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THE LIBRARYOF

THE U NIV ERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A . KOFOID AND

MRS . PRU DENCEW. KOFOID

@@W@WA JAPAN E S E

ROMANCE

By C LIV E HO LLANDAUTHOR OF

My JapaneseWife , ! “Mousmé,” “Marce lle

of the Quarter, etc.

ILLU STRATED lN COLOU R S

By A RTHU R o . DO V E

N EWYORK

FREDERICKA. STOKES COMPANY

PU BLISHE RS

Copyright, 1 904,

BY FREDER ICK A . S TOKE S COMPANY.

P uélz'

sfiea'inOetober, 1 904.

A l l 7 1'n reserved.

THO M A S HA R D Y , E S Q U I R E

Novelist and Poet

THI S STORY I S , WITH HIS PERM ISSION , INSCRIBED

A JAPAN E S E ROMANCE

CHAPTER I

THE wide expanse of sea through which the

Orient Queen was steadi ly ploughing herway at a good fifteen knots was like a sheet

of hammered brass . The fan-shaped wake , w ith itsnarrow

,lacelike edge of white-churned foam , and the

rounded swel l o f the North Pacific , sweeping throughthe Loochoo Islands , was all that disturbed its mo

notonous horizon-bounded surface .Underneath the white awnings Of the promenade

deck most o f the passengers were lounging in chairs ,keeping even their feet out Of any lozenge-shapedpatches o f sunsh ine which , straying through too

loosely laced edges o f the awning, fell on the deck

beneath . Those who were not too hot,or talking,

pudgelled thei r brains into imagining they were cool .

The officers not on duty, or below snatching al ittle belated sleep

,were chatting with the passengers ,

their preference being Obviously for the ladies .

On the port side of the ship in a corner near the

2 A JAPANE SE ROMAN CE

after deck-house were two people, a man and ayoung girl , quite apart from the rest of the pas

sengers, their two canvas deck-chairs placed with thepropinquity which the two months ’ shipboard ac

quaintance of their occupiers would be cons idered asj usti fying.

.The girl was fair, as j udged against the bronze ofsome of the other lady passengers ; and when com

pared w ith the olive-tinted Japanese women return

ing to Nagasaki from Shangha i she looked fragilelypale . Her face was oval and pretty

,notwithstanding

its lack of colour,whilst her figure

,the l ines of which

were scarcely d isguised by the folds Of the th in , whitemusl in dress she wore

,was singularly graceful .

The man was about thirty,good- look ing, and rather

above middle height . His attire only differed fromthat o f the rest of the male passengers in that he worea s i lk t ie o f the butterfly order

,a rel ic of his art

student days in the Quartier Latin .

“ A few more hours ,” said the girl a fter a some

what lengthy pause inthe conversat ion , changing herpose languidly

,and we shall be at Nagasaki .”

“ Yes,her companion assented .

“And I shal l

have to look up my com ical friend Yumoto, McKenzie , and the rest , and find a house which I canconvert into a stud io .

”

I Often wonder,Mr . Somerville , why you think

so much ofArt, w ith a capital‘

A,

’ and so l ittle of

A JAPANE SE ROMANCE 3

There was a pause .Well ? ” interj ected the l istener encouragingly.

So l ittle of humanity, even w ith a small, unsocialistic h .

S O l ittle O f femin ine human ity, M iss Desbor

ough ? ” qu izzed the speaker , laughing.

I d id not say so ,” replied the girl , a shade Of

colour stealing into her cheeks ; but , after all , whatdoes it matter ? In a few hours we shall al l be scattered ,

” waving her hand towards a knot o f passengersfurther along the deck . You will go to your lotusponds

,wistaria-covered tea-houses

,—you cannot im

agine how fascinating they are,—and I to my family

group in Tokio,comprised of a dear Old uncle , an

unconscionable aunt, and three impossible cousins . Ina word , we shal l al l forget our fel low-passengers .”

I am not so sure of that,

” sa id the man,thinking

o f a dainty water-colour sketch that he had made ofhis companion . I hope i f I find mysel f near Tokio

I may cal l , and that i f you hear of an Englishman in

trouble you will interest your uncle to get the authorities to let him off.

”

“ I am sure my people will be very pleased to see

you. They owe you a debt Of gratitude for hav

ing amused me during the last few monotonous

weeks .”

“And yet you were regretting a l ittle whi le ago

that the monotony would soon be at an end .

”

4s A UAPANE S E ROMAN CE

Because when one i s lazy, repl ied M iss Desborough thoughtfully, one regrets anything whichmeans a change . Although I have called the voyage

monontonous, I shall not forget that I have made atleast one pleasant acquaintance , and have learnedsomething during the last few weeks .”

It was onthe tip o f Somervi lle ’s tongue to ask towhat she referred

,but he said nothing and regarded

her somewhat curiously,wondering whether she would

say more . There was a pause,and then she cont inued

inconsequently

But I have a few more lines to add to my mail ,and I think I must go and write them in case wecatch the homeward-bound steamer at Nagasaki .”

Lesl ie Somervi lle studied her face for a momentas she rather petulantly kicked away the clinging foldso f her skirt preparatory to rising

,and then got up to

assist her, for the vessel was roll ing .

“ Now ! ” he exclaimed,and just when the deck

was steady he give a sl ight upward pull onthe gi rl’

s

wrists .“Thanks . This deck-chai r i s my favour ite

,but it’s

no j oke getting up out of it when the ship i s rol ling.

I shall see you at lunch . I have read Le Find

’

Amour,

’ and w i l l bring it back for you then . I am

afraid my aunt would have a fit on the spot i f sheknew you had lent i t to me . Good-bye ti l l lunch .

Somervil le watched her ti l l she vanished in tlie

A JAPA NE SE ROMANCE 5

doorway o f the dec k-house , and then , tossing thestump of his cigar o verboard , he strolled forward .

He was almost angry with himsel f for regardingViolet Desborough from so purely an artistic stand

point . She had said som ething to the effect that shipboard friendships were th e least satisfactory of all .People met

,l iked each ot her , amused one another

,

parted at the end of the voyage , and—forgot .He would not forget—no . But probably only b e

cause the memory Of Violet Desb orough was enshrined

in one of the daintiest and most \ success ful p leinair

sketches he had ever made—a sketch which she had

coveted,but had been

,to tell the truth

,only too willing

that he should retain . He ought,perhaps , to have

fallen in love with her in two months . The re had been

plenty Of time,and no opportunity of escaping from

any influence or fascination that she was able to exert.

But he had not done so ; and he reali sed that he sti l l

personally regarded marriage vaguely and rather inthe light of a j oke

,though his male friends o f the

Quartier Latin had always told him,with quasi-serious

faces , that the j oke was less apparent after the fact .Meanwhile he would let the matter rest .He would doubtless marry some day ; i t might be a

model , even one o f the dainty Japanese maidens of theflower-decked land he had travelled so many thousand

miles of sea to study . Who could tell ?His memory leapt back to Petite Suzanne with

6 A JAPANE SE R ojMANoE

the flashing eyes. When he was a nouveau at C0

lorossi’

s, before he had come intro his money , he hadbeen about to marry her . But . she vanished one fine

June morning and returned lV'Ladame S emperson, having preferred a young American friend o f his own

‘

wholived less near the sky , and possessed more money andless appl ication .

Half an hour passed sp eed i ly enough in these rem iniscent mus ings , and Somervi lle was not recalled to anappreciation of hi s surroundings unti l the luncheon

bell , clanging horrib ly but welcomely between decks ,caused a stream o f hungry fellow-passengers to surgepast him .

“

A sl ight rearrangement of the tables of the salOon,to permit Of a platform being erected for the finaleven ing concert o f the voyage , had separated SomerV ill e and Miss Desborough . They could only sm ile,perhaps she somewhat sadly

,across the tables ; and

after lunch Somerv i l le felt compelled to start the pack

ing up , which , man-l ike , he had postponed almost ti l lthe last moment .At dinner the separation was repeated , and in theconfus ion follow ing the meal

,whilst the stewards

rushed hither and thither clearing out the tables asfar as possible and rearranging the chairs

,neither

Somerville nor Violet Desborough found an Oppor

tunity for anything more than a casual remark .

The concert commenced almost immed iately, and

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

8 A JAPANE SE ROM ANCE

S o it seemed to Violet standir’ig w ith Somervillenear the weather ra i l gazing at the phosphorescentwake .

“ I hope you w i l l find a nic e studio , the formerremarked

,in lieu of anythi 1g better to say , and

making an effort to avoid sentiment , but there shouldbe little difficulty ; the j apanese are an ingenious lot ,and will carry out sugges tions , or copy anything you

show and explain to th em accurately enoug“S O I have heard , Somervi lle assented I re

member what you tol d me about your work-box and its

chipped top . But let us talk o f something less prosaic . Don

’t you reali se , Miss Desborough , that you

are encouraging me in art , which you have hinted Ialready pursue too closely ? ”

You are not grateful .A las ! I fear I am not a grate ful man ; I do not

make a right use of my opportunities,—glancing into

the face of the woman at hi s side .Violet Desborough moved ever so sl ightly away

from him ; with her the tension was growing painfulto embarrassment .In the moonlight her slender figure appeared almostethereal ; i f it had seemed less so , i t i s possible Somerville ’s l i fe might have taken a new trend .

A j unk swam ghostlike across the broad,moonl it

track .

“How much more to be desired i s progress such

A JAPANE SE ROMAN CE 9

as that,sa id Somerville mus ingly, than the hur

rying-scurry ing , throbbing onward rush of this modernliner . Steam has knocked hal f of the poetry out ofexistence

,and given us in its stead the spirit o f

unrest . ”

Yes,replied the girl , as though her thoughts were

elsewhere ; adding,“And yet , I fancy , most women

read poetry because they vaguely hope some day tol ive it .”

She congratulated hersel f that she could speak socalmly . So long as her companion d id not touch her

she felt almost sure o f hersel f . Three generations o f

forebears in the diplomatic service had endowed her

with an unusual power o f control,and the power to

keep the one secret of a woman ’s l ife which so few candissemble .

An ocean-going steamer on a long voyage wouldbe an anomaly without the presence of at least onematch-making , hyper-inquisitive woman , and theOrient Queenhad proved no exception to the rule .Somerville and Violet Desborough had right out

from Aden been so much together that thei r apparentidentity o f tastes and pursuits had long ago aroused a

considerable amount of interest in the minds of fellowpassengers not themselves equally absorbed . A Mrs .Thriston had for some weeks regarded them as aninteresting young couple and—her legitimate prey .

Not being affl icted with undue delicacy o f perception


or feel ing,—such women seldom are , —she had at firstby covert hints

,and later by but thinly vei led pleasan

tries,endeavoured to let them see that, though every

other soul on board were blind , she saw which way thewind blew . That they took no notice Of her scarcelydisturbed her equanimity . Indeed , i t only made her

keener on the scent and less guarded in her remarks .Her friends on board

,people who either feared her or

were amused by her love of scandal , were kept wellposted in Somerville ’s and Miss Desb orough

’

s move

ments,and every glance which passed between them

and every hour they spent together was noted down bythe Argus-eyed l ittle busybody as so much drift furthertowards the maelstrom of matrimony .

Onth is last night of the voyage she had determ ined

to bring the matter to a climax , and to add one moreinstance to her l i st of people made happy ; you know,

they never would have made up their si l ly minds butfor me . ” That the two persons most concerned would

possibly resent her interference apparently d id notoccur to her .On this last night she came along the promenadedeck vivaciously as usual

,with a shawl thrown round

her shoulders , glancing sharply into shadowed corners

where deck-chairs nestled together, or i solated couples

stood gazing out over the moonlit waters in suspiciouspropinquity . At length she esp ied Somerville andM i ss Desborough .


They were evidently talk ing earnestly , and with afeel ing of an artist in matrimonial matters she feared

for a moment lest an unkind fate should have deprivedher of the glory o f putting the finishing touches to

what she considered her subtle work o f weeks .

As she approached quietly she overheard Somervi l le exclaim

,The last night ! There is always some

thing sad in the last o f anything, especially in the lastof gaiety and pleasant companionship . Despite theadage

,anticipation i s not always the greater part o f

pleasure . I,for example , did not want to fcome thi s

voyage at all . And now The l istener lost theconclus ion of the sentence in the shril l laugh o f a girlwho ran hoydenishly along the deck , sti l l in her brief

skirted tableau dress, pursued by a couple of bo isterousadmirers .

Violet Desborough was speaking by the time Mrs .Th irston was again able to catch the conversation .

you will never forget your first impress ions .

The l istener coughed . The chaplain ’s serv ices wouldevidently not be requ ired

,though matters were pro

gressing so favourably . It would doubtless be a wedding at the Legation in Tokio ; she must watch thecolumns of the Jij i S himpo for an announcement .At the sound Somervil le turned his head . Herecognised the cough

,and i f the expression which

fl itted across his face as the light from the deck-house


fel l upon it could have embarrassed Mrs . Thirston, shewould have moved away .

But the latter was not easi ly abashed .

Ah ! you young people ! ” she excla imed, w ith a

j aunty assumption of age and seriousness . Lastnights of a voyage would indeed be sad were it not forthe happy to-morrows . Yes , I know what it is to beyoung. Love ’s young dream

,and all the rest . How

does it go ? And she hummed a few bars of an ultrasentimental song which a thin-vo iced soprano had

sung at the concert an hour ago .

Her victims made no reply . Somervi lle was bitinghis moustache savagely ; whilst his compan ion had

turned away to lean over the rail and gaze down at thewater with something l ike tears of mortificationin hereyes . Mrs . Thirston paused , and then said, w ith the

pleasantry of a mort ified inquisitor , There , you mustexcuse me . It is only my deep interest in you youngpeople , and my wish that you may be very happy,that had caused me to venture to speak

Curse her impudence ! muttered the man underhis breath , as he felt the girl at his side give a littleconvulsive heave of her shoulders .I shall look in the Herald and Jij i S himpo for

an interesting announcement . Of course , Mr . Somervi l le , you will find your way to Tokio—such a veryinteresting place , o ld temples , and all that . You reallymust go.

”

14: A JAPANE SE ROMANCE

And then,ere she could reply, he added with a flash

of brightness , which almost served to cover his too

matter-of-fact proposal ,“Or i s l iving w ith the im

possible cousins too great an attraction ? ”

But he was not a good liar,and the girl at his s ide

knew too well the difference between liking and loving.

He could not, therefore , deceive her , even though shewere will ing enough to permit the deception .

Her voice , when she spoke , was not very steady, butthere was a note of unmistakable final ity in it .

“ It must be no , Mr . Somerville—believe me , i tmust ! ” she said

,ignoring his last remark . I shal l

always think of this voyage with pleasure,and remem

ber all your goodness and kindness with gratitude .You have paid me the greatest compliment it i s possiblefor a man to pay a woman

,and under ci rcumstances

which only a woman can qu ite truly appreciate . Do notask me to say more . Believe me , it must not be ; thinko f me as grateful , and even proud , not as the frivolousgirl I may have appeared . Good-bye . No,

” as he

moved along the deck at her s ide, I would rather goalone .When he had released her hand and she had gone

he waited a few minutes thinking vaguely,and then

went below to his state—room . He could almost imaginenow that he did love her

,that he was cut up by her

refusal . That she cared for him he had no doubt.

At last he recognised that he had beentoo precipi


tate . Of course she had seen through i t all how thewhole bus iness had been as it were forced upon him .

She was a plucky girl , and he had not been so wise ashe might have been .

He turned in , and fell asleep th inking of his good

intention wh ich had fai led through no great fault ofh is own.

CHAPTER II

HORTLY after sunrise Goto Shima was s ighted-a bluish

,indistinct l ine on the port horizon .

Most of the passengers were on deck , andMrs . Thirston, in no way discomposed by her encounter of the previous night

,was chatting gaily to a knot

of acquaintances who had never before beheld the

glories of a Japanese sunrise .Violet Desborough

,however

,had not yet appeared ,

and Somervil le,noting this

,had betaken himself for

ward to the turtle-deck so that he might gain an un

interrupted view o f the glories of the growing day .

A pearl haze floated l ightly onthe surface of thewater , transparent as gossamer , through which the

cl imbing sun seemed to strike in i ridescent beams , thep ink light giving an almost weird look to the peopleand obj ects onthe steamer ’s deck . Soon Goto Shimawas sinking below the horizon astern and its placetaken on the starboard bow by wooded Nomo Saki ,thrusting its pointed nose out into the grey-blue sea .

The onward rush of the vessel,the thud of whose

engines seemed to have increased as though she were

hurrying towards the nearing port, created a light,


cool a ir which blew wreaths of mist across the deck tospeedily vanish in the haze astern .

Somerville , with the seeing eye of an arti st ratherthan the devouring but the non-receptive vision of

a globe-trotter,noted with wonder and admiration the

ever-changing beauties o f this first,fresh

,Japanese

morning . To the look-out men the opalescent haze

was no more than the merest Channel wrack,sti rred

into movement by a southerly breeze,which might hide

danger , and spelt for them strained attention anddiscomfort .

The huge , Oblong sa i l Of a j unk floating bodi lessdead ahead above the shallow sea Of mist and tippedrose-pink in the sunrise caused a momentary confusion

as the steamer ’s course was altered a couple of points .And as she swept past the motionless craft the sai lflapped lazily, and then sharply and quicker, againstthe mast as the ungainly bulk of the fishing vesselfelt the steamer ’s wash

,whilst from the mist-en

shrouded deck arose shril l shouts of A bunaiyo !

Abunaiyo ! as though the occupants thought the liner

was on top Of them . Then , as she vanished astern ,there came

,clear above the thud o f the engines , a

chorus o fmorning greetings , Okayo with , perhaps,an i ronical S ayonam .

”

The morning coffee-bel l clanging brazen-tongued

between the decks drowned the good-byes of the fisher

men,and brought Somervi lle to a sense o f hunger and

18 A JAPANE SE ROMANCE

more mundane th ings . With a sigh of regret at losingeven a few minutes of such a scene , as the now meltinghaze disclosed in mysterious , ethereal vistas , he hurriedbelow to the saloon

,crowded by the throng o f early

ri sers and noisi ly gay with the babel of talk .

Violet Desborough was not there . Perhaps it werebetter so , he thought, as he hasti ly gulped down the

steaming cofl’ee . He would be sure to see her at the

last to say good-bye,and anything but a hurried fare

well would be embarrassing for both o f them .

The third offi cer came into the saloon . Above thebable of various questionings his voice could be heard

exclaiming, How can I tell,Mrs . Jones ? You ’ l l be

told at the proper t ime . A good hotel,Mr . Blayner?

the ‘ Bellevue,

’ on the Bund,would be about your

ticket . In a couple o f hours . Why, bless me , yes ,coolies ? Scores of them .

”

Escaping his interrogators , he crossed to whereSomerville was standing

,and said cheerily , We have

j ust sighted Cape Saki , Mr . Somerville , and i f youwant to see Japan you can do so, for the haze has

l i fted .

Thanks,Mr . E lderson, replied Somerville , j ust as

a lady passenger anxiously questioned the former as towhether her luggage would be ransacked .

When Somerville reached his point of vantage in

the bows the blue outl ines of Japan were creeping up

out of the sea right ahead . The smoke of a tramp in


ballast, her s‘crew churn ing white and at t imes hal f out

of water , hung onthe port bow like a patch in the skyover the Nagasaki hil ls as though they were volcanoes

,

with scarcely any ai r to draw it into a streaky vei lalong the horizon . Trading j unks

,at first mere dots

onthe scarcely ruffled water , became gradually largeras the Orient Queendrew rapidly in towards the land .

Soon the wooded heights flanking the entrance to

the harbour channel oneither side took more definiteform , their grey-green tones o f pine and cryptomerias

and more vivid tints of bamboo,palms

,and elms

gradually disclosing themselves .The sti r which pervades a vessel on nearing port

was now audible ; and it must have been this whichsummoned Violet Desborough to leave her cabin .

As the steamer entered the channel which led to theanchorage Somervil le le ft hi s post and came down to

the forepart o f the promenade deck . He had caught a

glimpse o f Violet as she came out of the deck-house

and crossed to the lee side .

She was very pale,and there was the strained look

which comes from sleeplessness in her eyes .In the wakeful hours o f the hot night , when the

monotonous thud o f the engines seemed to beat itsel f

into her brain,she had reali sed that happiness had

slipped from her grasp . Fate had never been verykind to her ; and now in the person of Mrs . Thirston

she felt it had been cruel . She even persuaded herself

20 A JAPANE SE R OMAN CE

that she might,but for the latter, have been happy

instead of miserable in the thought that Somerv ille

had cared for her .As he approached she pul led hersel f together ; it

would be added bitterness i f he detected her distress .

