Kimono Part 33

"Because it would now be too late for me to take your advice," said Reggie mysteriously.

"What do you mean?" Barrington asked.

"Last night I asked Yae to marry me; and I understand that she accepted."

Geoffrey sat in the sunlight on the gunwale of a fis.h.i.+ng-boat.

"You can't do that," he said.

"Oh, Geoffrey, I was afraid you'd say it, and you have," said his friend, half laughing. "Why not?"

"Your career, old chap."

"My career," snorted Reggie, "protocol, protocol and protocol. I am fed up with that, anyway. Can you imagine me a be-ribboned Excellency, worked by wires from London, babbling plat.i.tudes over teacups to other old Excellencies, and giving out a lot of gas for the F.O. every morning. No, in the old days there was charm and power and splendour, when an Amba.s.sador was really plenipotentiary, and peace and war turned upon a court intrigue. All that is as dead as Louis Quatorze.

Personality has faded out of politics. Everything is business, now, concessions, vested interests, dividends and bond-holders. These diplomats are not real people at all. They are shadowy survivals of the _grand siecle_, wraiths of Talleyrand; or else just restless bagmen. I don't call that a career."

Geoffrey had listened to these tirades before. It was Reggie's froth.

"But what do you propose doing?" he asked.

"Doing? Why, my music of course. Before I left England some music-hall people offered me seventy pounds a week to do stunts for them. Their first offer was two hundred and fifty, because they were under the illusion that I had a t.i.tle. My official salary at this moment is two hundred _per annum_. So you see there would be no financial loss."

"Then are you giving up diplomacy because you are fed up with it? or for Yae Smith's sake? I don't quite understand," said Geoffrey.

He was still pondering over the scene of last evening, and he found considerable comfort in ascribing Yae's behaviour to excitement caused by her engagement.

"Yae is the immediate reason: utter fed-upness is the original cause,"

replied Reggie.

"Do you feel that you are very much in love with her?" asked his friend.

The young man considered for a moment, and then answered,--

"No, not in love exactly. But she represents what I have come to desire. I get so terribly lonely, Geoffrey, and I must have some one, some woman, of course; and I hate intrigue and adultery. Yae never grates upon me. I hate the twaddling activities of our modern women, their little sports, their little sciences, their little earnestnesses, their little philanthropies, their little imitations of men's ways. I like the seraglio type of woman, lazy and vain, a little more than a lovely animal. I can play with her, and hear her purring.

She must have no father or mother or brothers or sisters or any social scheme to entangle me in. She must have no claim on my secret mind, she must not be jealous of my music, or expect explanations. Still less explain me to others,--a wife who shows one round like a monkey, what horror!"

"But Reggie! old chap, does she love you?"

Geoffrey's ideas were stereotyped. To his mind, only great love on both sides could excuse so bizarre a marriage.

"Love!" cried Reggie. "What is Love? I can feel Love in music. I can feel it in poetry. I can see it in suns.h.i.+ne, in the wet woods, and in the phosph.o.r.escent sea. But in actual life! I think of things in too abstract a way ever to feel in love with anybody. So I don't think anybody could really fall in love with me. It is like religious faith.

I have no faith, and yet I believe in faith. I have no love, and yet I have a great love for love. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed!"

When Reggie was in this mood Geoffrey despaired of getting any sense out of him, and he felt that the occasion was too serious for smiles.

They were walking back to the hotel in the direction of breakfast.

"Reggie, are you quite sure?" said his friend, solemnly.

"No, of course I'm not, I never could be."

"And are you intending to get married soon?"

"Not immediately, no: and all this is quite in confidence, please."

"I'm glad there's no hurry," grunted Geoffrey. He knew that the girl was light and worthless; but to have shown Reggie his proofs would have been to admit his own complicity; and to give a woman away so callously would be a greater offence against Good Form than his momentary and meaningless trespa.s.s.

"But there is one thing you have forgotten," said. Reggie, rather bitterly.

"What's that, old chap?"

"When a fellow announces his engagement to the dearest little girl in all the world, his friends offer their congratulations. It's Good Form," he added maliciously.

CHAPTER XVII

THE RAINY SEASON

_Fugu-jiru no Ware ikite ir Ne-zame kana!_

Poisonous delicacies (last night)!

I awake And I am still alive.

Geoffrey Barrington tried not to worry about Yae Smith; and, of course, he did not mention the episode of the Great Buddha either to his wife or to Reggie Forsyth. He did not exactly feel ashamed of the incident; but he realised that it was open to misinterpretation. He certainly had no love for Yae; and she, since she was engaged to his friend, presumably had no love for him. There are certain unnatural states of mind in which we are not altogether morally responsible beings. Among these may be numbered the ballroom mood, which drives quite sane people to act madly. The music, the wine, the giddy turning, the display of women's charms and the confusing proximity of them produce an unwonted atmosphere, of which we have most of us been aware, so bewildering that admiration of one woman will drive sane men to kiss another. Explanation is of course impossible; and circ.u.mstances must have their way. Scheming people, mothers with daughters to marry, study the effects of this psychical chemistry and profit by their knowledge. Under similar influences Geoffrey himself had been guilty of wilder indiscretions than the kissing of a half-caste girl.

But when he thought the matter over, he was sorry that it had occurred; and he was profoundly thankful that n.o.body had seen him.

Somebody had seen him, however.

The faithful Tanaka, who had been charged by Mr. Ito, the Fujinami lawyer, not to let his master out of his sight, had followed him at a discreet distance during the whole of that midnight stroll. He had observed the talk and the att.i.tudes, the silences and the holding of hands, the glad exchange of kisses, the sitting of Yae on Geoffrey's knees, and her triumphant return, carried in his arms.

To the j.a.panese mind such conduct could only mean one thing. The j.a.panese male is frankly animal where women are concerned. He does not understand our fine shades of self-deception, which give to our love-making the thrill of surprise and the palliation of romance.

Tanaka concluded that there could be only one termination to the scene which he had witnessed.

He also learned that Yae Smith was Reggie Forsyth's mistress, that he visited her room at night, that she was a girl of no character at all, that she had frequently stopped at the Kamakura hotel with other men, all of them her lovers.

All this information Tanaka collected with a wealth and precision of detail which is only possible in j.a.pan, where the espionage habit is so deeply implanted in the every-day life of the people.

Mr. Ito could scarcely believe such welcome tidings. The Barrington _menage_ had seemed to him so devoted that he had often despaired of his boast to his patron that he would divide the wife from her husband, and restore her to her family. Now, if Tanaka's story were true, his task would be child's play. A woman charged with jealousy becomes like a weapon primed and c.o.c.ked. If Ito could succeed in making Asako jealous, then he knew that any stray spark of misunderstanding would blast a black gulf between husband and wife, and might even blow the importunate Englishman back to his own country--alone.

The lawyer explained his plan to the head of the family, who appreciated its cla.s.sic simplicity. Sadako was given to understand the part which she was to play in alienating her cousin's affections from the foreigner. She was to harp on the faithlessness of men in general, and on husbands in particular, and on the importance of money values in matrimonial considerations.

She was to suggest that a foreign man would never choose a j.a.panese bride merely for love of her. Then when the psychological moment had struck, the name of Yae Smith was to be flashed into Asako's mind with a blinding glare.