, and that is why we have been so rich. If we were in England, we could be flogged for this, and imprisoned, and serve us right too. And all this money is bad; and, if we keep it, we are worse than criminals; and neither of us can ever be happy, or look any one in the face again."