You have missed the sunrise , Miss Desborough ,”

he said almost reproachfully .

I am afraid I have,

” she repl ied after shakinghands , turning away to gaze at the now sunlit hi lls .But you must remember it i s not my first sunrise inJapan .

I had forgotten . I have never seen anything like itbefore .

” Then changing his tone he continued,Be

fore long we shall be inport . Let me assure you , Itrust you will believe me

,how truly sorry I am for

Mrs . Thirston’

s impudence—I can call it nothing else .I have had very little experience of such women

,thank

God , or I should doubtless have known better thanto have given her a chance o f meddling . It may be a

lesson .

” And the speaker laughed somewhat bitterly.

Think no more about it,” the girl repl ied sadly . I

was as much to blame as you , perhaps more . But itwas a temptation to talk to one who knows so much ,and who has been so amusing and kind . Mrs . Thirston

was only an episode,a thunder-streak in a clear sky.

Let us forget i t .”“You are very generous

,excla imed Somerville

,

sti l l feeling somewhat contrite as he noted the speaker’s


S ayonara, she repl ied . And disengaging her

hand,with one glance at his face she left him .

As she threw hersel f sobbing on her state-roomcouch she remembered the novel ; and thi s too , then ,for her was le find’

amonr, or, rather , the end of thedream of it.Round a slight bend the steamer

,st i l l in the sub

dued light caused by the overhanging hills,on the

higher summits of wh ich the dazzl ing white sunlight

was shin ing, passed into the open sunshine of the w idebay around which the town is built . Flowers seemed

to have perfumed the warm air , unexpected gradationsof colour in wonderful freshness o f tint met the eye

on the h i lls ides behind the scatttered town , on the

heights o f wh ich could be seen the matchbox- l ike v i l lasof the merchants and more wealthy classes .

Across the lagoon-l ike expanse o f water, the sur

face j ust ruffled here and there by the draughts of a irstealing down the mountains

,giving transient motion

to the white sails o f the flocks o f picturesque though

unwieldly junks, the Orient Queenswept along at hal fspeed . A shouting arose from the hal f-naked

,yellow

ish or copper-skinned rowers o f the crowd o f sampansthat, l ike flocks of waterfowl

,skurried with apparent

aimlessness hither and thither,hampering the steamer ’s

progress at imminent risk o f being run down . Theboom-boom of the steam siren reverberated from thegorges and rock-strewn hills ide . Ahead was the Bund,


l ined w ith mercantile and shipping offices , white in themorning glare . Onthe quay itsel f Somerville , as thesteamer drew closer in towards it

,could see the crowd

Of coolies,clad in tight-fitting hose and stagey , blue

tunics,waiting to unload , with their marvellous celerity ,

the passengers ’ luggage and cargo,a sprinkling o f

Europeanised hotel and restaurant porters and bare

legged,hatless

,or over-hatted j inrikisha men stand

ing in the background .

Yumoto was there , and McKenz ie . Somerv il lecaught sight Of them almost immediately

,looking out

for him with hand-shaded eyes from the elevation of

some blue petroleum casks on end . The former , a

queer figure in Anglo-Japanese attire,in a black

bowler hat , tennis flannels,and a bril liantly blue ,

flowered kimono ; the latter in immaculately white

ducks and a wide-brimmed panama,perched well for

ward Over his face .

They waved thei r hats as they caught sight o f

Somerville . To both o f them he was a fresh importation from the West ; to M cKenz ie “ a wee bit 0

’

hame ,” though Somervi lle had in fact been born far

south Of the Tweed .

Soon the steamer was alongside,and the coolies

swarmed across her decks .Yumoto and McKenz ie were the two first landsmento step aboard

,and they eagerly made thei r way

towards Somervi lle , who stood on the fringe of the


little crowd of passengers which was b locking the

after gangway .

So you ’ve turned up al l right, exclaimed the

Scotsman,with a firm but undemonstrative grasp of

the hand .

“ There are plenty of pretty geisha ready

to lose the ir hearts to you —for a consideration , andOld Yumoto !the person referred to glared comically

at the speaker!“ keeps a capital store of Glenl ivet

in a ridiculous paper-panelled cupboard,which I

always feel inclined to put my fist through instead of

unfasten .

”

Irwshaimashp began Yumoto, at last se izinghold o f Somerville ’s hand .

“ Which being inerpreted , means in his amazinglingo welcome ,

’ put in McKenz ie .

“What he‘ says all right . Very good whisky, my

boy,at my ofli ce j ust along there . McKenz ie come in

often,very often . Business ? No ; whisky .

” And

the l ittle Japanese shook with laughter at the sly dig

he had given h is big , sandy-haired , loose-l imbedGlenlivet- imbib ing friend .

Hold hard ! ej aculated the latter good-temperedly ,

“ more about the whisky anon . But let ’s gethold o f Somerville ’s l ight baggage

,and away from this

crush . The cool ies can bring the rest .”“Hi ! ” he called out to a small coolie who was

staggering along under a huge cabin trunk , and on

the back of whose blue cotton tunic a white disc as


large as a dinner-plate was emblazoned,bring al l

the honourable Englishman ’s august luggage !spell

ing out the name , and handing the cool ie a label tornoff the bag Somerville was himself carrying! up to

my house,Dura Hill . ”

Narnhodo, boss , replied the man , with a pleasedgrin as he staggered along the gangway .

It ’s all right,

” said McKenz ie ;“ come along .

It was only about a hundred and fi fty yards toYumoto

’

s Offi ce , which was right on the Bund , andfaced the landing-stage of One of the principal Japanese steamship companies .From the brill iant noonday sunshine

,which struck up

from the surface of the water in blinding flashes l ike

workings of innumerable heliographs,and the heat of

the quay it was a relie f to pass into the shade and com

parative coolness of the impracticable- looking ofli ce .

Somerville was both interested and amused by the

strange blend ings of East and West which it displayed .

A cl imb up a flight’

o f rickety wooden stairs , thattrembled and creaked under McKenz ie

’

s ponderoustread and the bamboo rail O f which shivered con

vulsively when any one laid a hand on i t , brought

them to the narrow lacquer-panelled door on whichhung a small

,quaint bronze knocker

,representing a

Japanese arti st ’s fantastic conception o f a dolphin .

When Somerville,whose slang designation was

griffin, had beenthrust into the seat of honour, a


revolving pedestal chai r salvaged from the saloon of

an English steamer lost on Hirado Shima, he was able

to observe things .

Opposite him , fastened to the greyish wall withfour large Japanese hairpins and some pieces ofgummed stamp paper

,was a flaming red

,orange

,and

black poster of Cheret’s, depicting in startl ing pose a

favourite dancer at the Café des Ambassadeurs ; a

veritable echo Of home to Somerville,fresh from

Paris and the Quartier Latin . Near the absurdly frai ll i ttle lacquered cupboard which hung in the corner

of the wall near his desk,and from which Yumoto

proceeded to extract the large brown square bottleto which McKenz ie had referred so invitingly , was

an English poster, also of theatrical import , alongsidean ideal istic panel of Hokusai

’

s on a buff-coloured

ground . Beneath this hung a fine photo Of St . John’s

College , flanked by one of the P lace de la Concordelooking up the Avenue des Champs Elysees , and a

panoramic view of Nagasaki taken from the heightsof Venus Hill behind the foreign settlement ; whilstthe rest of the wall space was mostly covered withsteamship bills

,coloured p ictures from illustrated

papers,and almanacs of European shipping firms .

Somervil le ’s semi-sarcastic comment concerning theheterogeneous character o f the art displayed to his

astonished gaze brought forth Yumoto ’

s invariable

defence of his taste .


It is true Art,a m ixture of al l sorts such as that

in which you used to revel in the Rue de la GrandeChaumiere ,

” he replied,smiling cheerfully as he

pushed in the glass ball o f a soda-spl it with the topo f a slender ebony ruler ; i t arrests attention . Art

should be one big poster i f one i s to sell one ’s pictures ;that is what your friend S empersonused to say whenI d iscusseed the question with him after my morn

ing ’s study at the Sorbonne . He could never do any

thing big , so he failed .

Now that thing over there,continued the speaker ,

after a pause occupied in drinking the health and

future prosperity of the newly arrived griffin, pointing to the poster by Cheret ,

“ i s,as the French have

it, a blow in the eye .’

No one who enters my officecan overlook its Obvious merits . It i s

,moreover

,good

for business, you

But McKenz ie broke in . Dry up,o ld chap , that

’s

another story . Let’s get something out of Somervi lle . ”

And then followed a torrent of questions concerning Western things , the doings of the fel lows in Parisand London , and numerous interested inquiries afterthe present position of several of the artists ’ modelsand lady art students Of the Quartier Latin .

For McKenz ie, be it remarked , would have been an

artist could he have made money thereby,and had

passed fifteen months in the schools ere he discovered


he could not . He was now making money , andostensibly pursuing art

,with a small a ,

’ as manager ofa Japanese porcelain factory near Kago Street .Somerville satisfied all McKenz ie ’

s inqu irie sprompted by home-hunger , and Yumoto

’

s studiously

polite ones after the young lady students at the Sorbonne

,and the habitue

’

es at the Café d ’Harcourt, who

used to admire his gay-coloured kimono,blue

tassel led skull cap,and comical yellow face .

His recollections of a certain lively little lady,nick

named “ Demi-Siphon ” by the students,on account

o f her small s ize and effervescing spirits,were cut

short by the rumble and rattle of the mailboat blowingoff steam .

Somerville started,for the detonations shook the

room and rattled the outer shutters and the sliding

paper panels dividing it from a storeroom,as though

the whole fabric were about to collapse .Yumoto smiled and calmly mixed another drink .

“ You will get used to it,he said ; my offi ce has

stood two earthquakes . It i s very firm .

McKenz ie frankly laughed at Somerville ’s alarm .

But to the latter there was something terribly unsubstantial about the whole premises .With the shutting Off o f the steam on the l iner theminor noises of the quay again became apparentsharp , clear voices ; the clang of hammers on iron ;the screech of steam winches and cranes swaying out

CHAPTER III

HE two men took their way along the Bundtowards the eastern side of the harbour . Abare-legged , blue-j acketed coolie , wearing

upon h is bullet-shaped head an antiquated pith hel

met, no longer white , and ornamented with a sprawling yellow dragon across the front

,was carrying

Somerville ’s light baggage tied to the wooden frameonhis back .

McKenz ie ’

s house was a bit further out of townthan mo st o f those Of the foreign merchants . In fact,it clung onthe hillside rather close to the upper fringeo f the native town stretching to the north along the

Tokitsu road . Leaving the blinding glare of the

waterside,McKenz ie struck inland . A turn to the

right and through a narrow,shaded path , they pur

sued thei r way parallel to the quay .

Somervil le talked little . He was noting thequaintness o f everything . He felt almost as thoughhe had fallen from the clouds into a world of un

reality and a town of toy houses . From the balconyof a big shingle-roofed chaya !tea-house ! a geisha

b lew kisses to them from her finger-tips as they passed

30


up the loose-paved ascent . This had happened too

Often to the seasoned M cKenz ie for him to do morethan smile

,shake his head , and cal l out,

“Mata Ki

masn, mayonichi —a vague promise for the time

which never comes,in remembrance of Katakuri San

at home . To Somerville , the newest of griflins in thisflowery land

,the very act o f the little woman was in

itsel f charming,and the pose O f the dainty figure , in

its bright-hued kimono and elaborately t ied obi, ap

pealed to his artistic sense .

Seeing he was incl ined to loiter, h i s compan ionlaughed .

Come along, he exclaimed . You w i ll see heapsof prettie r geisha and mnsnme

’

,and with Miss S umomo

there you would scarcely touch the fringe o f romance . ”

Then,for the rest o f the way up the sloping street

along which they went,now into harsh shadows

clearly defined as though painted in Payne ’s grey on

the yellow reddish soil,and then across patches o f

sunlight Of almost blinding intensity, McKenz ie told

him of Miss S umomo’

s errant affections and hermany charming peccadilloes— stories which

,because

such things are the same all the world over,seemed

to Somervil le to smack familiarly of the QuartierLatin .

At length they reached the house , perched up abovethe road on a piece o f rock against the hills ide , to

which McKenz ie,in anoutburst of national ardour,


had given the name Ecclefechan -a word whichhis Japanese friends and acquaintances could never

correctly pronounce .Through a little bamboo wicket, up a fl ight of min

iature steps cut in the rock , on which gay-coloured

lizards were sunning themselves , and along a mping,plant-bordered path

,and they were on the verandah .

Quite a fair—sized garden lay at the back of the

house ; the way they had come was McKenz ie ’

s short

tut.

At the sound Of thei r footsteps a panel door atthe further end of the verandah was sl id back

,and a

little figure came running with short,quick steps

towards them . It was “ Madame McKenz ie , re

splendent in a kimono Of peach-hued si lk embroidered

with si lver Chrysanthemums , and bound round at the

waist by a broad sky-blue obi tied behind in a huge

butterfly bow . When she caught s ight of Angus herface l ighted up with a smile of welcome

,strangely

compounded of admiration and deference for hervery much big European husband .

”

Then she caught sight of Somerville .Yokn nashaimasta, welcome ,

” she exclaimed,

prostrating hersel f quaintly , and then on rising seizing h is hand Ingleesh way .

”

She was very charming, this da inty, doll-l ike l ittle

woman , who scarcely stood higher than her big husband ’

s elbow .

A JAPANE SE R OMANCE 38

Somervi l le had scarcely time to appreciate her pret

tiness ere with a little laugh she vanished into the

oz ashiki !l iving room ! which opened on to the ver

andah . Through the thin shoj i her voice could be

heard exhorting San-to the cook to serve tiffinwithout

delay .

The wonderful bareness o f the room into which

McKenz ie,after kicking Off his shoe s , led Somerville ,

with the hospitable remark that he was to considerit his ownparticular slip of territory for j ust so long

as he liked,st ruck the latter with a sl ight sense of

isolation . It was more bare than his sometime studioin the Rue de Madame

,and how immaculately clean !

The spotless matt ing, onwhich it seemed impossi

ble that anything more defiling than sunbeams could

yet have fallen , or at worst the feet o f the l ittle mistresso f the house shod in snowy-white cotton tabi

,brought

almost a sense o f chill to his mind,which had not yet

been cleansed from the memory Of the paint—stainedparquet o f his Quartier Latin home . In a corner wasthe neatly rolled-up bed , a long mattress-shapedcushion about four inches thick

,covered in some dark

blue fabric , with a short bolster for pillow -this latter

an innovation of M cKenz ie ’

s, who had never taken

kindly to one o f acacia wood like that in which

Madame ’s elaborately coiffured head was wont to

repose .

A deck-chair , a copper j ar on a bracket with a

34s A JAPANE SE R OMANCE

flower-pot of Imari ware of elegant form and chastecolouring

,which pleased Some rville ’s artistic sense ,

and a vase in one corner near the window filled withsprigs of pinky-white plum blossom , the flowers ren

dered wonderfully transparent by the broad shaft of

sunlight which struck in under the overhanging eaves

and fell upon them . That was all .You can fix your painting traps up here right

away,”McKenz ie ’

s voice struck in whilst Somerville

was inspecting his surroundings . This way ,”

shoving back a panel,which ran almost si lently in its

wooden grooves leads into the garden . That i sKatakuri

’

s i ri s pond . Pretty,i sn ’t i t ? It i s she who

must show you round . She knows heaps more about

the flowers and things than I do,and she speaks

pretty fair English . Besides,you wil l have to learn

something of the l ingo , or you ’l l find your modelsdul l .”

The view from the end of the verandah , which

ran round three sides of this strangely fragile l ittle

house perched onthe mountain-side amidst the bamboos , pines , and maples , and huge , gloomy- look ing

cryptome rias , was magnificent . Far below ,the almost

landlocked harbour lay placid and still in the sunshine,

with its calm surface here and there disturbed by thesampans fl itting about l ike legless waterflies with trai ling agitated tails . Away across the harbour was thegap between the hil ls by which the liner had entered


a darker,narrow streak of water , into the compara

tive gloom o f which several white-sai led j unks wereslowly dri fting with the tide . The road up which

Somerville and McKenz ie had climbed stretched

away like a rusty red ribbon down towards the flat

roo fed settlement .As they were contemplating the outlook a soft p itter

patter of feet sounded along the matting Of the passage leading to the room . A panel was slid back andKatakur i San appeared

,a pretty little figure

,appar

ently artificial enough to have stepped bodi ly Off afan or some rice-paper screen .

“Tiffin i s quite made

,

” she exclaimed,w ith the

nearest approach to a European housewi fely smile ofpride fl itting across her l ittle tinted face

,making an

elaborate bow , almost a prostration , the while . Wi l l

the great honourable Engleesh si r have the augustpleasantness to arrive ?The great Engleesh s ir ti ckled Somervi l le ’s

sense of humour imm ensely,as d id also the quaint

pronunciat ion o f his mother-tongue,w ith a parrot

l ike monotony o f voice .

M cKenz ie laughingly explained .

I told Katakuri ,” he said

,

“ that you were a greatfriend of mine . She mi sunderstood what I meant andis , I

’

l l go bail , a bit disappointed in your size .”

It was evident that Madame McKenz ie had learned

her English sentences by heart,for she apparent ly


fa i led to qu ite comprehend what her husband wassaying.

They went together into the oz ashiki, on the spotless matting floor of which the meal was set , a nondescript array of food over whose preparation old San-tohad struggled gamely

,though somewhat unsuccess

fully,to transmute Eastern theories of the culinary

art into Western di shes .Katakuri San flitted about

,very proud that Somer

v i lle treated her as the wife of the big Scotsman—thecolour of whose hai r and complexion always remindedher of the sunset seen from Kompirayama, when it i s

hazy—for Mr . Yumoto never seemed able to treather so .

Everyth ing was del ightfully fresh to the newarrival : the l ittle woman in her quaintly art istic dress ,a blot of colour in the white bareness of the room

the bril liant sunshine,which nothing could seemingly

prevent streaming in through the interstices of theshoj i, making ladders of light onwhich particles of

dust floated l ike the interm inable air-dance of gnats ,and the quaint insufficiency of the numerous d ishes ,soup , fish , meat, and fruits in bewildering forms .Katakuri San , moreover , evidently regarded Somerville with favour , for she tried perseveringly to converse with him in the strange mixture of Japanese

,

English , and French , most of which she had pickedup ere McKenz ie had started housekeep ingWith her.


the conversation , for she smiled a rather artificiall ittle smile

,and sat down onthe thin mat-l ike z abnton

!cushion ! in silence .

McKenz ie did not return to hi s Ofli ce as he usuallydid after tiffin, and the two men sat onthe verandah ,which was on the side of the house overlooking thetown and harbour

,smoking and talking over o ld

t imes . The sometime artist , but now merchant , waseager to hear how his O ld chums of the Quartier Latinfared ; and Somerville was only too willing to talk

of the place which had for the last five years beenhome to him .

Yumoto and Fo lkard came up quite early , and thenover coffee and cigars the four men talked on ; Kata

kuri San listening with strained attention for the Engl ish words she knew , as they spoke of Paris , London ,European politics

,and their mutual friends . Then they

discussed Somerville ’s plans til l the dusk began to

enmesh the hills ide , the sky assume a deep blue t intpowdered with gold dust

,as the myraid stars came

slowly out and the harbour became an irregular

shaped grey pearl , turning to black as the night drewon apace .

Down below the l ights of the town sparkled,and

here and there along the black gashes,which indicated

the streets , paper lanterns , carried by pedestrians orswung from the balconies of tea-houses

,gleamed fit

fully. Each sampanand j unk in the harbour had its


owngay red , orange , or pure white paper lanterns ,which were so numerous that Somerville was misledinto thinking that there was a fete .

Into the further recess of the bay and h i l ls ides theOrient Queen, which was coaling, flashed an impro

vised electric searchlight,throwing into strong relie f

the shipping, the houses , and the crowds of people

gathered along the Bund , the indistinct murmur of

whose voices floated up like the breaking of sea onasandy shore .

Once the bl inding beam of l ight flashed into the

verandah and startled Katakuri San so violently that

she declared that she had seen a bake-momo !ghost ! ,and cowered frightened at McKenz ie ’

s feet .

It i s bad,velly bad ,

” she exclaimed , almost in

tears o f vexation at having shown fear before these

Englishmen .

Yes,i t i sn ’t n ice

,agreed young Fo lkard sympa

thetically .

“ It makes things look tawdry .

”

“Robs the night o f its poetry ,

” said Somervi l le

musingly,as the sky seemed to be cut Off from them ,

“ and turns the landscape into a Caran d’

Ache—alll ines and reali sm , a mere si lhouette .

Yumoto was commercial . “ But it enables us to

see things , said he .

Katakuri San shook her elaborately coiffured headdissentingly as she remembered its blinding flash in

her eyes .


We could tell i f there were an enemy in theMegam i Channel , Yumoto continued . And thenwhat a wonderful thing electricity i s ! It will revolutionise labour and the commercial world .

”

Then the four men argued out the trend of modern

progress from their individual points of view ti ll itgot late . But at last Katakuri San took two paper

lanterns , suspended from slight bamboo sticks , fromthe corner for the guests and lighted them

,her dainty

l ittle figure hal f in shadow making a pretty picture as

she d id so,the rouge and b lanc de perle of her cheeks

being softened by the diffused orange radiance which

l ighted them as she peered cautiously into the narrow

mouths of the lanterns to make sure they were burn

ing properly .

When Yumoto and his companion had finally dis

appeared down the winding hi llside path Somervi lle

and McKenz ie went in .

The former fel l asleep under his smoke-blue mos

quito net with the eternal chirp of the cicadae andKatakuri San ’s voice in hi s ears , the last words which

came to him faintly through the panell ing being,Yes

,Fuj i j ust the one sort girl for him .

” This in

Katakuri San ’s funny little drawling voice , followedby a murmur of dissent from McKenz ie .

Then a s i lvery l ittle laugh, the c lapping of hands,and si lence .

CHAPTE R IV

E RY early next morn ing Somerville was

awakened by the song o f a grosbeak and the

twittering of the tree-sparrows in the garden

outs ide . The last thing ere turning in the night beforehe had pushed back one o f the upper panels of the

shoj i, through which now fell a ladder of golden light,soft and translucent . He lay onhis thin , mattress- l ike

bed , watching it through the haze formed by the greyish-blue mosquito curtains

,and listening to the song o f

the birds . And as he did so he suddenly rememberedwhat V o ilet Desborough had told him about the latter .“You wil l only hear it i f you waken early or travel

late ,” she had said

,

“for at noon and during the

middle part o f the day even in the woods there i s a

strange hush o f sti l lness which leads many travellers

who sleep soundly,and who do not travel except in the

middle hours Of the day, to speak o f Japan as a land

without singing—birds .”

With his thoughts o f what Violet Desborough hadsaid came thoughts o f her . He lay and wonderedwhether she had already proceeded to Tokio or was

sti l l aboard the Orient Queendown in the harbour

41


below, waiting to go on by it to Yokohama. He

remembered she had said she was undecided what shewould do unti l she got a letter from her aunt at the

post—office on the Bund, which she knew would beawaiting her .

He wondered somewhat vaguely whether she would

ever think o f him, and then his thoughts trailed off in

speculation concerning what might have happened

had only Mrs . Thirston’

s offi ciousness not forced hishand , and—the voyage lasted longer .At length the l ight became stronger. Outside the

sunwas climbing up from the sea and over the hi llsto pour a flood of soft radiance into M cKenz ie ’

s

beauti ful garden . San-to could be heard movingabout humming some dirge-l ike song ; and the boom ,

boom of an incoming steamer ’s siren signalling to the

look—out on Iwo Shima floated up from the harbour

and re-echoed amid the hills surrounding it . Thenaway to the west came the shri ller scream o f a

whistle at the Imperial Dockyard , then the sound of aclock striking down in the Foreign Settlement.Pushing the curtains o f his bed aside , Somerville

rolled out from beneath what he had already face

tiously named the“ meat safe,

” and looked out

through the shoj iAcross the garden came the song of the grosbeak,and from a tree hard by a bullfinch was sending backa mocking warble . Down below lay the exqu isite

A JAPANE SE R OMAN CE 43

harbour,only j ust bathed in the soft but clear early

morning light,which showed up every j unk

, sampan,and steamer on its surface as though they had been

carved out o f ebony or coloured woods . The traderthat had hooted at Iwo Shima was j ust coming

through the narrow passage Of scattered islets with a

long black trai l of smoke behind her floating back toTakab oko .

But it was to the garden that Somervi l le ’s eyesturned . Near the path up which he had come the day

before was a plum-tree in blossom , an exquisite tracery

o f blue-black twigs and branches thickly encrusted

with nacre-tinted flowers . Beneath it lay a carpet o f

petals as though snow had fallen in the hour of dark

ness . And further down the path , where a tiny bridge

crossed an equally dim inutive stream,were the cherry

trees Katakuri San loved,with their blossoms j ust

about to burst the gummy sheaths which held them .

Away ona bank under the bushes and diminutive

trees which bordered the garden onthe hillside was

a patch o f deep blue where a carpet o f scentless violets

lay in the green shade o f cypress and pine .

As he was wondering at the exquisite beauty of thi sl ittle garden

,he heard the sounds o f stirring in the

adj oining room,with an accompaniment of Mc

Kenzie ’s tones speaking Japanese,and the more treble

ones o f Katakuri San .

A few minutes later and there was a rap on the


karakami which served as a door leading into thepassage , the sharp noise of a small bronze knocker

meeting lacquered wood .

Ohayo ! called McKenz ie from outs ide .Ohayo !

” replied Somervil le , adding, after somethought , a polite phrase which M iss Desbo rough hadtaught him

, Orgari nasai.

The panel was slid back and McKenz ie appeared

laughing at Somervil le ’s pronunciation of the last twowords . And how have you slept ? asked the former.First-rate

,

” replied Somerville . I have been

awake since five , and lay listening to the birds and

watching the light grow stronger. It is exquisite uphere . But how is Madame ? ”

McKenz ie smiled .

“ I think,

” sa id he , you may as well call her

Katakuri San,at least when we are enfamille. It is

Yumoto’

s politeness which makes him call her

Madame . You will soon begin to feel that your best

manners are o f quite an inferior kind when you come

in contact with the people out here .”

So Miss Desborough led me to believe , remarkedSomervil le .

McKenz ie glanced at the speaker narrowly , andthen said , And who ’s Miss Desborough ?

A girl on the steamer . She ’s come out to live fora time with her people at Tokio . They ’re somethingin diplomacy ; at least her uncle i s , I believe .

”


You’

ve got everything you want, I hope ?”

queried McKenz ie , with a comprehens ive glance roundthe bare room .

“Ye—es,

” replied his friend somewhat dubiously,

i f I could have a wash .

M cKenz ie burst out laughing.

“There

’

s your washing kit over there,he said

,

after a pause , pointing to a small bowl in the corner of

the room , and a very ornamental but diminutive j arwhich stood beside it .

That ! exclaimed Somervi lle in astonishment .Why, i t

’s not so big as the ridiculous tea-cup affairI found had sufficed for the ablutions o f my pre

decessor in my room in the Rue de Madame . I can ’tget a wash in that thing.

McKenz ie laughed .

I ’m afraid,

” said he , you ’ l l find everyth ing out

here ontoo small a scale at first . But another morning you can have a bath—a real ‘ tub such as mostdecent Japs take every day or oftener , and hot enoughto cook them

,which does away with the necessity for

much washing b etweeenwhiles . But this morningKatakuri has annexed it ; and I regret to say my ownleaks . San-to ’s youngest girl fel l into it about a weekago when it was out on the verandah

,and they both

rolled together down the steps into the garden . Andwhen I extricated her I found that the shock of the

fal l had knocked out two of her teeth and started


S everal of the tub’s ribs . I t leaks like a sieve now ,

and I don ’t want to turn your floor into a swimmingbath . I f you want a

‘ tub to-day you had better get

out in the garden . The lake i s j ust about big enough ;but m ind the goldfish don ’t eat you, for they didn

’

tget a meal yesterday ; Katakuri was so excited at the

prospect Of your arrival that she .clean forgot to feed

them .

”

I ’l l cut the bath in the goldfish pond this morn

ing,said Somervi lle

,

“ and try to clean mysel f in the

eggcup .

”

Come out onthe verandah when you’re through ,

said McKenz ie , I hear Katakuri call ing .

”

Oide nasai ! Oide nasai ! sounded down thepassage as McKenz ie disappeared . And then camethe tones of Katakuri San ’s soft , gentle voice in whatwas evidently serious conversation .

Somerville hastened over the rest of his to i let,and

pushing back the shoj i strolled out onto the verandah .

The first thing he did was to search the harbourand waterside Of the Bund for the Orient Queen. Hewould perhaps have been puzzled to exactly explainwhy he did so , but he felt the mail steamer which hadbeen his home for more than six weeks was as i twere the last l ink between the l i fe he had led and thathe was j ust about to lead . And besides , Violet Des

borough possessed a greater interest for h im than hehad supposed .


As he leaned against the wooden post of the verandah

,which was painted a brick-dust red , and swept

his eyes across the harbour he caught sight Of the

Orient Queenmoored with steam up , her white hullgleaming like ivory in the morning light and silveryplumes o f vapour issuing from her steam-pipes . Theseincreased

,and before long the tearing concussion of

the safety valves reverberated in the stil l air , causing

the fragile panels o f the house to vibrate l ike tympani .

Then a whistle sounded as the mailboat cast Off hermoorings and began to drift round maj estically , with

her bows pointing to the narrow channel between IwoShima and Kame-nO-shima .

Somerville watched her gathering way,and leaving

an ever-increasing,fan-shaped wake behind her

,with

a pang of regret . .He strained his eyes uselessly inthe vain endeavour to detect the identity o f the peopleon her promenade deck, and was so preoccupied indoing so that he did not hear the soft shoo-shoo of

Madame McKenz ie ’

s tabi-clad feet along the mattingo f the verandah .

Ohayo ! she exclaimed,after gazing intently for

a moment at Somervi lle ’s face in profi le .He started , and turned round .

Madame M cKenz ie stood in a little pool o f sunlight which struck inbeneath the rafters o f the verandah , a dainty little figure in a bright orange cottonkimono

, into the fabric of which was woven a pattern


formed by sprigs o f plum blossom,a gayer garment

than married women usually wore . But then McKenzie loved colour

,and she to please him had made

a law o f fashions Of her own, which had at first somewhat scanda

’

l i sed her relatives . Her face had thatdainty artificiality which the use o f rouge and powder

produces,a delicacy o f nuance which would have

done credit to an English fashionable beauty .

To tell the truth , this same complexion had takenher quite a while to build up , as she had sat that morn

ing cross-legged onthe white matting Of her sleeping

chamber in front of her tiny dressing-chest with its

numerous miniature drawers o f camphor-wood , and

its circular mirror of polished steel swinging betweenscrolls of hammered bronze .

It is wel l to do honour to one ’s honourable guest,

she had said in a circumlocutory phrase to McKenz ie .

But at the back Of her l ittle mind lay the desire toplease

,which had been inculcated in her for years

before she became one o f the most admired attendantsat the Fuj i - tei restaurant in Ima-machi

,at which she

had picked up a strange medley of American , English ,and French phrases .Somerville smiling

,repl ied to her good morning

in his best Japanese ; and then fell to a considerationo f her as an arti sti c whole .In that sense there could be no manner of doubt

that Katakuri San was a success . He noted the pure


oval of her face and the soft peach bloom upon the

curve of her cheeks where the poudre de riz blendedimperceptibly with the rouge fin. Her kimono wasrather widely open at the neck

,and displayed a throat

and a suspicion of her shoulders , which were plump

and almost as white as those of a European . In fact ,they were only tinted with that golden glow whichhad often pleased his artistic sense when a beauti ful

Creole , named Hermione Doucet , was posing at C0lorossi

’

s. And where in many women salt cellarsappeared , with her there were only dimples . He

noticed,too

,that where the wide

,hanging sleeve o f

her kimono fel l away from her upraised left arm ,that

the latter was well shaped and her hands small . And

as to her eyes,they were the slyest and most mis

chievous he had ever seen . As Mademoiselle Katakuri San o f the Fuj i-tei R estaurant in Ima-machi shehad learned to use them professionally and effec

tively , as her capture of McKenz ie testified , and as

Madame McKenz 1e she did not make use of them lessski l fully .

As she stepped to his side and gazed out over therail o f the verandah Somervi lle was able to appreciatethe exquisite care which Katakuri San had bestowedupon both her complexion and her coiffure . Her masso f blue-black hair—coarse , i t must be admitted , butlustrous—was piled up high upon her shapely littlehead, and in it were stuck some huge j ade-headed p ins


arranged l ike the spokes of a conventional halo ofsemi-ci rcular form .

“ Your honourable body I hope itsel f has rested,

she remarked,with a smile in a quaint mixture of

English and Japanese idiom .

“And that the noise of

the sparrows has not too early wakened you .

”

Somervil le was assuring her that he had slept well,

and that the tw i ttering of the sparrows was altogetherdelightful , when McKenz ie appeared

,cigarette in

mouth , and w ith a copy of Le P etit Journal in hi shand .

I ’ve only j ust got the mail that the Orient Queenbrought,

” he sa id ,“ and reading this has made me

quite homes ick, or, rather,‘ Quartier ’ sick . What

times we used to have , Somerville ! And the boys .We would have been going home to roost about this

time in Paris after a fierce night up on Montmartreor at Bullier . And Suzanne , what a girl ! She would

have made two of the biggest geisha down in thetown . And then there was Herm ione . Do you re

member the morning we returned with her from the‘

Quatz’ Art Ball when our

‘ float ’ took the firstprize

,and she would insist onmounting the pedestal

o f the monument in the P lace du Carrousel in hertiger skin and haranguing the Sergente de ville . Thosewere days

,i f you l ike ; and I sometimes feel sick o f

the Porcelain Works !though I’m making money fast !

and long for the o ld , bare , dirty studio in the Rue des


Fourneaux,with its no rth light subdued by dust . Al l

which has been suggested,

” he continued,“ by this

paragraph announcing l ittle R ené Desmoulin ’s suicide by charcoal . Poor little R ené ! I wonder howmany time sketches I made of her whilst she used topout and pretend that all artists were cochons, and

posing was the most arduous Of all the professions

open to pretty girls . ”

Somerville smiled at McKenz ie ’

s vain regrets concerning the li fe he had abandoned . He had heard

René ’s m ishap ere he left Pari s . But such thingswere so frequent in the Quartier that a couple of

months had served to dull any poignant regret hemight have felt at the time of the occurrence .Katakuri San loo ked at McKenz ie fixedly . Shecould only gather from his speech that it concernedhis former li fe about which he sometimes spoke of her,and—a woman .

In her l ittle m ind there lay dormant mostly , butoccasionally very much the reverse

,a dislike o f foreign

women , for so she classed all Europeans . And thatMcKenz ie had spoken of women he had known shequite realised .

After a pause she ventured to say with a wonderful mispronunciation o f Pauline ’s name ! Paw- leenDays mow- len , who is she , Kumataka ?

” using thename which had been bestowed upon McKenz ie onaccount of his piercing grey eyes .

54 A‘ JAPANE SE ROMANCE

wh ich were over-bold in their fl ights across its surface,

nor the new wealth of blossom on the plum-tree sheloved , that had come to replace the fallen petals of thenight .

A ll three were di sturbed by the creaking of theverandah as San-to came along it to announce thatbreakfast was prepared .

“K ekko

,

”said McKenz ie , w ithout turn ing round .

And then , as San-to , a wrinkled-faced figure,disap

peared into the house , he laid a hand upon KatakuriSan

’

s shoulder Come,

” said he,I am hungry , and

our honourable guest wil l be wanting hi s breakfast .

She turned,and the face she showed to McKenz ie ,

however sad it had been the moment before whenshe looked out over the garden , was smil ing. For

from the reversed pages of Kaibara’

s OnnaDiagaku had she not learned in early girlhood thatshe should never offend her husband or male relatives ,or even h is relatives

,with a frowning face ? In this

“ Whole Duty of Women !which a facetious Am

ericangirl has called The Whole Gospel o f Women—According to Man she had also learned manyother things which make for domestic peace , eventhough they spell the effacement of individuality inwomen .

It was not easy for Somerville to squat crosslegged in comfort upon a z abuton, which McKenz iehad by this time learned to do so easily .


It i s strange at first , said the latter, laugh ing atthe wry face of hi s friend , but now I would rathersit ona cushion at meals l ike a tai lor than use a chair .”

“You much pain in your honourable legs have ,

remarked Katakuri San as she was handing round the

fish,tea

, mochi !rice cake ! , and meboshi !dry salted

plums ! , and noticed his discomfort . Mister Bolton ,him a great man say bad words at our abominablefloor and z abuton at first

,but now quite beauti fully

he shut up like Kumataka there . ”

McKenz ie laughed and explained that Mister Bolton was an engineer 1nthe Naval Yard

,some six feet

in height and with legs rather disproportionately long,

and that by shut up Katakuri San referred to the

ease with which he now managed to sit down .

He is a great chum of Katakuri’s,” he explained .

She has a quaint way o f estimating importance bysize , and I think sti l l bel ieves Bolton was some one ofgreat mark in England .

”

“Nani? exclaimed Katakuri San

,with an inkling

that he was laughing at her,adding after a pause

,as

she comprehended what had been said, Wakarimasu.

Mister Bolton a very great man,a very important

Offi cer gentleman .

”

As she was speaking she rose to her feet , withan almost imperceptible straightening Of her lower

limbs,and pushing one o f the karakami back in its

grooves disappeared .


She has gone to get some biscu its , expla ined

McKenz ie .

“ She has noticed that the mochi hangsfire with you. I have been trying to educate San-tointo the way o f preparing an English breakfast evers ince I came up here

,but to no purpose . And at last

I am getting accustomed to all sorts of weird thingswhich appear when Katakuri San and she have beenputting their heads together .”

Somervil le looked somewhat despondently at the

array o f small dishes which were spread out in a

semi-circle in front of where Katakuri San had beens itting. He had been eating all the time !what heknew not! and he was stil l hungry .

I suppose said he at length , with a grim sort ofsmile ,

“ there s not a restaurant down in the townwhere I could get a square meal ? ”

“ There is ,” replied McKenz ie, in Hama-no

machi . But no one takes a square meal at this timeo f day . And besides , Katakuri San would feel insulted beyond measure were you to scorn her breakfast, which I believe she thinks is quite European , byproposing to feed in the town .

”

But ,”argued Somervi lle , I ’ve only had samples .

And Heaven only knows o f what ! I can ’t starve,

man . And I

Ere he could finish what he was about to say the‘

karakomi once more sl id along in its grooves andKatakuri San appeared . Her face was radiant

,and

'


she Bore in her arms a tin o f American cra'ckers ,wh ich were only produced onstate occasions , or when

she w ished to give a lady visitor an astoni shing treat .You much l ike these , she exclaimed , seating her

sel f w ith the b iscuit tin between her knees . Oagan

nasai, take much ,” holding out a tiny plateful , adding

with the pol iteness which compels the Japanese hostand hostess to depreciate the food offered , they arevery nasty kashi, but I hope they your honourable

stomach w i l l please .”

Somervi l le laughed and took a handful of the

crackers . He had had a good many makeshi ft andinadequate meals in the Quartier Latin during thefour and a half years he had lived in Paris

,but none

stranger than the present one . Even French roll sand coffee , he thought , are a better preparation for aday ’s work than the small sl ices of raw fish

,salted

plums , m inute cups o f weak tea the colour o f whisky,and the crackers with which he had been regaled

,not

to mention hal f a dozen other mysterious things whosenature he had not ventured to ask .

He ate a good many of Katakuri San ’s nastykashi ere he felt the appetite which had been inducedby the clear , fresh morning air had been in the least

appeased . Had he glanced at his hostess instead o f

confining his attention to the crackers and conversation with McKenz ie

, he would have noticed that herface wore a look of almost plaintive anxiety as she

58’

A JAPANE SE ROMAN CE

watched the precious biscuits disappearing. To tellthe truth

,it was the last tin , and McKenz ie , for

economical reasons,never let her know that the fresh

supply which presumably came each time from San

Francisco or Vancouver actually emanated from hisoffice

,where he held stock .

At length Katakuri San felt that she could withoutimpoliteness replace the lid ; and when this was doneher face resumed that expression o f tranquil lity withwhich she had been taught to endure buffets of fortune

,lest her honourable Scotsman should think she

were growing ugly and dismiss her with that ease ofdivorce which made her tenure of w ifehood soinsecure .Down in the town below them a gong sounded

in the Shinto Temple,recalling McKenz ie to a realisa

t ion of the fact that he was already due at his officein the PercelainWorks .I must be going ! he exclaimed , getting up onhis

feet with a spring,which Somervil le vainly attempted

to imitate .

“ You had better walk down with me,

and spend the morning wandering about ti l l tiffin,when I will meet you at Icho-tei in Hama-no-machi .We shall pass it onour way .

”

Katakuri San made a little moue o f disappo intmentat McKenz ie ’

s proposal .

That morning, almost as soon as her eyes were

open , she had decided how delightful a day she would

A'

JAPANE SE ROMAN CE 59

spend looking on whilst Somerville unpacked histhings . The cases which the coolies had staggered

under and eventually placed in the room at the far endo f the engawa !verandah ! must surely, she thought ,contain things o f great interest and importance . Andhad not Kumataka himsel f told her very funny storieso f her honourable guest ’s paintings

,and how he made

pictures o f women appear in a very few moments andin bri lliant colours on pieces o f canvas tight on

frames ? And then,perhaps

,she had thought , as she

lay with hal f-closed eyes looking at the sunlight which

came in through the ramma which McKenz ie always

left open for venti lation , in one or other o f those im

mense packing-cases there might be some books with

pictures in them . And Katakuri San was fond o f pic

tures . It was , there fore , with a sad heart she watched

Somervi lle disappear in company with McKenz ie over

the dip in the road which ran along the bottom of the

garden .

San-to was not an exciting compan ion ; M io Sanonly smiled when her mistress talked seriously , andnotwithstanding her honourable position which had

made Miss Morning Glory,

” Miss Snow , and“ Miss Moon Face

,

” who sti l l entertained the visitors

at the Fuj i-tei,envious and her relatives proud ,

Katakuri San was often dul l when M cKeniz e was

away,and at times often longed for her o ld l i fe of

pleasure and excitement .

CHAPTER V

ORE than a month had passed s ince Somerville had landed at Nagasaki , and by that

t ime , with the adaptabi lity of a cosmopol

i tan temperament , he had already begun to feel at

home .He sheds his griffinhood read i ly, Yumoto had ex

claimed one evening at the Hanaz ono Restaurant in

N i shiyama Go . And the phrase exactly described the

s ituation .

Long ere th is the room which McKenz ie had

allotted to Somerville had been converted by him into

a very fai r semblance o f a studio . And to Katakuri

San ’s eyes it had become a chamber o f mystery and

del ight . Never,certainly

,had she been in so very

much fil led up a heya.

” And,to tell the truth , her

native sense of orderliness and her del ight in the

crowd of different obj ects which so militated againstsuch a desirable thing were in constant opposition .

In this room , which overlooked the most beauti ful

corner o f the garden , and had a distant v iew o f thebare scrap of Venus Hill

,the triple summits o f Shich i

men-zan, and the woods of the lower hi ll s, Somervi l le

60


to pry into a locked and secret chamber,and had been

checked j ust as the door was about to open . After all ,he thought i t was probably some trivial woman ’s secret .And yet ? With a sudden comprehension the idea

seemed to form in his mind that it was something to

do with him .

A fter the first week of aimless but fascinating

wanderings through the quaint streets and narrow

alleys of the town , or away into the woods above

Ippon Matsu , Somerville had settled down to serious

work . In the room now known as the studio , which

Katakuri San called with involution o f phraseology

the heyawhere the honourable artist paints his august

kakemono,” he was ever discovering new schemes o f

lighting. The translucent shoj i were a never-ending

delight ; manipulations of them gave him golden sun

light,strong diffused radiance , or a wonderful orange

coloured glow such as proceeds from paper lanterns

in the dusk of evening.

He soon had his sketch-book ful l o f studies of o ld

San-to,Mio San

,and Katakuri San— the first named

a quaint figure generally clad in a slate-blue cotton

kimono,with a triangular cap of linen onher grey

coi ffure,and a face tanned to a reddish brown by sun

and wind,and so deeply wrinkled that all the emotions

seemed frozen upon it . Nothing, not even an earth

quake, McKenz ie once declared , could add another

line to San-to ’s expressive countenance .


Mio San was like spring . She was fresh and pretty,

with cheeks l ike a sun-kissed peach,and an artless

smile that would have played havoc with the hearts

and purses of the ofli cers off the mailboats had she

been down at Hanaz ono R estaurant in the N ishiyamaGo . But she was not, for her people were highly

respectable florists who lived near the baths at Uresh

ino ; and so she practised her wiles onSomerville , and

one day came running to him in great distress for

some of the wonderful stuff he used for nomi bites ,sl ipping her kimono from off the plumpest of

shoulders imaginable to show him where the bee had

stung her .

But this piece of coquetry almost cost Mio San her

place on the spot,for her mistress , hearing her

mingled laughter and sobs,came to inquire the cause

and drove her from the room with unnecessary wrath ,but not impolite language .

Somerville used hi s best Japanese in excus ing!

her .

She i s but a child,

” said he,and a bee-sting is um

pleasant . And how was it possible to cure the i l l i fone saw not the place which hurt ?

Katakuri San gazed at him with a slow,wide open

ing of her eyes , and an almost scornful curving o f her

lips . Then she said quietly, One i s no longer a ch i ld

when one’

s eyes can look out as M io San ’s,and when

one i s stung upon the shoulder for the need o fhealing .

”


Somervi l le looked at Katakuri San , and then he

understood .

But all the same he remembered Mio San ’s ex

quisitely dimpled shoulder , and thought what a sensation it would have created at Co lorossi’s.

Katakuri San was not appeased unti l he had let her

see the sketch he had made the day before in the court

o f the Hon-ren- j i !Temple ! in N ishi Nakamachi .But as she looked at the picture and wondered how

he had caught the sunshine and put it down on the

earth beneath the trees ,” her mind was evidently else

where . At last she said, You Mio San pretty, nice

girl think ? ”

“ Yes,Somervi lle adm itted frankly .

Her face fell,but she persisted with her questioning,

although she felt as one who walked forward in the

dark, fearing lest she should stumble into a bottomless

pit

Your honourable mouth her altogether contempt

ible face has kissed ? ” she inquired , lowering her eyes

from his face .

No ,” repl ied Somervi lle slowly . Why do you

ask ? Has not O Kumataka San told me often that

there are no kisses in Japan ?

No kisses ,” agreed Katakuri San

,ti l l the hon

ourab le foreigner hi s august lips on ours places .”“ But , O Katakuri San , the lips of Mio S anand

mine have not met. And so ?”


You do not love her well , repl ied Katakur i San ;and no harm is done .

”

Somervi lle had been glancing at the speaker frombeneath his brows whilst she spoke

,and he noticed

that her chagrin had mostly dissipated by the t ime shefinished speaking .

Katakuri San looked at him for a moment withsoftened eyes

,and then she turned slowly away .

S ayonara? M ata merimas,she said

,as she

vanished on to the verandah through the open shoj i.Good-bye , O Katakuri San , called out Somerville ,

Opening his colour-box and preparing to finish a sketchof a coolie onwhich he was engaged . Adding as an

afterthought,Yes

,come again soon .

”

When he was alone he began to th ink . The angerhis l ittle hostess had shown had been strange . Then ,as he painted and saw the expressive face and bronzelimbs o f the coolie grow under the strokes of his

brush , he remembered several incidents which had

occurred during the last two weeks,and these sud

denly assumed a new light .

Katakuri San had certainly shown a great predilection for his society o f late But he had not sought to

analyse the reason,merely supposing, i f he thought

about the matter at all , that i t was because o f his“ august ski ll in painting

, or because she was fond o f

looking over his sketch-books .

Three nights ago,he now suddenly remembered,


they had been climbing up the hi l l by the light of theirpaper lanterns and a pale white moon

,after spending

the evening at the theatre in E -no-kidz umachi,when

McKenz ie and young Fo lkard had outpaced them .

As they proceeded further up the hi l l the moonlighthad become stronger and more si lvery . He had

remarked on the fact to Katakuri San,and she had

replied in a soft tone of voice,“S hiz uka ui iki kuta

biremashta

And when as desi red he had walked stil l slower shehad said ,

“ The honourable moon is risen . We cansee our road without the lanterns .”

As she stooped over to blow out her owna flood ofyellow-reddish light l it her face and neck

,throwing a

bronze tint upon her beauti ful black hair,and into her

eyes had stolen a coquettish look which turned their

usual softness into something quite different . When

he had stooped to blow out his own their two headshad come suddenly close together, and KatakuriSan had given a little s igh which no man who

had ever known much about women could well misinterpret .Her eyes glanced at him strangely ere the light of

the lantern went out,and he was conscious that

raising his head away from that inviting roundedcheek and leaving it unkissed was an effort, and one

that the owner hersel f did not appreciate .“ You a very funny man ,

” Katakuri San had ex


claimed,handing him the lantern , with a l ittle laugh ,

in which there was a trace o f chagrin .

But when he said “Why ? ” she would not tel lhim .

She only shrugged her shoulders , as she had seen

the wi fe o f the French Vice-Consul do when annoyed,

and walked onin si lence .When they had come to the turning where the

narrow , rough-paved path to McKenz ie ’

s home

branched off Katakuri San once more complained o f

fatigue .

“S ukoshi mate, kutabiremashta,

” she saidweari ly .

And when Somervil le had stopped and turned round,

w ith his face down the road and glancing out over

the harbour,she laid a small hand on his arm . And

then , as he did not resist it , she thrust it through h i sand leaned upon it .

When they went onagain she d id not remove i t ti l l

they came to the small bamboo gate which led into thelower portion of the garden . There they found bothFo lkard and McKenz ie awaiting them ,

and onseeing

the latter Katakuri San had suddenly let go his arm .

As they al l four turned to pass in at the wicket thelight o f Fo lkard ’

s lantern had fallen upon Katakuri

San ’s face for a brief moment , and he had noted the

red flush which stained her cheeks . Then the light

from the lantern had fl i ckered Off amongst the trees

and shrubs before McKenz ie turned to speak to him ,


and in the moonl ight Katakur i San ’s face looked nomore flushed than usual .Remembering her anger of half an hour ago the

incidents he had now recal led bore a new and ratherdisquieting significance to Somerville .

A l l the morning, whilst he sat before his easel pa int

ing away at the coolie,he thought Of them as he heard

Katakuri San either moving about or playing onher

samisen. Once he caught her peeping at him roundthe corner of the shoj i, and once he thought he heardher talking severely to Mio San .

I f he had but known what Katakuri San was say ing

to her l ittle maid he would not have painted so stead i ly,nor have wh istled softly to h imself an air from La

Belle Helene . ”

M io San,poo r l ittle soul , was very miserable all

that day in consequence of the interview with herm istress . For had not the latter pointed out to her inpicturesque language the enormity of her offence in

troubling “ the honourable English sir over a mis

crable hachi !bee ! sting upon her contemptible b odv ?

Into little Mio San ’s heart there crept a great blank

ness at the enormity of her offence,and with it was

mingled a sadness that she must no longer seek to

intrude her unworthy presence upon the honourable

Englishman . I f she did,had not Katakuri San told

her she would be driven from the house ? and then not

evenat meal-times would she see him . I f, too, she


that affa ir of Kynaston’

s I was telling you of the

other night has ended disastrously. You know I toldyou he married old Sakak San ’s daughter. His

go-down is next Yumoto ’

s, onthe Bund .

”

Somerville nodded assent, and as he d id so hecaught sight of Katakuri San ’s face . It had a look

o f intense interest upon it .McKenz ie continued : “ About three months ago

!they’ve been married about a couple o f years now!

Kynaston saw a geisha, Ran San,in one o f the

waterside chaya, and since then little A sagao San has

had to put up with second place . You saw her the

other day down at Tanz awa’

s when you were hunt

ing for that bronze yatate !pencil and ink case ! . Her

face has lately been like that of a pale ghost . Well ,i t appears that Kynaston has not been home for

several days,and this morn ing A sagao San

’s body

was found washed ashore near the Imperial Dock

yard . I hear that her people had urged her to remain

with him when she complained o f his treatment

months ago . And she did ; but it broke her spirit ,and the end has been that which so often happens .

During the recital Katakuri San ’s face had under

gone many changes , and when Somerville glanced

at her as McKenz ie finished speaking he was astonished to see the look of apprehension and alarm onit .

Suddenly her eyes met his,and in an instant she

gained complete control of her features , and she began


to laugh—a harsh little laugh with no real merrimentin it . For down in the depths o f her heart a greatdread had been growing whilst M cKenz ie spoke ,although she could not understand all that he had

said .

Perhaps the story of Asagao San’s misfortunes

suggested the thought to M cKenz ie , for he turned to

Somerville and said laughingly ,“ Katakuri has not

yet found you the l ittle geisha you are to marry . But

when she does , remember the end o f Asagao San .

Somervi lle smiled,and said something about being

contented to remain as he was,whilst Katakur i San ,

without a change o f colour , remarked ,“ He marry

nothing,much nice more as he is .”

A very pretty compliment ,” exclaimed McKenz ie ,

O wise one . But some day, when he i s wandering

about the town,he will see a face that he likes , and

then before you or I know he wil l be getting a house

for himsel f .

I f Katakuri San did not agree with this view she

wisely said nothing,but started to tel l McKenz ie of

some imaginary misdeeds o f poor little Mio San in

pursuance o f an idea which she had been turning

over in her mind al l the morning whilst she sat out

onthe verandah near Somervil le’s studio l i stening to

him whistl ing and singing to himsel f snatches o f

songs he had sung in the cafés o f Montmartre andthe Boule Miche

,but she said not a word of M io


San ’s crowning indiscretion in regard to the hachisting.

During the afternoon , wh i lst McKenz ie was downat the offi ce , Katakuri San paid several vis its to thestudio . She had had no intention of visiting Madame

Dubois , although she had put onher most handsome

kimono and a kerchief of finest chirimen!si lk crepe! .

With woman ’s subtlety she had put these things on

to emphasise the gul f fixed between herself and

Mio San .

“ It i s very sad,said she to Somerville , about

Asagao San . But a woman will always rather die

than be scorned .

” And as she spoke she looked at

Somerville with a mockingly inviting glance . But j ust

then he happened to be gazing intently at a patch of

l ight on the verandah outside , and so he missed the

true significance of her words .Katakuri

‘

San had not served her apprenticesh ip at

the Fuj i-tei for nothing .

In the evening Yumoto came up from the town ,as he frequently did

,for a chat and a smoke upon

the verandah . He,too

,was full of the tragedy o f

poor little Asagao San . Somerville not iced that helooked very hard several times at Katakuri San whilst

they were talking, and at length he said , with a strangesmile which Somerville could not quite comprehend

,

“And you , O Ku Sama !honourable lady o f the

house! , what do you think of the finish of O Asagao


San ? ” And then he added,

And thou,what

wouldst thou do in like circumstances ?

Katakuri San let her eyes fall for j ust a fraction ofa moment, and then , with a noticeable pallor o f face

save where two hect ic dabs of rouge glowed red,

she raised them and looked straight at Yumoto,and

in low , drawling tones said , I should do the same,

or and there she paused,and an almost threaten

ing look came into her face I should seek another

husband .

”

McKenz ie started half up in the deck-chair in wh ich

he was recl in ing,and regarded Katakuri San curi

ously . With a superb control she threw open herarms as though to embrace him from where she

sat , and then burst out into a peal of low, mus icallaughter.Yumoto San , said she , i s a phi losopher ; he i s

always ask ing his questions o f women and obtaining

women ’s answers . Ah ,” she continued

,w ith a dull

glow in her eyes , love has not le ft us with the red

petticoat . Has it, O Kumataka San ? ”

McKenz ie exclaimed , No , no , truly it has not !And seeing Somervi lle looked mystified he said

,

When a girl marries she lays aside her red petti

coat for ever,which i s the symbol of love . Hence

the proverb .

”

“Oh ,

” exclaimed Somerville,and then the con

versation stopped for a while,and Katakuri San sat


regarding the men in turn with a face out of whichshe had driven all signs of emot ion .

In her mind she was turning over and over w ith

O riental persistency every aspect o f poor Asagao

San ’s fate . It was almost incomprehensible to her,

for her temperament had been hardened whilst shedanced and sang and amused the frequenters of theFuj i-te i in the town below. She travelled back inthought to a certain night when

,intox icated with the

applause of the j okisenoffi cers , she had thought thewhole world at her feet. And now the whole worldas represented by McKenz ie was a trifle dull at times .

And from where she sat she could j ust see the yel lowglare of the many lanterns sw inging outs ide the

restaurant in the busy Ima-machi .

CHAPTER VI

E! T morning as Somervi ll e was preparing

to saunter away down into the town histhoughts , from a considerat ion o f Kata

kuri San ’s strange conduct, wandered to Miss Desborough . To tel l the truth , he had been a little di s

appointed not to have heard from her,as she had

prom ised to write and give h im some information

concerning the best quarter of the town in which tosettle i f he should decide to proceed to Tokio .

As he came out onto the verandah , sketch-bookand colour-box in hand , and a folding camp-stool

slung over hi s shoulder , which always aroused the

keenest inte rest in Katakuri San,who regarded it as

a wonderful production , he found her lounging in adeck-chair clad in a yukata, or bath-wrapper , o f

bluish-grey cotton in place of her usually gay kimono,

her plump, b are feet only partially thrust into waraj i

!straw sandals ! , and her tiny tobacco p ipe betweenher l ips .As she saw him she sl ipped her left foot free o f the

waraj i, and thrust it out into a patch of bri ll iant sun

75


shine which fel l upon the white matting like a goldenlozenge . It was an exquisitely beautiful foot

, as

shapely as a baby ’s,w ith nails l ike nacre , for Kata

kuri San had not yet adopted the high-heeled Western shoes that were temptingly displayed by Akasakain Teri-machi amid much more beautiful and quaintnative geta !clogs ! o f lacquered wood . The artist inSomerville caused him to voice his admiration , andKatakuri San , into whose eyes stole a flash of pleasure ,understood what he said .

“Gomennasai '” she excla imed , w ith a laugh,

you find my contemptible foot beauti ful ? ”

Somerville glanced at her curiously. He was b eginning to comprehend Katakuri San . But heanswered nothing to her question .

She lay back in her chair and laughed again—a low,

musical laugh . As she did so her yukata fel l open atthe neck .

Is i t, she asked , as pretty as the shoulder ofMio San ? Come , have the politeness to tel l me .

”

Somervil le looked steadily at her . She certainlypresented an adorable figure as she lay in the deckchair with her mocking

,smil ing face turned up to

his . I f Katakuri San had studied her pose it couldnot have been more effective . Perhaps she had . Fromher rouged and powdered face

,with its smile

,wh ich

was becoming impudent , to the tip of her plump , tabiless foot, thrust out so that its nai ls shone in the patch


rai l of the verandah . Down below stood a cool ie,hi s

bronze body bare to the waist , a coloured cloth knottedround his head , and a letter in his hand , which he had

j ust removed from the cleft of his carrying stick .

It i s for the honourable Mr . Somervil le,

” he

exclaimed ,“ and the honourable Mr . Yumoto has

sent it . ”

Somerville stretched out his hand for the letter,which the coolie handed to him .

How much to pay ? ” inquired Somervi lle, glanc

ing at it .Three sen , honourable s ir , replied the cool ie .Takusan takai !

” interj ected Katakuri San .

No, no ,” said the coolie . It a very much hot

runup steep hi l l to this honourable house .Somerville threw the man a couple o f coppers ,

which he caught dexterously and transferred to his

cheek . And then,after making an obeisance wh ich

would have done credit to a Court offi cial , he vanishedat a quick trot down the garden path

,his copper

coloured back gleaming in the sunlight .

Somerville sat himsel f onthe rail o f the verandah ,and

,conscious that Katakuri San ’s eyes were re

garding him ,slowly turned over his letter.

It was addressed care of Mr . Yumoto, with anelaboration of polite phraseology

,and he soon recog

niz ed the handwriting as that of Miss Desborough .

With a glance at Katakuri San,who was watching


h i s face closely , though she had allowed her eyel ids todroop ti ll the long black lashes almost lay upon her

cheek , he tore open the envelope and commenced toread . It ran thus t

KOH MACH I,TOK IO,

M ay I O,19

DEAR MR. S OM ERV ILLE,—I am afraid that you

will have thought I have forgotten my promise towrite and tel l you in which quarter of the city my

uncle thinks you would be most l ikely to find suitable

accommodation and a studio when you come . Such a

thing as the latter in our sense o f the word does notprobably exist in Tokio . But one could easi ly be made

i f you found a house that you l iked with a large room

in it . The Japanese carpenters are so clever and

ingenious that they would soon cut a hole in the rooffor you asa top light ; or , in fact , build you the nearest

approach to the English idea o f a studio i f you gave

them rough sketches to work upon .

“I fancy that you will find the best accommoda

tions in Moto-machi , and so does my uncle . But this

you will be able to decide when you come . I hope

we shall have the pleasure o f seeing you before long ,and my uncle bids me say that anything he may be

able to do to assist you in any way he will be delighted

to do , as some small return for your kindness andattention to me onthe steamer .

I am look ing forward to turn ing over the pages


of your sketch-books . Japanese l i fe i s so full ofcolour and romance that I feel sure you will havemuch that i s beauti ful to show me . [And then followed a paragraph which caused Somerville to flushand smile

,a circumstance which did not escape the

notice of Katakuri San . ! But i f I am to have thatpleasure

,which I am looking forward to

,I hope it

may be possible for you to come to Tokio beforelong

,as there are already rumours o f change at the

Embassy,and it i s even possible that my uncle !who

has been out nearly six years ! may go home on long

leave or even be transferred .

I trust the information regarding the studio may

be of service,though I fear it i s somewhat incom

plete and inadequate .

With kindest regards .Yours ever sincerely ,

V IOLET DESBOROU GH.

Leslie Somerville , E sq .

As he had been reading, the idea had come into

Somerville ’s mind that Violet Desborough was even

anxious for him to go to Tokio . Her letter,of course

,

he admitted to himself , was perhaps not warmer in

its expression o f her hope o f seeing him than ordinary

friendship dictated . But— it was difficult for him todisabuse his mind of the idea that she had missed him .

And thenhe laughed at h imself rather contemptuously

A JAPANE SE ROMANCE

when he remembered what Miss Desborough had told

him of her impossible aunt and not less uncomfortablecous ins . Perhaps she was only bored with them . He

thrust the letter in hi s pocket and turned to Katakur i

San .

You have a letter, she said . Adding, From yourhonourable relations in England ? ”

No,

” replied Somerv i l le ;“ from a friend in

Tokio .

”

“ A man friend ? ” queried Katakuri San, with a

s light deepening of her colour.No , a woman .

”

As he said this he tried to look into her eyes , butshe kept them lowered .

She gave a l ittle start,and then she said , One of

your honourable countrywomen onthe mailboat ?“ Yes .

‘

But I must go,or I shall do no painting

to-day , and the blind beggar who is waiting for me

at the foot of the steps of the Temple o f O’

S uwa

will have got tired and gone away .

”

“ Let him tire,

” said Katakuri drawlingly . Stop

a l ittle more time with me . I wish with you to speak .

Somerville looked at her . There was somethingalmost fel ine in her eyes and pose—something whichmade him suddenly wonder why McKenz ie had fallen

in love with her,though she was beauti ful . But per

haps , he thought , he knows how to tame animals .

I must go ! said he,and with a nod he ran lightly


down the steps of the verandah and walked awaydown the garden path .

As Katakuri San watched him disappear beh ind

the old plum-tree,now a mass o f pale green leaves

unbroken save here and there by a few belated blossoms

,her eyes gleamed with a bronze light around

the i ri ses , and there were marks of her nails in her

soft , plump palms when she unclasped her fingers.

At Fuj i-tei in Ima-machi men had not left her whenshe bid them stay .

The one who had gone away down to the townwithout even throwing a glance behind to see i f shewere watching him was a puzzle to her . Her ex

perience o f Europeans had been , it i s true , fairly

extensive , but those she had known had been muchof a sort

, unti l she met with McKenz ie—idlers ,officers off the mai lboats

,naval Offi cers from the war

ships of friendly Powers which came into Nagasakito coal or repair. And Katakuri San was only equalto tackling the average man

,and to her chagrin Som

erville apparently stood outside that category .

When she heard the bamboo wicket rattle to,she

lay back in her chair to think , having first refil ledher tiny silver pipe , which had a bowl scarcely so

large as a child ’s thimble .In the garden no birds were singing

, even heruguisu in its bamboo cage at the end of the verandah

was si lent, but there came the hum of bees and the


s i lken whirr of the wings of dragon-flies hoveringabove the surface of the l ittle pond below the verandah

near where she sat .Katakur i San ’s thoughts were not pleasant ones i f

one m ight j udge them by the expressions wh ich flitted

across her face . A strange mercenary l ittle soul

dwelt in her, and now she was wondering why Fate

had perm itted her to see McKenz ie before she had met

Somerville, who was so much handsomer , more inter

esting and,she fancied

,richer . Whilst she was so

lonely,after her gay l i fe of the tea-house , when Mc

Kenzie was down at his office at bus iness , she would

have been able to have watched Somervi l le at work ,and to have gone into the town w ith h im

,even to have

done something to ass ist him by carrying h is colourbox or that astonishing fold ing-cha ir .Although Katakuri San was mercenary

,she was a

l ittle woman in whom the artisti c sense was strongly

developed . Any one could see that in a moment byher choice of colours , the way she d id her wonderfulblue-black hair , the perfection of the bow in wh ich herobi was t ied . Fate had not been kind to her , she dec ided . In the beginning she had thought it a won

derful thing to keep house for the honourable managero f the Porcelain Works

,and her selection by him for

that important post had caused several of her rival

geisha at Fuj i-tei many heart-burnings . Now there

was somebody e lse . Katakur i San’s training had not


been of that k ind wh ich made her loth to adm it such

a thing even to hersel f. She sm i led a little bitterly at

the idea,that was all

,and rather contemptuously when

she thought of McKenz ie and his blindness to the fact .Her guile ful coquetry of hal f an hour or so ago was

merely a continuance o f many previous attacks uponSomerville of a l ike nature

,the thing that caused her

most chargin being his calm indifference to that sideof her nature . His heart i s as cold as the water of

Katsura-gawa when the snow from off Fuj i-san is ini t

,

” she said to hersel f over and over again .

Mus ing thus she fel l asleep,and so she did not see

or hear Mio San come along the verandah from the

kitchen and enter Somervil le ’s studio .

It was a strange tragi-comedy which was beingplayed out in that dwelling on the Nagasaki hills ide—mistress and maid with the same thoughts o f andfeel ings concerning the arti st that Fate and friendship had conspired to induce into thei r l ives . But not

quite the same , after all . For whereas the love ofKatakuri San was selfish

,calculating

,and evil imag

ining, that of the poor little musume’

,Mio San , was

pure and beauti ful in its s implicity . Many a Western

maiden has a hero in the recess of her heart when inher natural growth love at length unfolds

,and this i s

what had happened to the musume’

of the East .Her feet , in thick cotton tabi, made no noise as she

entered the room, although the verandah had creaked

86 A? JAPANE SE ROMANCE

into a warmth of l i fe and love like the exqu is ite blos

sOms outside in the garden did under the caresses ofthe all-embracing sunshine .And then

,when she had fin ished , she knelt awhile

without articulate words , or even thoughts , thinkingnot of the smiling

,benign face o f the Buddha upon

which her eyes rested , but of that of Somervil le , who

to her was a radiant being shining above the splendours of all gods .How long she would have knelt thus who can tel l ?Suddenly she heard a voice call ing to her somewherebehind the karakami at a distance .Mio San ! Where art thou ? Come here . Make

haste .”It was San-to calling. And San-to was o ld ,

and apt to be impatient i f her cal l were not answeredat once .

As she rose from her knees with a start she heardanother voice drawling out sleepily

,

“D oshttu?

But Mio San dare not go out to her mistress throughthe open shoj i on to the verandah to tel l her therewas nothing the matter. For she was on forbiddenground .

She pushed back one of the karakomi softly ; neari t hung Somervi lle ’s coat. Mio San ’s hand creptout stealthi ly towards it, and then , ere she vanishedthrough the open panel , the hem of that travel-stainedgarment was pressed for an instant to her lips

.

“Kayuku ! Kayuku ! Mio San ! M io San ! Where


art thou,M io San ? ” accompanied by p icturesque

maledictions,but not curses , called San-to .

But Mio San did not answer . Her m istress was

awake and had sharp ears,and Mio San knew if she

called out she would betray where she was .

And al l thi s t ime Somerville had been sitting in thesmal l patch o f shade near the wide fl ight o f steps

which led from the gardens up to the O-Suwa Temple

o f the Bronze Horse in N i shiyama Go , busily painting a blind beggar-man and his tiny grandchild with

quaintly smiling face . Soon a little crowd had gath

ered to watch him paint . But he was getting used tocrowds

,and most of their pol ite and interesting com

ments were as Greek to him . He comforted h imselfwith the thought that i f the Japanese were as polite arace as McKenz ie and Fo lkard asserted

,the onlookers

would be saying nothing offens ive .I f he could have understood the remarks theypassed he would have had a high opinion o f their

intell igence , because one and al l seemed to think thesketch a wonderful production

,except a tiny man in

a very tattered kimono,who

,with the literalness of

his race , wondered why the honourable painter gavethe blind beggar four fingers onhis left hand when

there were but two !“ It i s your contemptible mind ! ej aculated abright-eyed o ld woman

,

“which cannot see that thehonourable artist i s too kind to let one see that Old


Maruyama has two less fingers in number thanotherpeople .”

Thus rebuked , the tattered one slunk away into theback row of interested spectators .Somervil le worked on , thinking of nothing except

the Old man before him , whose faded snuff-coloured

gown and ruddy, wrinkled countenance made so

excellent a contrast to the bright blue cotton kimonoand childish face o f his l ittle guide , ti l l all at once

some one speaking brought Katakuri San to mind .

The voice was so similar in inflection that he turned

round on h is camp-stool hal f expecting to see her.A fter al l i t proved to be but a geisha from one of

the chaya in the Park . But she had the same queer,drawling vo ice as Katakur i San and the same eyes.

And when,after looking over hi s shoulders and

saying something to him ,the meaning of which he

could not catch,she went away along the pavement

and commenced to ascend the steep fl ight of steps in

the full blaze of the afternoon sunlight , he noticedthat she had the sensuous walk o f Katakuri San as

well as her eyes and voice .It was quite late ere he finished . The l ittle crowdhad th inned and thickened again with fresh ou

lookers several times before he was sati sfied . Andthe l ittle musume

’

had fallen fast asleep,slipped down

l ike a Japanese doll with her l imbs straight out infront of her from the waist, and her t iny head with


dered i f he knew the sort of woman she was . I f hedid he kept the knowledge to himsel f, and i f he didnot it was certainly not easy for him !Somervi lle !to be the medium of enlightenment . As they trudgedup the last bit o f the road , where it ran along the

hi llside above a row of vi llas and permitted a magnificent view of the harbour below across the roofsand trees , McKenz ie spoke .I cannot quite make Katakuri out, sa id he , as

though it were the most natural remark in the world .

She has taken a ridiculous dislike to Mio San , andwants to get rid of her . Decent girls are not easyto get in Nagasaki . And then after a pause heturned to Somerville and inquired,

“Do you know

the reason ?

For the moment the latter was almost thrown off

h is guard , but he managed to consider the positionand reply w ithout a very appreciable hesitation .

No,said he quite calmly .

“ How should I ?

Mio San seems a nice,obl iging l ittle soul

,but perhaps

she i s not so to O Katakuri San .

Oh ,no

,I suppose you wouldn

’t know , repliedMcKenz ie . Only , as you

’ve been about the placewhilst I ’ve been stewing away down in that in fernal

mouse-trap of an offi ce , I thought you might perhapshave heard or noticed something.

”

Somervi lle had heard and noticed a great deal ;but the situationhe real i sed was already becom ing


sufficiently del icate without the need of a premature

de’

nouement. And so he merely repeated that he wasin happy ignorance of the cause o f the domest ic

disquietude .As they were com ing up the garden path both were

startled by loud voices from one o f the rooms opening

onto the verandah .

Somervi lle recognised Katakuri San ’s voice raisedto an unusually high pitch in anger . What she wassaying he could not gather

,for she was pouring out

a flood of colloquial Japanese , o f which five years ’

residence might scarcely have supplied him the key .

Both the men paused,and then McKenz ie sa id

something under his breath which was not Japanese ,for the language i s deficient in such words .What ’s up ? ” asked Somerville

,glancing at

McKenz ie ’

s face , which had turned very pale .“ Katakuri

,

” said M cKenz ie , with a rather harsh

laugh after a pause,

“ i s tell ing M io San that she has

been making love to you .

”

Somervi lle flashed a look into his compan ion ’s face ,and said with all the coolness he could muster,

“ And

M io San ? ”

I did not catch what she sa id,was the reply.

CHAPTE R VII

HAT even ing, wh il st the men were chatting and smoking on the verandah

,Katakuri

San was terribly frightened . Something inMcKenz ie ’

s face and something he said to Somer

vi lle made her suspect that her attempts at intriguewith the latter had not quite escaped the former ’s

notice . She had been shaken , too , by her stormy

interview with Mio San,whose innocence of evi l

intent so contrasted with her owndemeanour that she

felt insensibly beaten and lowered , even though the

nominal victory had been hers .As she sat in the deck-chair

,which she had occupied

when Somerville le ft her earl ier in the day , she l is

tened intently to the conversation of the two men ,although she could not comprehend all they weresaying.

During the meal which they had just fin ished

Somerville had been turning over in his mind theevents of the day , and it had not taken him very long

to foresee that unpleasant events were l ikely at any

moment to arise were he to prolong his stay withMcKenz ie . He had had no opportunity of endeavour


temptib le company she would bring al l the mostunworthy sights of the fair to the notice of his augustand honourable eyes .

But ere she could do so , he said ,“ I ’m no end

obliged to you , old fellow ,for having me here taking

up your time and rooms so long . But I ’ve been

thinking lately that it has been too bad o f me to stay

so long. I received a letter this morning from Miss

Desborough !the girl I met on the steamer! , who

says I ought to put in some time at Tokio“ There ’s surely no hurry for that , broke in

McKenz ie , who remembered that Somerville had

shown no very great enthusiasm concerning Miss

Desborough when speaking of her before . “ I

thought you ’d put in at least three months with us ,and you haven ’t been here quite two .

”

Katakuri San appeared about to speak , for she sat

up in her chair and her red lips parted . But she

apparently altered her mind,for they closed again ,

and with a glance at Somervi lle which he could notmisinterpret she lay back and closed her eyes .

“ That’s al l very well,and you

’

re awfully kind ,replied Somerville

,

“ but I ’ve about made up my

mind.You see

,I think I shall run up to Tok io for

a week or two a little later on, and before doing so

I should like to get a little place here that I couldcome back to whenever the humour to do so

took me .”


I believe , exclaimed Katakuri San,without

opening her eyes ,“ that our honourable friend means

to marry o r find a geisha to keep house for him . I

saw him looking with bright eyes at O Matsu San

the other night at the Hash i Moto . But she notreally pretty , not good at all .The two men laughed

,for Miss O Matsu San ’s

flirtations were rather notorious .

After a pause,during which Katakuri San looked

furtively through her lashes at Somervil le , he said ,No , O Katakuri San , O Matsu San has not pleased

my contemptible eyes in that way . Nor do I wishto marry . But your august eyes must long ere th is

have ti red o f seeing my inferior presence in your

beauti ful house .

”

Katakuri San winced .

This Englishman when he fenced w ith her so oftenwon . Only once during the last few weeks hadshe thought she had conquered him

,when with almost

shameless coquetry she had forced h im to understandher meaning . But even then she had been defeated ;by chance

,perhaps

,but nevertheless defeated . And

now that she saw him determined to pass from thesphere o f her possible influence she would have

spoken to deta in him , but when she glanced at h isface and that o f McKenz ie she feared to do so .

“ What nonsense ! ” exclaimed McKenz ie , when

Somerville finished speaking.

“ Neither of u s are


tired of you,and you had better make up your m ind

to remain here ti ll you leave for Tokio . Even then ,we will gladly store your things til l you return .

Whatever’s the use of house-rent going on , even i f

one i s such a plutocrat as you bid fai r to be , whilstone i s away . Come

,let us settle that you remain here

for the present . ”

Somerville did not reply for a minute or two ; andKatakuri San breathed a l ittle more quickly andopened her eyes suffi ciently to see his face clearly

from beneath her lashes . I f only he would stop !A fter to-morrow there would be no one to attract hisattention from her ; no one to spy onher movements ;no menace to her schemes . And yet

,as the thoughts

flashed through her mind,whilst she waited for h is

answer to what McKenz ie had suggested , a strange

upbraiding voice of an almost dead conscience

seemed to accuse her . That such a thing should stir

in her after al l she had done and said and thought

during her li fe at the Fuj i-tei caused her additional

alarm,which grew each moment—that terrible af

fright at the future which seizes women l ike she at

times in a grip of icy chill . She shivered sl ightly ,and perhaps it was this almost imperceptible move

ment which recalled Somerville .

“ You are awfully good ,” said he , addressing

McKenz ie ,“ but I must stick to my original inten

tion . It i s the better plan , looked at all ways . It’s


Somervi l le and McKenz ie both smoked in s i lence,

occupied by thoughts of Katakuri San for severalminutes ; and then the latter suddenly rose and , with

an almost icy “K on bonwa ” to Somerville

,went

away along the verandah to her room .

That row with little Mio San seems to have upsetKatakuri San somewhat ! exclaimed McKenz ie ashe watched her disappear . “ What eats women are

to each other when they have a rumpus ! I can ’t for

the li fe of me quite get at the bottom of the affair .A l l Katakuri wil l say i s that Mio San was impudentto her. Heaven only knows what about .” And then

he added , as though speaking to himsel f, Katakur i

has a queer devil of a temper when she ’s roused .

”

Somerville looked at McKenz ie sharply , and thenhe laughed .

“ Do you remember that l ittle Pole ,Sophie Ko lniwitz , who used to sit for Valmy ?

”

McKenz ie nodded .

“ Well,Somerville continued,

sometimes Katakuri San reminds me of her . Whata strange thing it i s that women , black or white , East

or West , run in types ! Whatever colour their skin ,they are angels or devils .

McKenz ie did not reply . He was thinking what

a mixture o f both he had installed in hi s house .Meanwhile Katakuri San , in the privacy of her

own room ,stood trembling and unnerved . One of

those fits of remorse and fear which so often assailwomen , mingled with their chagrin , had seized upon


her as soon as she was alone . With a woman o f hertype it could not be an awakening o f conscience .

As she had sat watching Somervi lle and M cKen

z ie’

s faces and recall ing the inc idents o f her treat

ment of M io San,there had suddenly flashed into her

mind the words of an old saying in which her naturally superst itious nature made her hal f bel ieve . It

ran thus : “Kagami ga kumoru to tamashiga

kumoru.

” With that saying came terrible , accusing

v isions of Kwakkto Jigoku, where her soul wouldburn til l cleansed o f all impurity .

With fingers which trembled , she commenced to

untie her obi, and slip her shoulders out of the beauti ful kimono o f purple silk , which , as he had once

admired it,she had put on for Somerv i l le ’s especial

benefit .Even her own shadow thrown d imly upon the

white matting by the flame o f the tiny oil lamp , placedona shel f before the image of Buddha , frightenedher horribly . She longed to cry out and summon

McKenz ie . But what could she tell him ? Couldshe say to him , See , I am an evi l woman whose soul

i s smirched , and whose mirror has become dim ? ”

He would either laugh at her, or i f he saw anything

lurking behind her words,he would look at her with

those quiet eyes of his blazing with the dull , hot

fire of anger that she had seen once or twice before

and could never forget.


The m irro r was there on its lacquer , box-l ike stand ,sw inging between scrol l-work o f bronze , w ith t inydrawers beneath it

,in which lay al l o f those tawdry

artifices by whose aid she sought to enhance her

facial charms—the rouge , the poudre de riz theforeign chemist in Funatsu-machi had obta ined forher from Europe ; the gold with which yuj o gild theirl ips

,the use of which M cKenz ie had long ago for

bidden . It had a strange fascination for her , thismirror with the trell i s o f young bamboo shoo ts orna

menting i ts back , and its face gleaming like polishedpewter . She hesitated

,and then after a moment or

two leaned forward and gazed into its depths .Was it that her eyes were dim with fright

,or was

it the surface of the m irror that was dulled ? shequestioned . She looked again

,leaving go o f her

kimono, which sl ipped down with a soft, caressingmotion off her amber shoulders .The lamp on the bracket above the m irror swayed

as a draught of night air seized the tiny flame in a

mimic vortex , and as Katakuri San started forwardas though to approach and gaze into the mirror hers ilhouette appeared cast upon the grey-coloured karakami which formed the walls .She looked at the mirror again

,and then her knees

gave way beneath her as she was about to lean forward and gaze more closely at it

,and she started

back and away from it. The terrible fright which


n ight air—a piercing, night-cleaving cry as of a

drowning woman .

Good God ! What is that ? ” cried McKenz ie ,j umping to his feet and rushing along the verandah .

Without waiting to find the holes for his fingersin the shoj i he dashed the panels along in theirgrooves , and entered the room . In the dim light he

could not see at first,but in a moment he caught

sight of Katakuri San stretched full length on the

white matting like a huge dead moth , the sleeves o fher garment

,from which her arms had slipped out,

l ike wings outstretched beside her .Somerville came close behind .

Get some sake,quick, and a l ight ! ” shouted

McKenz ie , stooping at Katakuri’

s s ide .Somerville rushed along the verandah and almostfel l over San-to , who had come out from her quartersto see what was the matter .Brandy sake

,nomi miden

,narutake kayaku

ej aculated Somervi lle , and San-to vanished , returning a moment later with the brandy and a j ar of

water.Meanwh ile Somerville had lighted a kerosene lamp

which hung in his studio , and with that in one handand the brandy in the other he hurried back toMcKenz ie ’

s room , followed by San-to carrying thewater.

Katakur i San still lay unconsc ious on the floor,


although when the stronger l ight from the lampSomerville carried fel l upon her, i t was evident , from

the twitching of her eyelids , that she was about to

revive .

McKenz ie ra ised her head and forced some o f thebrandy b etween her closed lips , which looked l ike

two scarlet wounds across her deathly pale face .Somerville sprinkled some water on her brow

,and

San-to kept up a crooning wail al l the time,pune

tuated by expressions o f terror .In a few moments Katakuri San opened her eyes

and murmured something which Somervil le failed to

catch , but which made McKenz ie set his teeth hardand turn away from her for a moment. He , too , had

heard the saying concerning the mirror and a woman ’s

soul, and Katakuri San’s words cut him like a whip .

When she Opened her eyes fully and caught s ight

of the mirror she sh ivered violently .

A flood of l ight fell upon the pol ished disc fromthe lamp Somervil le had brought

,and a quivering

oval reflection danced for a moment upon the cei ling

McKenz ie noted the terror with which Katakuri

San regarded the mirror , but he said nothing .

To Somervil le the cause of Katakuri San’s collapse

was incomprehensible,but then he neither knew the

saying nor the hold that superstition had upon herempty little mind .

Katakuri San sti l l lay upon the floor with her


blu ish-grey yukata, wh ich San-to had hastened to

throw across her shoulders , enveloping her . She wasless unconsc ious than the two men supposed . Andalready in her mind the question was formulatingitsel f as to whether McKenz ie had any suspicion ofthe reason for the terror which had seized upon herand forced that shrill

,terrible cry from her unwill

ing lips . But in his face , which looked hard and palein the uncertain and feeble lamplight , there was

nothing to indicate what he thought or what he mighthave discovered .

In a l ittle wh i le Katakuri San heaved a deep s ighas though recovering from a swoon , and raised hersel f to a sitting posture . Her face was stil l deathlypale, and some of the paint from her red lips hadsmeared her ch in , making the rest of her face lookthe more ghastly.

I was very much frightened,she expla ined in a

low voice in Japanese,looking straight at McKenz ie ,

who had stood up , to see the effect of her words . Ithought that a ghost looked over my shoulder wh il stI was undressing

,and I was frightened .

”

What sort of a ghost ? ” asked M cKenz ie .

But Katakuri San would not or could not tel l him .

San-to shall remain with me,

” she said after a

pause , for I wish to see no more bake-mono or yamaoga to-n ight .

”

When the two men had left her Katakuri San


drew along the amado, and then w ith a Good-night,o ld fellow ; I hope no more bake-mono w i ll disturb

our peace ,” vanished into the house .

Somerville was j ust about to enter his room and

close the S hOJZ when there came a faint scratching onthe paper panel .He listened for a moment

,and then , as it was re

peated , he slid one of the shoj i along in its groove

and peered out into the semi-obscuri ty of the

verandah .

At first he could see noth ing, but at length he madeout the figure o f San- to beckoning him with herfinger, and whispering, Oide nasai. Gomennasai.”

For the moment he could not think what the old

woman wanted with him,but it was evident that she

w i shed to speak with him,and that not near the room

where McKenz ie and Katakuri San slept, which was

next his own . So he crept out with bare feet ontothe verandah , and followed San-to to the far end .

When he was close to her he could j ust see in the

dim light that she held a piece of paper,or a long

Japanese rice-paper envelope in her hand . This shethrust into his , saying in a low tone , Katakuri Sanbad woman is . Sent away Mio San .

”

For a moment Somervi lle scarcely realised her

meaning, and he exclaimed louder than he intended,“

What do you mean , San-to ? What i s th is you

tell me ?


But San-to,w ith a gesture of alarm meant to enj o in

silence upon him,merely whispered ,

“ Honourable

Englishman,read chit

,

” and then glided away to her

ownapartments .In Somervil le ’s hand was a th in , long-shaped Japanese envelope o f shrimp coloured rice-paper . Inthe gloom o f the verandah he could scarcely seewhether it was written upon , but when he had re

entered his room and looked at it by the light hefound that i t was evidently addressed to h im . Theblurred characters were certainly l ike those McKenz iehad once shown him as constituting his own name .

What could it all mean ? Mio San driven away

by Katakuri San,as San- to had sa id

,and this myste

rious letter placed in his hands .For some time he sat on the floor underneath the

kerosene lamp which he had installed in place of theinefficient one provided by Katakuri San , consisting of

a small red glass cup with a wick floating in o il

as i l luminant,gazing at the envelope with the strange

and straggling characters upon it . He could not

read them , and so at last he decided to lock theenvelope up in his desk and turn in .

It was a long time ere he fel l asleep,for the mystery

of the note and San-to ’

s statement regarding Mio San

kept him awake . This,then

,was the explanat ion of

the latter ’s absence at the meal a couple o f hours ago,

and the reason that Katakuri San had fetched her own


p ipe and the tabako-bonwhen they w ished to smoke,instead o f clapping her hands for her l ittle maid asshe usually did .

At length , however , he fel l asleep beneath hismosquito curtains and dreamed of Mio San

,and of

Katakuri San , who was changed into the dreadfulFox-woman , of whom McKenz ie had been tel ling

him stories—the womanwho lures men to evil, anddestruction.


size of a torrent, bent over yet more sorrowfullythan usual .The garden Of sunshine and flowers had suddenly

become one of sadness and destruction .

Somerville was gazing out blankly upon the delugewhen he heard Katakuri San ’s voice talking rapidly

in Japanese , and McKenz ie ’

s deeper tones,as though

in anger .In his pocket lay the note which San-to had so

mysteriously thrust into his hand the night before .Whilst dressing he had been turning over in hismind what he should do regarding it . To askM cKenz ie to translate it to him was out of the question . Somerville laughed rather grimly to himselfat the very thought . One does not usually request

a stranger to discover the contents of a missive ofwhich we actually know nothing. M cKenz ie m ightstumble upon information regarding Katakuri San ofan unpleasant character . No

,that would not do,

thought Somerville . The only alternative which sug

gested itsel f to his perplexed mind was Yumoto, and

he fancied the latter could be trusted .

Katakuri San did not put in an appearance atbreakfast . McKenz ie excused her by saying that thefright of the night before had left her with a headache . Somerville said nothing . He was wonderingwhether little Mio San

,of whom he would now possi

b ly not be able to comp lete a pi cture he had com


mcnced , had yet gone away , and i f so what she couldbe doing in the tempest O f wind and rain which shookthe frai l house as though it sought to destroy it .San-to brought in the meal , and noticing Somer

ville ’s look of astonishment , as Mio San always waitedupon them

, McKenz ie explained .

“ Mio San has gone away , he said ; Katakur iappears to have taken a disl ike to her of late , andcomplains that she was insulting .

” Poor l ittle M ioSan ! thought Somervi lle . It was impossible to con

ceive the ever gentle and bright l ittle creature insulting. I am sorry

,

” added M cKenz ie , a trifle

ruefully , as it is a dreadful disgrace for her,and it

will not be easy to replace her with another maid .

Whilst McKenz ie was speaking Somerville caughtSan-to ’s eye , and he noticed , when mention was madeo f Mio San

’

s outrageous rudeness to her mistress,a

grim sort o f sm i le flitted across her wrinkled countenance .

No more , however , was said , and the conversation

dri fted into a discussion o f the weather and the probabil ity of the continuance o f the rain .

Once or tw ice Somerville was on the point ofdropping some observation which would have befrayed the fact that Mio San , ere her departure , hadwritten to him . But he managed to pause in time .

McKenz ie said l ittle about Katakuri San’s fright and

indisposition o f the previous night . In fact , he only


mentioned it as he was putting on his oi lskin coat and

sou ’-wester preparatory to departing for the town .

Then he remarked , I suppose Katakuri has beenworrying hersel f lest this upset should prevent her

sitting to you,so that you can finish off that study of

the little iris pond in the garden .

”

I think I shall come down into the town later on,replied Somerv i lle “ That’s i f the weather clearsup a bit .

Oh !” exclaimed McKenz ie , what’s going to

make you turn out in weather not fit for a dog ? But ,”

he added with a laugh,I ought to apologize for

cross-examining you in this way, old fellow .

“ No need ,” said Somerville pleasantly . I am

rather expecting some letters addressed to Yumoto’

s

office . You see , I’ve not yet been able to let al l my

friends know that I have been sponging on you forthe last ten weeks .

O f course ! ” rej o ined McKenz ie , stepping outinto the driving rain . S ayonara ! I f you find yoursel f near the Works

,look in

,and we ’l l have tiffinat

Sei-yo-tei .I will , repl ied Somerville , as McKenz ie turned

away and walked briskly down the miniature brookwhich formed the path .

When he disappeared Somerville reti red to his roomto consider the situation .

S o many womenhad flattered and caj oled him

A JAPANE SE ROMANCE

Katakuri San call ing to San-to, Oide nasai .’ Oide

nasai ! ”

And then came the maid ’s Hei ! Doshtu ? in

deeper tones above the rattle of the rain,as San-to

hurried along the verandah to Katakuri San ’s room .

There was a sound of rapid conversation,ques

tionings, and replies . Then Somervi lle caught the

mention of his ownname , then that of Mio San .

On few occasions during his stay in Japan did he

wish more devoutly that he had possessed a suffi

cient knowledge of colloquial Japanese to follow what

the two women were saying to one another in tonesloud enough to be heard distinctly through the frai l

paper karakami which divided the rooms .That Katakur1 San was angry , and San-to less

humble in demeanour than was her wont,he easi ly

gathered . But that was all .

Outside the rain was now falling less heavi ly,and

McKenz ie ’

s prognostication that noon would see the

deluge stayed appeared likely to prove correct.A lready the clouds were sweeping less thickly acrossthe hills

,and the summits of many of the lower ones

were becoming gradually visible as the vapour rolledback from them . Here and there shafts of bri lliant

sunlight pierced the clouds and fel l down momentari lyinto the rain-washed town and harbour

,making the

wet roofs onwhich they fell shine l ike hel iographs

signalling to the heights above them .


Somervi lle rose and went out on the verandah towatch the scene . In his pocket lay Mio San ’s letter

,

concerning the purport o f which he felt so keen and

increasing a curiosity . The heavy drops of rain ,which in the early morn ing had torn the surface o f

the little goldfish pond like buckshot,now only fretted

it with tiny circles l ike those made by water-beetles .Down in the harbour lay two steamers bri ll iantlywhite as though cut out of ivory , as a wandering ray

of sunshine struck them ; and now that the sea had

gone down the black , beetle-l ike sampans were fl itting

between them and other vessels at anchor and the

shore .

In an hour the waters of the harbour had changedfrom the colour of green-grey agate , flecked with

wh ite foam ,to that of j ade . So intent was Somerville

watching the atmospheric changes going on around

and below him , that he did not hear the soft shoo—shooo f approaching footsteps , or realise another presence ,t i l l Katakuri San had laid a hand lightly upon hisshoulder .

“You are idle to-day , honourable Mister Art ist ,

she exclaimed ; adding after a pause ,“I hope I have

not kept you waiting . See , I hav e not stayed to put

onmy kimono,so that I would come to you as soon

as possible . ”

Somervil le had turned round and stood regarding

Katakuri San attentively . There was no use deny


ing it , she was wonderfully pretty , and the hal fsleepy droop of the eyes , which looked at him withsuch frank

,undisguised admiration under thei r long

,

fringed lashes,was singularly attractive . Al l the

tragic terror o f the night before had passed out ofher face

,and in its place were the smiles which had

brought Katakuri San much reputation for fickleness

in her affections when she was a geisha at Fuj i-tei . Hesuddenly remembered the saying of an artist famousin the Quartier Latin for his bonmots and paintingsof fai r women !

“ A pretty woman is never moreattractive or dangerous than when she has j ust awakened from slumber—that i s

,to the awakener . And

as he met her eyes he knew the truth o f i t .Seeing that he did not move , Katakuri San said ,I am ready . It i s wet , and you cannot descend

into the town to get your august person wet . Letus go and finish the picture . ”

“ Where is Mio San ? ” said Somerv i l le,w ithout

answering her .Mio San ! exclaimed Katakuri San , as though no

such person existed . She has gone away, honour

able friend ! I no longer had need o f her, and onedoes not retain the services of those o f whom one hasno longer need .

Katakuri San glanced at Somervi l le with such aningenuous smile that , had he been blind to certain

events of the past few weeks , he might have believed


she once told him one does not share the best fru itswith another . Poor little Mio San ! ” he mused ,and so she thought you were trying to pick fruit inher orchard .

”

Ten minutes later and Katakur i San saw Somer

ville , inraincoat and oilskin cap , disappear down the

garden path , and then she gave way to the rage which

burned in her fickle little heart,in which already so

many similar passions had burned themselves to ashes .

Somervil le made his way down into the town along

the rain-torn road,that a couple of hours before had

been little better than a torrent , and then along several

of the narrow streets which intersect the main ones ofNagasaki commerce

,paved merely in the centre , w ith

overhanging roofs from which miniature N iagaras

fell , and thence out on to the Bund .

Now that the rain had almost ceased,swarms of

women were at work getting coal into the lighters, andclerks , many of them in strange mixtures o f Japanese

European attire,were hurrying in and out of the

various offices and warehouses, or standing checking

bales and boxes on the hatoba. But Somerville was tooanxious to get to Yumoto

’

s office to stand and watchwhat was going on, as he usually did . A quaintlywizened clerk , who bore the euphonious name of Sugawara , wished him ,

in a strange mixture of English andJapanese , K onnichi wa. Gagari masai,

” and then

informed him that the honourable Mister Yumoto was


within and busy, but would see his august presenceimmediately .

In response to an invitation , Somervi l le cl imbed the

rickety stai rcase , which seemed less dependable every

t ime he did so, and knocked at the l ittle door of

Yumo to’

s room .

“Oagari nasai, called Yumoto from w ith in , and

Somervi lle pushed open the door .

After the usual elaborate civi lities wh ich Yumoto

always practised , rein forced with what he remembered

o f European courtesies , he inquired why h is miserable

office was honoured by the august condescension o f his

honourable friend , and assured his visitor that he had

the whole of the day to give to hi s business should it

require such an amount of t ime .“ I have come to seek your advice , said Somer

v i l le,seating himsel f Mio San has disappeared .

In a word , Katakur i San has discharged her .

Yumoto gave a low whistle—a habit he had

acquired abroad , which , when he returned to Naga

sak i,he had found conferred a certa in air of distinc

tion and uniqueness upon him , so he had cherished

the trick for use onsuitable occasions .“ So she has gone

,

” he said , after a pause . Itdoes not bring me surprise . Where there i s but one

apple there i s no need for two to pick it ,”with which

somewhat crypti c utterance he sm i led benignly at

Somerville .


The latter found a shade more colour come into his

bronzed cheek , and so he hurriedly dived into hisundercoat pocket and produced Mio San ’s letter .“ This ,

” said he , ignoring what Yumoto had said ,was given me last night by San-to . I can ’t read it

,

so I ’ve come to you.

”

From ?”queried Yumoto, glanc ing at the

envelope .Mio San .

Yumoto wh istled aga in .

He had seen Katakuri San look at Somervi lle,and

her glance conveyed a good deal of mean ing to h is

O riental mind , cognisant as he was of the ex-geisha’

s

past . Moreover , he had no great l iking for Madame

McKenz ie , and no l ittle contempt for her , and he

scented what m ight prove to be interest ing com

pl ications .Mio San

,he repeated slowly , putting out his

hand across his desk for the letter . And why, my

honourable friend,are you anxious to know what this

contemptible gi rl has to say to you ?”

I am curious to know , replied Somerville,because it i s on account of my friendship with her

that she has suffered disgrace at Katakuri San ’s

hands . I must find her . For,Yumoto

,I do not think

Nagasaki the best place in the world for a friendless

girl , especial ly i f she is pretty .

”

Yumoto laughed a queer little laugh . Pretty girls


will even fee l compassion towards me , and j udge myheart ’s overflowing tenderness with not anger

,but

kind feel ing. It i s only in the great distress o f my

mind and the tearfulness of mine eyes , which may not

again behold you,that I venture to so unworthi ly

address to you these words .

May you live a thousand years,fortunate and

happy . To the longed- for and worshipped augustone this letter is sent . ”

When Yumoto had finished read ing the letter hela id the sheet of thin rice-paper onwhich it was writ

ten down on the desk in front of him and whistled .

With his O riental contempt for women , Mio San’s

tender l ittle love- letter—which it must have taken heran infinitude of thought to compose—conveyed onlytwo hard , cold facts . One that she was evidently in

love w ith Somerville ; the other that her conduct hadbeen very irregular and reprehensible . For a moment

or two he said nothing, and the only sound which

broke the si lence o f the room was the patter of rain

on the roof above them ,and the droning voice of

Sugawara,the clerk

,reading over bills of lading in

the room below .

At length he said,Mio San is yours for the asking.

She i s a pretty girl,and loves you . You need not

now trouble your august thoughts bv a consideration

ofO Matsu San , or O Inc San , i f you wish for a wi fe .

”

Somerville ’s face flushed , and he was about to reply .


But what was the use of doing so ? He had alreadylearned that Yumoto

’

s views of marriage,temporary

or permanent,were as far apart as the poles from hi s

own, even though these were tinctured with thebohemianism o f the Quartier Latin . Whilst Yumoto

had been reading Mio San ’s letter to him he hadrealised that she loved him

,and in consequence had

a claim upon him o f a nature that it was not necessary

to possess the keenest moral sense to admit . How to

find her and protect her unti l her friends could be

discovered was his chie f thought . And yet at theback o f his mind there was a nascent germ o f artistic love o f her which might develop along awkwardl ines .

There was an element of dri ft —which i s seldomabsent from the temperament o f artists—inhis naturewhich , tempered with honour , might land him in com

plications at any moment . Hitherto it had not landed

him in matrimony,and sometimes he had vaguely

wondered why .

Well , my honourable friend ?” exclaimed Yumoto ,

with a smile,as Somervi lle made no reply to his former

remark .

Somerville glanced at him quickly , and made up

his mind that whatever faults his vis-a-vis mightpossess , he was to be trusted . In fact

,he knew that

Yumoto,outside business competition

,was straight

enough ; that , indeed , he rather prided himsel f upon


his Western sense o f honour, acqu ired whilst a student

at London University , and afterwards at Sorbonne .“ Yumoto

,

” he said , as the former lit a cigarette

and thrust the box across the table to him ,

“ never

mind about Mio San ’s confession of love for me . The

thing to do,my friend , i s to find her. She is a mere

child

Yumoto laughed , and said slowly, You make a

mistake,augustly thinking one . She is no ch i ld , but

a woman . None but a woman ’s love-swayed heartcould have written that letter . Girls do not often

thus write even to thei r lovers in our land . Bes ides ,have I not watched her regarding you with eyes inwhich loving worship shone when she has handed you

sake, or b rought for your use the tabako-bon.

”

“ Let that be as it may , the question wh ich mostconcerns my mind is

,where can she be ? ” replied

Somerville .“Who can tel l ? ” said Yumoto, with a shrug of

his shoulders . There are many chaya and other

places where a pretty girl might have strayed to inNagasaki . She may even , ere this , have made theacquaintance of Enoki , who finds wives for the officerso f the war ships . Who knows ? ”

Somervi lle felt his anger boiling over at the indifference the speaker showed . But in time he remem

bered that i t was Yumoto who could help him to

d i scover Mio San . So he said,It is my fault

, O


rest upon that portion o f the top letter which themarble slab fai led to cover. It was a broad , i f deli

cately conveyed , hint, and Somerville took it .

It will have to do ,” said he . Many thanks for

being graciously disposed to help me . I w i l l be here

at dusk . S ayonara, for the present .”

Yumoto slipped Mio San ’s letter into its long,frai l

envelope and handed it to Somervi lle,who thrust it in

hi s pocket . Then he shook hands English fashion

instead of shaking his own as he used to do ere he wentto Europe , and set to work onhis papers almost b efore the narrow door closed behind hi s vis itor.

CHAPTER IX

HEN Somerville stepped out o f Yumoto’

s

offi ce onto the hatoba he found the rain hadalmost ceased . Venus Hill and the ad

j oining range had put off their caps o f mist and cloud ,and the sunpoured down as though in haste to dry

up every shining pool which lay in the worn stone

flags of the quays and i ll-paved streets . Away out inthe harbour lay one o f the mailboats coal ing

,a swarm

of coolies cl imbing her sides l ike ants , and on thehatoba were scores of women , thei r bodies grimed withcoal-dust , pouring their black burdens , carried instraw baskets , into the lighters alongside . But to

these Somervi lle paid no attention . The one thought

which had possessed hi s mind since Yumoto had read

Mio San ’s piteous letter had been how should he setabout finding her .There was

,indeed

,l ittle l ikel ihood that she would

be wandering in the streets,but he turned away from

the waterside and threaded some o f the narrow by

ways in the hope o f catching a glimpse o f her .

Overhead the roofs o f the houses and shops almost

met at times , and had he not been too much occupied

127


with his quest he would have stayed to exam ine thequa int wares spread out in the dim recesses o f thelatter, but he

“

pressed on,throwing an eager, searching

glance down every alley and intersecting street or

by-way .

Once , after passing along several of the w ider roads ,and j ust before he reached the bridge over theNakaj ima-gawa

,with its low rai l and huge stone

lantern,weather-worn and chipped

,standing like a

sentinel between two trees , he fancied that a figure he

saw ahead of him walking rapidly in clogs was that

o f Mio San . But when he caught her up she proved

to be a musume’

who had been shopping and was onher way back to the outskirts of the town with her

purchases .She gazed at h im with frank , childl ike eyes , which

took a shade of apprehension as their owner notedSomerville ’s look of blank disappointment .

“K onnichi wa

,

” she said in a low voice,glancing

at him with a conci liatory smile .

K onnichi wa,” replied he , adding, as he turned

away , the polite Gomen nasai ” I beg yourpardon

It granted to you , august honourableness , camethe reply , and then the little musume clattered awayacross the bridge with the folds of her kimono

gathered close around her and her wooden sandals

making a musical kuro-kuro as she walked .

A: J APANE S E ROMAN CE

into the less frequented and narrower streets . He

walked about with eyes keenly searching for M io San

unti l the sun was sinking red into the sea and the shad

ows o f the hi l ls had fallen into the town . And then

he suddenly remembered that he was weary, and that

i f he did not return to McKenz ie ’

s both his friend and

Katakuri San would be wondering,perhaps anxiously

,

where he was and what had become of him . There

might yet be time to catch M cKenz ie ere he left the

Works, so he hailed a passing j inrikisha, and , with a

strong-armed , sturdy-legged kurumaya between the

bamboo shafts,was soon at the door which led into

the portion of the Works where McKenz ie had hisoffi ce .

He had been gone hal f an hour . S o said the

American bookkeeper . What was to be done ? Somervi l le asked himsel f . At last a bright idea suggested

itsel f, and he asked i f he might write a few lines to

McKenz ie .

The bookkeeper supplied him w ith writing material s ,and he sat down to a desk gritty with dust from the

pottery and stained with ink and wet glasses . In a

few moments he had written all that was needed ;simply a statement that he had spent the day exploringthe town

,and was going to a place of amusement

with Yumoto . McKenz ie was not to bother about

him nor wait up . He would perhaps be late home .

Then the bookkeeper called a passing coolie for him,


and the man sped away up the narrow street whichdebouched into the road leading to McKenz ie ’

s house

a l i ttle way up the hi l lside . With a few words of

thanks and a nod Somervi lle made his way out alongthe Bund .

Yumoto was waiting for him in h is offi ce .You have not found the girl ? ” the former asked ,

as a mere formality.

Somerville shook his head,and then Yumoto no

ticed,as the light from the shimmering water fel l

upon his face through the w indow , that he was looking

ti red and worn .

You must have some wh isky sake, he exclaimed

concernedly , going to the little cupboard and takingout the precious bottle . I can see you have idly

tired your august legs and body searching for an

altogether contemptible girl .Somerville said nothing, drink ing the whi sky wh ich

Yumoto , regardless o f its preciousness, had lavishly

poured outWhen he had fin ished Yumoto sat down oppositehim and said

,w ith a serious face , My honourable

friend,i s it sti l l the desire o f your wonderfully kind

mind to seek out Mio San ? There are other musume’

who can be found with less diffi culty .

”

Somerville fingered his glass and gazed at the

speaker as though to fathom the depth o f his O rientalm ind

,which apparently knew no difference in women


other than could be covered by the broad class ificationof good and bad .

Outside the light was fading rap idly, and the rid inglights of j unks and steamers comm enced to sparkle

across the surface of the harbour . Somerville noticedthis indication of oncoming dusk and became the moreeager to be again afoot .My friend ,

” said he at last,in reply to Yumoto ’

s

question , I must find Mio San i f I am to rest to-night,or to rest contented for many nights to comeAnd then ? ” queried Yumoto, with an enigmatic

sm i le .And then—well , we can cons ider that afterwards .

Let us be going.

”

Yumoto got up,pulled off his ink-stained haori in

which he always worked and hung it onits peg. Thenhe brushed his European-cut coat, and putting it onannounced that he was ready .

He evidently regarded the affair from two points

of view . The first that his friend Somerville wasquixotic to an incomprehensible degree . It would

have been so much easier, he argued to himsel f, to

have found a pretty geisha at one o f the numerouschaya and restaurants to replace lost little Mio San .

The second , that , after all , the evening before thempromised amusement

,and possibly excitement

,even

though it might not result inthe discovery of her

whom they sought.


taurants and tea-houses swung innumerable lanterns,ch iefly of yellow , wh ite , and peach-coloured paper, onwhich the ir makers had limned bats , moths , and fishes ,whilst almost every passer-by carried h is or her ownlantern swaying upon a slender bamboo cane . Thelaughter of women and musume

’

, the low hum of voices ,the hal f-whispered apologies as one or other of thepedestrians j ostled against a fellow-citizen

,and the

shri l l cry of the ’

rikisha boys clearing the road as they

came along, almost passed unheeded by Somerville ,whose mind was occupied with thoughts o f Mio San .

But as he and Yumoto passed along the crowded

thoroughfare and approached the restaurant hescanned the faces of each musume who bore the least

resemblance to her in height or build narrowly .

But it was a fruitless scrutiny ; for none of thelaughing

,hurrying musume

’

,whose clogs kept up a

ringing kuro-kuro on the stones of the street , andwhose faces when the lantern-l ight fell upon them

seemed so j oyous and free from trouble of any sort,proved to be Mio San .

Both men were wel l known at the Hanaz ono , forYumoto generally had his ban-meshi there when notdining at a friend ’s house

,and Somervil le had been

there several times with McKenz ie for tiffin, and fre

quently with Katakuri San and he of an evening.

They were shown into a little room,formed out of

a larger one by the simple and effective expedient


of sl iding panels , by the boy who hastened away tosend Yumoto his favourite l ittle waitress

, O Kiku

San .

For a time neither of the men spoke . In the next

room they could hear the laughter and conversation ofa party of naval Officers and geisha—a strange com

mingling o f the Japanese and English tongues . E vi

dently , thought Somerville , the Hanaz ono was doing

great business that evening,and they would have to

wait . And how i rksome that waiting would be !Around them all the rooms appeared to have thei roccupants , and Somervi lle experienced that strange

oppression which had assai led h1m onthe first occasion

he had been at this much-patronised resort,the feel ing

o f disquietude at the murmuring voices which he couldb ear but whose owners he could not see .After a few moments Yumoto rose

,slid aside one

of the karakami,onwhose surface was depicted an

elegantly disposed fl ight o f swallows,and peered out.

In the distance he caught sight o f a musume, tea-tray

in hand,and he called out, clapping his hands the

while , Ta-betai,hayaku !

Hai- i-i ! Tadaima ! called back Miss Snowflake ,who vanished as she spoke into the room where the

Officers from the mailboat and the geisha were making

merry .

To Somervil le the ir merriment seemed sadly out o f

place,and not even the quaint and formal entrance of


O Kiku San , whose coming Miss Snowflake hadhastened , kneeling on the white matting floor and pressing her fair forehead upon the backs of her hands

,

served to divert him from his thoughts .

The meal that Yumoto ordered consisted of eightcourses , for he had been too busy all day to get his

usual tiffin, and he ate slowly . For him the quest ofM10 San was merely a more or less interesting way of

spending the evening,and he scarcely noticed

,in his

ful l enj oyment of the various dishes,that his com

panion was eating little and growing impatient .At length

,however

,the meal was done , and Yumoto

ready to accompany Somervil le on his quest . O Kiku

San could not understand why the two men did not

remain as they usually did for a smoke and a little

dancing.

Were they displeased with her or with the food ?she inquired anxiously

,slipping the ten-sen piece which

Somervi lle gave her into the li ttle pocket she had con

structed for the purpose in the wide sleeve o f her

kimono . And when Yumoto assured her that they

had enj oyed ban-meshi,and thought her looking more

charming than ever, she laughed , pushed aside thekarakami

, and , placing their shoes , which they had

discarded on entering the room,convenient to their

feet , ran away down the passage to attend to other

visitors . Only, as O Kiku San was a coquette and

Somerville handsome , she paused at the end to blow


hung,above them were si lhouetted sharply against the

star-spangled sky . Once or twice a musume or

woman cal led to them Konbanwa, or some challenge

,to which Yumoto threw back a contemptuous or

polite reply , as the speaker might be e ither old or

young.

At a corner of the street a musician was standing,samisenin hand , singing to a little crowd which had

collected,in a high-pitched and rather unmusical

voice . When she caught sight o f Yumoto and Somer

v i lle she made greater vocal efforts,rolling her eyes

and swaying her head from side to side in the very best

manner of the Japanese singer . Near her head swung

a huge paper lantern belonging to the shop round the

corner,and had it not been for this the little singer

would have been almost invisible in the dim light of

the street , dressed as she was in a slate-coloured

kimono and dark crimsinobi. The two men stopped

a moment in the hope that one of the little crowd ,which stood in a hal f-circle almost enclosing the

musician , might prove to be her they sought . But it

was a vain hope . And so,after a moment’s pause to

toss a couple of sen in the basket at the singer ’s feet,they went on.

The chaya of the Golden Lotus was crowded,for it was one o f the favourite resorts of the Euro

peanised younger Japanese of the town . In the bigroom which lay at the back of it through the quaint


rockwork garden—a room almost as large as a smallhall—one would always see good dancing, and hear

s inging which,i f s ingularly discordant to unaccus

tomed European ears , was provided by highly tra inedgirl-singers .

Onthe spotless matting floor were seated dozens ofJapanese in native or semi-native attire ,mostly smoking

and regarding the posturing o f a couple o f geisha

who had acquired fame all over the town,and whose

services are sought after by every one who could

afford them to entertain parties o f guests . There

were several of Yumoto’

s acquaintances and friends

present,who regarded him and Somerville with vague

curiosity whilst sti l l keeping an eye upon the doingso f O Dede San and O Sugi San . Remains of the

re freshments , half-emptied cups o f sake, crumbs , and

beans,l ittered the floor in front o f late-comers . So

great was the number of the patrons o f the Golden

Lotus”that the musume

, who stood peering with

smiling and painted faces round the corners o f

screens and karakami, had been unable to performtheir duties o f clearing away .

From the cross-beams above swung numbers oflanterns of all colours , stirred into lazy motion by

draughts o f cool night air from the garden . They

threw shadows o f the s ingers onthe floor,and onthe

faces and bodies o f the onlookers—weird , fantasti cshadows which gave an air o f unreality to the scene .


Upon the floor m ingled with the men were hal f ascore of women spectators

,mostly young ; and Somer

vil le and Yumoto scrutinised each o f their faces inturn in the hal f-hope o f discovering Mio San . One

girl of about s ixteen , dressed in a kimono o f a similar

shade of plum colour to that in which Somerville had

been accustomed to see Mio San , caused his heart tobeat more quickly for a minute or two , until the little

musume’

turned round to address an o ld man sitting

behind her and he saw her face .

A fter they had been in the room some twentyminutes Yumoto said

,

“ It i s no good stopping here ,my friend

,although O Sugi San ’s dancing is well

worth looking at . She whom we seek is not here , and

Togakushi I have spoken to , and he has not seen any

one l ike Mio San . Come , let us be going . Unless ,and Yumoto spoke rather wearily, you are content to

leave things as they stand . Better so ! No use , I

feel sure,looking for her to -night . In a day or two

we might hear something . I might even inquire ofEnoki .

An angry flush,which passed unnoticed because the

lantern which swung from the beam just above hishead was a rosy peach colour

,suffused Somerville ’s

face , for he felt i f M io San were abandoned unti l shewas traced by means o f the notorious Enoki shewould no longer be the innocent , thoughtlessly charm

ing little musume’

he had delighted to paint and study .


Upon the floor mingled with the men were half ascore of women spectators , mostly young ; and Somer

ville and Yumoto scrutinised each of their faces inturn in the hal f-hope of discovering Mio San . One

girl of about s ixteen , dressed in a kimono of a similarshade of plum colour to that in which Somerville had

been accustomed to see Mio San , caused his heart tobeat more quickly for a minute or two , until the l ittle

musume turned round to address an old man s ittingbehind her and he saw her face .

After they had been in the room some twentyminutes Yumoto said

,It i s no good stopping here ,

my fr iend,although O Sugi San ’s dancing is wel l

worth looking at . She whom we seek i s not here , andTogakushi I have spoken to , and he has not seen any

one l ike Mio San . Come , let us be going. Unless ,and Yumoto spoke rather wearily, you are content to

leave things as they stand . Better so ! No use , I

feel sure,looking for her to-night . In a day or two

we might hear something. I might even inqu ire of

Enoki .An angry flush

,which passed unnoticed because the

lantern which swung from the beam just above hishead was a rosy peach colour , suffused Somervi lle

’

s

face , for he felt i f Mio San were abandoned unti l shewas traced by means o f the notorious Enoki shewould no longer be the innocent , thoughtlessly charming little musume he had delighted to paint and study .


But keeping his temper was essential i f Yumoto ’

s aid

was to be ensured , and so he only said , I cannot yetabandon the search , my honourable friend , so long as

I am aided by your august assistance and intel ligent

mind .

”

Yumoto smiled .

It was nice for th is Engl ishman to speak thus ofhim ; and , although one musume

’

was very much l ikeanother to him

,perhaps Somervi lle had a special in

terest in Mio San . I f he had it was nothing to him ,

only he might as well put h im under obligation byhelping to discover her .Very well , augustness ever persevering , he re

plied . We will draw a net over The Sandalwood

Box ,’ ‘ The Gate of the Sky

,

’ and ‘ The BeckoningKitten ,

’ and if we do not catch our fish in either o f

these places,perhaps

,as a last hope

,we may as well

look in at the door of The Welcoming Geisha .

’

Somervi lle had heard McKenz ie tel l queer stories o fthe latter resort

,and he devoutly hoped that Mio San

might not have found her way there . So out againthey went into the narrow streets o f the native town ,l ined oneither side by low houses , through the nowtranslucent and closed shoj i o f the maj ority o f which

gleamed either rampu !lamps ! or the white papernight lanterns l ike the sun seen through a m ist . Theymet few people til l they struck across a main street

towards the harbour and made thei r way towards the


Beckoning Kitten , then they encountered someEuropean sai lors ontheir way back to thei r ships

,and

a few grotesquely attired Japanese in bowler hatswith English coats worn over their other native gar

ments . But although there were musume’

about, none

that they overtook proved to be Mio San . Nor did

they discover her or any trace of her in the three teahouses Yumoto had proposed to explore first .Somerville was very tired and disappointed when

they turned away out of the last place , followed bythe laughing invitations o f the habitués, couched in

polite Japanese, To remain and see the honourable

sun rise .”

A tramp of hal f a mile through narrow alleys , theroofs of the houses on either side o f which nearly

met overhead,making the streets almost as dark as

tunnels,and they reached the restaurant known by

the euphonious title of The Welcoming Geisha .

” It

lay almost at the bottom o f a narrow lane leading to

the waterside .

Yumoto knocked at the door, and after a minute ortwo ’s delay the amado was sl id back , and he andSomervil le entered .

A short passage led to the largish room in wh ich thesake-drinking, singing, and dancing, for which the

house was noted,went on . Long ere the end of the

passage was reached sounds of applause came to them .

For several moments after the karakami had been slid


from b eaneath the rim of his bowler hat, she caught

s ight o f Somerville .A flush of mingled j oy and shame flooded hercheeks

,and the lacquer tray and the cups upon it fell

out o f her trembling fingers . Somervil le would have

sprung forward,but Yumoto laid a tight grip upon

his arm .

Tomara! Do not destroy everything, my over

hasty friend ! he whispered . We have found her ;but i f you wish to take her with you preserve your

calm .

Somervil le paused . He recogn ised the advice asbeing good . Seeing him pause and draw back a look

of piteous disappointment came into Mio San s face .Was he about to go away ? or was it al l a dream ?

Before either Yumoto or Somervi lle could decideupon anything o ld Honj o had appeared on the scene ,summoned by the ringing crash of the lacquer tray on

the floor,and the sound o f the breaking o f sake cups .

His keen,dark eyes swept round the room , and

seeing what had happened and who the culprit was , he

ran forward and struck Mio San upon the shoulder .There was a momentary confusion amongst the

guests , and ere Somerville could interfere Honj o haddriven Mio San from the room .

Now come , quick ! ej aculated Yumoto . Andstepping between the seated men they followed Honjothrough the panel which he had slid back onentering.


A moment later l ittle M io San was cl inging to

Somerville ’s knees and entreating him to no moreremove his shining presence from her .

Yumoto was meanwhile seeking to appease the furi

ous Honjo , and by threats and caj olery trying to dis

cover how it was that Mio San came to be in hi s

house .

She is one of my geisha, the o ld manasserted

mendac iously .

No ,” excla imed Yumoto ; you have stolen her.

And the Englishman is a great lord who will see that

you are punished i f you refuse to at once release herand let her go .

”

Honj o gazed at Yumoto w ithout speak ing. Lately ,only Yumoto did not know it , there had been trouble

with the police , who , when they raided the Welcoming Geisha ,

” although saying to Honj o, Gomen

nasai,

”—which be ing interpreted was August pardondeign to give us,

”—had made it perfectly clear thatChonKino and other no less reprehensible th ings mustnot be too frequently repeated . Honjo had told the

ra iding samurainot to mention it , that he was delightedto see them , but all the same he knew that thei r eyes

for the immediate future would be upon him and the

dances and doings o f his geisha.

The little group of three men,w ith M io San sti l l

clasping Somerville round the knees and petitioning

h im to take her away,was almost dramatic in the hal f


gloom of Honj o’

s private apartment—the room inwhich he weekly cheated h is unfortunate geisha whenhe made up h is accounts . Now the o ld scoundrel knewhe would have in the end to give way, for Yumotospoke with an ai r o f authority

,and was known to have

friends in official circles . It was a pity,he thought

sadly , for Mio San was prettier than any girls he had

j ust then , and he for some weeks past had noted thatsome of his best patrons

,who consumed most whisky

sake, had come to regard the most outrageous postur

ings and songs of his staff of geisha with increasingly

languid interest . In a word , they wanted something

new . And in M io San , decoyed to the Welcoming

Geisha whilst she sat lonely and sobbing under thecherry-trees near one of the chaya in O -Suwa Park,he had found the novelty he sought . And now this

Engl ishman,whose eyes looked at him fiercely even in

the dim light o f the room , was about to take his prize

from him . It was execrable , but inevitab le . The only

thing to do was to make as good a bargain as possible .

The necessity for this had presented itsel f to h i s astute

mind even whilst Yumoto was first speak ing.

August one , he commenced , addressing Yumoto,and bowing his head as though possessed of a humbleinstead of a rapacious sp irit ,

“ your worshipful w i l l

and that of the augustly honourable English lord mustbe done . But ,

” and his tone took an inj ured key, I

am los ing thi s m iserable girl who would have been


sent to inform his friends who were proprietors of

neighbouring drink ing-places of h is diffi culty . S o he

said,continuing his speech , But the august English

man,who is my esteemed friend , i s w i lling to give you

something for the food the girl may have eaten . Here,”

taking out a handful of money and counting out someof i t, are five yen .

”

This was too much for Honj o,who had thought of

insisting upon ten times as much at least.No , no , augustly deigning one , he almost

screamed ; give me at least fifty paltry yen , and thegirl may go .

Yumoto merely shook h is head . He knew it wouldfaci l itate matters to let Honj o put h is ownm in imumprice upon Mio San ’s lost services .Honj o

’

s wrinkled , evi l face glared at the girl . S he

had never seemed so pretty as now when he was aboutto lose her.M io San clung the more closely to Somervi l le

, for,

young and innocent as she was,there was something

like the glance of a w i ld beast robbed of its prey inHonj o

’

s eyes, which she understood , and it frightenedher .

Forty ?” queried

Another shake of Yumoto,

pursed up his lips .Thirty-five ?

Thirty ? ”


Twenty-five ?

Sti l l Yumoto shook h i s head .

Honjo was boiling over with the rage he dare notshow . But at the moment there was the sound of

tramp ing feet and voices which he recognised asthose of samurai. A whistle from Yumoto or a cal l

might summon them,and Honj o was in no humour

for an interview with the pol ice j ust then . He saw

Yumoto glance at his companion and whisper some

thing. There was no time to lose , and so with a rag

ing heart he said,Will the august one give twenty

yen ? It is not much for so pretty a

Somervi lle,who gathered what he said , exclaimed ,

Give the dirty blackguard the money,and let us go .

”

Yumoto counted out five notes into Honj o’

s yellow ,

outstretched and greasy palm . When the last one wasplaced there the recipient closed his fingers over themwith a snap like that of a trap

,as though fearing that

Yumoto m ight yet change his mind and reopen thebargaining . Then he appeared suddenly to realisethat little Mio San was wearing garments belongingto him .

Get up ! ” he said roughly,sticking out one foot

from beneath his greasy kimono as though to pushher . Quickly ! quickly ! those are my beauti ful

clothes . Come and get out o f them . Hurry , miserable girl .”

“ Tell him , said Somervil le to Yumoto,looking


Honj o the while straight in the eyes , that Mio San

doesn ’t go with him . She changes here .Yumoto did as he was bid , and Honj o , after protest,hurried away

,and a moment or two later the kara

kami at the other side of the room sl id back to admita musume

’

scarcely more than hal f Mio San ’s agebearing an armful of clothes .

Moi San , trembling in every limb , got up onto her

feet and commenced to untie the gaudy obi. In a

couple of minutes , whilst the two men listened intentlyfor any suspicious noises wh ich might indicate that

Honj o was planning mischie f,she was dressed in her

own kimono , had tied her own quiet-hued obi, and was

ready, geta in hand , to go with them .

When they were once more in the street Yumoto

wh ispered to Somervil le to keep his eyes open as theywalked rapidly along. In his right hand he clasped

a revolver,which he had slipped into his pocket before

leaving his offi ce . The street was by this time ab

so lutely silent and deserted , the only noise being thatcaused by the thud o f the two men ’s boots on themuddy path or the ring of Mio San ’s geta as , when

walking between them,she trod onthe imperfect pave

ment in the centre Of the street . Hoshin’

s shop inFunadaiku-machi was a long way

,but they walked

rapidly . When at last they reached it Yumotoknocked upon the door , and when he heard some one

sti rring within he called out , Gomennasai ! ” and a


in darkness and the amado drawn . Like a thief he sl idthe panels backwards in their grooves

,but not silently

enough to prevent a sl ight screeching of wood,pol ished

by wear , meeting other wood .

The shoj i of McKenz ie ’

s room was sl id back andhis head appeared . So you ’ve

.

come back he saidsleepi ly , but with a tone o f inquiry in h1s vo1ce .

“ Yes , replied Somerville .

“ But,old fellow

,I ’m

t ired out . I am awfully sorry I have disturbed you.

Tell you all about it to-morrow . Good-night .”

M cKenz ie was too sleepy himsel f to care for a te’

te

a-te‘

te at two o ’clock in the morning, so he contented

h imsel f with yawning out Good-night . And then

he closed the shoj i.Somervil le

,without taking off anyth ing save his

coat and boots,fell asleep under his kaya to dream o f

legions of Honj os pursu ing him and l ittle Mio San ,and vainly endeavouring to sati sfactori ly answer the

problem ra ised by Yumoto’

s parting question .

CHAPTER !

OWN in the dark l ittle room in Hoshin’

s

house in Funadaiku-machi,which had been

hastily formed for her use by the shi ft ing of

the karakomi, Mio San lay long awake , although so

ti red that her eyel ids felt stiff with want o f sleep and

her limbs ached ti l l she could almost have cried .

At first when she lay down upon the futonwith herhead firmly fixed in the notch of her wooden pillow

she thought only of her experiences at the Welcoming Geisha .

It was only then that she,in her innocence , first

realised vaguely what her decoying to Honj o’

s establishment had foreboded . The coarse talk o f the geisha

as they painted her cheeks and lips and tricked her outin the tawdry

,gorgeous garments that Honj o pro

vided had happily at the time conveyed little or no

meaning to the mind of Mio San . But as she lavawake gazing at the faint l ight emitted by the whitepaper lantern ,Which only seemed to make the darkness vi sible , what she had heard and seen began toseparate itsel f in her mind

,and to a ce rtain extent ex

plain itsel f , and she shuddered like a child would havedone at terror but half-understood .

153


Then from the confused tangle o f the events of thelast twelve hours

,almost like a luminous figure might

have appeared to her in the darkness o f the l ittle room

in which she lay,the remembrance o f Somervi lle ’s sud

den arrival at the Welcoming Geisha took shape .

What would she not do for so augustly high a being ?

What could she do to show her appreciation of his

honourable condescension in seeking her out ? And

then she wondered i f San-to had given him her letter ,and how he had read it

,and what he had thought in

his all-knowing wisdom o f her presumption . What

would become of her on the morrow , strangely perhaps

,scarcely troubled her at all . The honourable

Englishman,who had never given her an unkind word ,

who had even deigned to paint her despicable face so

that it looked beauti ful on the wonderful block o f

paper which would tear Off leaves,'

would surely know

what to do with her .The weary l ittle body

,which ached as though it had

been beaten with bamboo rods,and the no less tired

mind , at last fell asleep j ust as the early morning light ,which had had to climb over many intervening and

higher roofs than that of Hoshin’

s dwelling,began to

fi lter l ike golden threads through a crack in the topgroove o f the woodwork above in which the shoj i ran .

Somerville woke late , and when he was disturbed bythe sounds of McKenz ie moving about and whist

l ing ou the verandah he could not for the moment


And Yumoto and I found her about midnight in

a low singing-shop , the Welcoming Geisha .

”

McKenz ie ’

s face had a look of extreme astonishment . What the devil took her there ? ”

“ I scarcely know,

” repl ied Somerville,but Yu

moto gathered from what she told him that she had

been decoyed by one o f the geisha who were attached

to the place . Anyway,after a good deal o f bargain

ing , and some discreet hints o f trouble i f he didn ’t

give her up , we frightened and caj oled that old beastHonj o to let us take her away .

”

“ And ? ” again queried his l i stener .And she has spent the night at Hoshin’

s down inFunadaiku-machi .”

McKenz ie said noth ing for a moment or two,and

had the two men been less occupied with their thoughts

they might have heard the shoj i o f a neighbouring

room pushed gently aside and have seen Katakur i

San ’s face peering through the aperture .

At last M cKenz ie spoke .

“You are serious , old

man ? ” he asked quietly .

And Somerville,understanding what he meant ,

replied somewhat lamely,

“ I shall not be the onlyEuropean .

Obviously , remarked McKenz ie , remembering

Katakuri San .

“ But you did not come out here tostay . What then ? ”

I am wi l ling to run the risk, was the reply .


She ’s a nice l ittle girl , said McKenz ie medita

tively , and you ’l l improve your knowledge o f Japanese pretty quickly , I reckon .

To him it seemed a perfectly natural solution o f the

situation, for he had not yet entirely forgotten the

easi ly arranged marriages o f the Quartier Latin .

I think Katakuri ought to hear the news,so I ’l l go

and find her . ”

As he went along the verandah to their room Kata

kuri San stepped out o f the one in which she listened ,concealed

,and

,with a face from which she had

driven all expression of astonishment , advanced tomeet him .

“ So our honourable friend has returned safely ,she exclaimed . And why did he leave us to wonderwhere he had gone til l hi s chit arrived ? ”

“ He had gone,

” said M cKenz ie , and Somervi lle

thought that whilst he spoke he looked at KatakuriSan rather curiously

,as though to watch the effect

o f what he was about to say,

“ to seek for MioSan .

”

Katakuri San started visibly,and for a moment her

face paled . But she had a marvellous control over

her features when the need arose,and she recovered

her composure almost instantly .

“S O i t i s M io San

,

” and she laughed contemptuously , that our august friend has been seeking .

It i s on such despicable game that he expends his

158 A’

JAPANE SE ROMANCE

august skill in hunting. And when is he to set up

housekeeping with her ? ”

Katakuri San was a really talented actress , but shecould not quite banish a look of malignity from herface or a ring of chagrin from her voice .Somerville caught the latter , and when he spoke

he did so as coolly as though M io San were KatakuriSan ’s greatest friend .

“ August pardon deign,he sa id , for my having

caused you trouble by my absence last evening ti l l so

late . But you had told me Mio San was from Uresh ino

and therefore homeless when you drove her from you ,for which ,

” and he looked Katakuri San so straightin the face with what she always called his honourable green eyes ”

!for all eyes were green to her,which were not either black or brown ! that her owndropped , I felt I was to blame .

”

Katakuri San shrugged her shoulders,and merely

said ,“ I had no use further for her contemptible

services . And then she turned away .

Somervi lle realised that he had made an enemy, andcongratulated himsel f that he had already spoken sodefinitely about finding ei ther a house or apartments .When Katakuri San had passed from sight withinthe house McKenz ie asked Somervi lle i f he had anydefinite plans . For that new plans would now benecessary , with Mio San bulking so largely in Somerville

’

s estimation , he made no doubt .


Somerv i lle saw little or nothing of Katakur i Sanduring the morning . She , boil ing over with rageand disappointment

,preferred the seclusion of her

ownroom . It seemed impossible to her that so con

temptib le a person as Mio San had captured the heart

of the handsome guest upon whom she had turnedall the batteries of her arts o f coquetry for six weekspast . And when she heard the sounds o f Somervillemoving about in the neighbouring room packing up

his things , she set her nails deep into her plump palms .In a few days at most she would see him no more

,

or only so occasionally that her influence over him

would be little or nothing. To her he was a mystery ;for she knew that she was beauti ful , and it seemedincredible that he would not stoop to pick up what

most men she had previously met with had strivenfor . And quite apart from her chagrin was the

fear of that,to her

,deadly dulness which had char

acterised her existence since she had been mistress ofthe house on the hillside before Somerville came—a

form of l i fe so different from the gay and varied one

she had led at the restaurant in Ima-machi .

CHAPTE R XI

EXT morning Somerville found a vacantvil la high up amid the woods on the hills

above the foreign settlement,along towards

the entrance o f the harbour—a tiny, b ox- l ike place

with a magnificent prospect o f Nagasaki , with its

bewildering acres o f gabled roofs,its wide-spreading

harbour dotted with tramp steamers,mailboats

,and

j unks , and the long line o f its busy hatoba looking at

that distance like a fence for the purpose of keepingthe houses from slipping into the water .Hide-yoshi , the compradore, or agent, of whomSomervil le took the house

,assured him that he would

obtain a marvellous bargain ; whilst Yumoto asserted

that twenty-five yen per month was a preposteroussum to pay . As for Somerville

,he was more than

satisfied . There was a delightful garden , throughwhich a trickling stream ran musically , lotus pondsand iri s ponds

,quaint rockeries

,and equally strangely

shaped trees,whose stunted and crabbed growth gave

them every appearance o f the extreme age they were

asserted to be . Some o f them at dusk looked almostl ike mal formed human beings

,so weird in shape were

they .


During h i s last day at McKenz ie ’

s house he sawlittle of Katakuri San , who ,

since learning that he wasabout to marry Mio San before the Consul , hadavoided him when possible . His packing had occu

pied nearly the whole o f his time , and whilst he wasengaged upon it he thought Of M io San and thewonderful expression of j oy which had suffused herdelicately pretty face when he and Yumoto togetherhad made her understand that the immense augustness ” was going to marry her . Hoshin’

s amiable ,but somewhat avaricious wi fe was never tired of

tell ing Mio San how fortunate it was that she hadfound favour in the eyes of so generous and honourably handsome a foreigner

,adding that when he left

her—and at this suggestion Mio San ’s eyes always

fil led , whilst her heart beat tumultuously—he would nodoubt make her so handsome a gift that she would

be able to l ive for a long time in comfort .For Mio San—whose little coquetries by wh ich she

had sought to woo Somerville ’s notice had beenprompted

,not by womanly experience

,as had the

more shameful ones of her mistress,but by inno

cence—there seemed no practical future now withouther very tall august husband . It was impossible forher to realise such an eventuality

,even i f she had not

!as sh e always did ! driven the thought of such a

thing from her mind .

McKenz ie , after two years’

experience of Japan


McKenz ie ’

s and took possession of his ownhouse .He had engaged a cook Hoshin had recommended as“ a very good cook

,though not augustly beautiful .”

As a matter of fact , Shi-wono was quite ugly .

As Somerville was about to leave,Katakuri San

came out onto the verandah to say good-bye . She

evinced little or no regret at his going,save o f the

most conventional kind . But as she shook hands she

pressed a small,oblong lacquer box

,s imilar in shape

to a yatate or pencil and ink case,upon him .

I have been sorry in my heart,

” she said,but had

he been looking at her face,instead o f the box , he

would have seen a sullen fire in the depths of her

beauti ful eyes,

“ that I drove Mio San away . This

is a contemptible gi ft from me to her . Give it her ,but not until she is dwell ing in your house .

Somervil le took the little b ox , which was wrappedin straw coloured rice-paper

,and securely tied with

paper string,and

,thanking Katakuri San with the

most elaborate politeness for her gi ft,sl ipped it in

his pocket . Then,after Obtaining a promise from

McKenz ie to come and see him very soon,he picked

up the last o f his luggage and made hi s way down thepath and out of the gate .

His road , in places a mere mountain foot track , lay

away to the left o f M cKenz ie ’

s house,past a row o f

villas which clung to the hillside,set in quaint

,green

gardens overlook ing the town. About three-quarters


o f a m i le along this path , which at last turned upwardsamid the trees and became wider where it ran intothat leading over the hills to Mogi , Somervil le came

in sight o f his home in the distance , perched up on

the slope o f the dark green hill l ike a match-b oxdwelling set amid the trees . It was now almost dusk ,and he hurried along , for the road was strange , and

were he to lose his way it would be difficult for him

to ask for directions . As he crossed a path leadingdownwards and back into the native town

,he began

to wish he had taken M cKenz ie’

s advice and remainedwith him until after the ceremony o f the morrow at

the Consulate . There was something almost uncanny

in his taking possession o f his strange l ittle house ,which stood isolated from the nearest other vil las

amid the gloomy greenness o f cryptomerias andpines

,at night . How much more cheerful would it

have been,he thought

,as he strode rapidly along

,

had M io San been with him ! And from thoughts o fher his mind strayed to Tokio and Violet Desbrough .

What would she say to this marriage o f his ?—so

unlike the conventional idea o f European wedlock, so

romantically inconsequent, so much a matter o f sud

den impulse . But though he wondered thus,he was

perfectly content , for his ruling instinct was satisfiedwith the quaintness and dainty charm o f l ittle MioSan , who was sitting thinking o f him and worshipping

him in iHo shin’

s house somewhere down amid the


dark mass of roofs which lay a mile or more away

below him .

At length he reached the gate which led into thegarden of his house . It was approached by a foot

path of reddish-brown earth , which he realised wouldbe a perfect quagmire in wet weather , but was now

baked hard by the sun . Shi-wono , who had command

o f fluent,i f wonderfully incorrect English , through

her having been a servant at one o f the hotels , waswaiting for him

,for she had hurried out at the sound

o f his footsteps approaching the house along the path .

As he climbed the steps leading up onto the verandahShi-wono prostrated hersel f with due humility

,and

murmured ,“ Welcome

,most august master ; please

to make yoursel f at home .” Then,having bumped

her forehead against the backs of her outspread hands,

she got up and inquired , Will your augustness eat

ban-meshi much ? ” which was her way of inquiringi f Somerville would have dinner served .

Yes ,” replied the latter , and let i t appear as soon

as your honourable fingers can serve it .”

The house was not a large one ; indeed , quite the

reverse , for it had but a large room which was to beturned into a studio , a living-room ,

and a bedroomalong the front of it

,all opening on the verandah ,

and a bedchamber with the addition of a kitchen atthe back .

But onthe evening Somervil le came to it alone it

168 A'

JAPANE SE ROMANCE

A lready on the verandah Sh i-wono had placedsome miniature pines and palms in pots , and in thestudio and living-room were simple though emb le

matic floral decorations placed in the toko-no-ma,which

,had Somerville but understood the intricate art

o f flower arrangement , he would have recognised as

indicating a welcome to him and the coming mistress

of the morrow .

After he had finishéd his dinner Somerville carried

one of the three or four deck-chairs which,after a

long search,he had obtained at a marvel lously dear

price from a tobutsuya in Tera-machi , on to theverandah and sat and smoked .

It seemed impossible that he was to be married

onthe morrow— that in some twelve or fifteen hours

Mio San would be installed as his native wi fe and themistress of his house ; Mio San , almost a child com

pared with him,yet the only woman who had inspired

him with more than a passing interest or desire toretain her within the horizon o f his ownpersonality .

Everything, save his beloved Art , was generally of anexperimental character with Somervi lle . He had onlyescaped matrimony during his years in the Quartierbecause the experiment had lacked interest ere thepossibi l ity of its being made a reality occurred . A l lthe girls and women he had known and admired—a

goodly array they proved—ranged themselves upon thescreen of his memory as he sat gazing at the tw inkling


l ights of harbour and town spread out below him .

But , unless b e deceived himsel f , none was able to compare for sweetness , freshness , and charm with her who

at the same time was dreaming o f him down at o ldHoshin

’

s . Suzanne , she was handsome and vulgar ;her laugh when anything amused her dominated other

people ’s ; Elise , she was frail , neurotic , capricious ,l ike a flower o f exquisite beauty which can only flour

ish in a warm atmosphere ; Stephanie , dark as night ,beauti ful as a tiger cat , violent , fatiguing ; Christabel

Johnson,a fair American girl student who had

favoured him above competitors for her smiles,strenu

ous,a mass o f nerves , never in repose , ful l o f plans ;

and lastly little Messaline,the interesting but terrible

product of vitiated bourgeois ancestry,

flashing like

a star in the firmament o f the Quartier , disappearing

l ike one of the ethereal worlds doomed in thei r

luminosity to destruction .

Then,whilst he sat l istening to Shi-wono

’

s wonderful squeaks , which with her passed for singing,he again thought o f Violet Desborough . And then

he wondered i f she were ever l ikely to re-enter hisli fe .

It scarcely seemed possible,and he marvelled that

at the present time he was capable o f but a tran

sient interest in her . M io San , who might , for al l he

knew,prove merely a lovely

,soulless l ittle being

,

though capable o f great devotion,was infinitely more


des irable and attractive—a pretty, unexplored tractof womanliness , unlike anything he had yet discovered .

A woman never appeals to a man more stronglythan when she i s grateful , and shows it , or when she i sweak and needs succour. He remembered that this

was the verdict that had been brought in one summer’s

night after a heated discussion on the charm of women

in his studio in Paris , A litson, a fellow-student at

Co lorossi’

s, who had been j i lted by his amie, remark

ing that when women ’s gratitude becomes yet more

attenuated by reason of modern emancipation ,” and

her need of succour less by the same process , they

would have to do all the proposing themselves , for few

men would wish to marry them .

Then Somervil le ’s thoughts trailed off to Hoshin’

s

w i fe and Mio San . And he wondered i f they had

managed to spend all the honourably numerous yenwhich he had given to the latter the day before for the

purchase of wedding garments,and the odds and ends

o f things which go to the total of a Japanese girl’

s

adornment . Mme . Ho shin’

s eyes had glittered l ike

those of a beady-eyed doll at the sight of so much

satsu !paper money! , and Mio San had li fted up her

soft , brown eyes to his face with wonder lurking in

them at the marvellous generosity of her august hus

band to be .

Onthe morrow there would be a short, unromanti c

ceremony at the Consulate ; and then Mio San would


save that o f l ittle Mio San had faded , leaving her todominate his artistic and physical senses . And then

he shuddered at the recollection of the scene in therocking atmosphere o f Honj o

’

s drinking den , and thecoarse shamelessness o f the geisha

’

s faces and postur

ings . It was good to have saved fragile , pretty MioSan from such a career . As he was thinking of her

and the might-have-been Shi-wono came along theverandah and asked i f she should not close the amado .

“ The honourable moon i s cl imbed up,said she,

and the nez umi !mice! are already out o f the irholes

,which was merely her way of tell ing her master

that it was time she went to bed . Somervil le himsel f

yawned at the mere thought of sleep , and so when

Shi-wono had slid along the amado and disappeared

into her own section of the house he himsel f roseand retired to rest .But for a long t ime the noises of the house kept

h im awake— the scampering of the mice along therafters above his head and beneath the j oists of thefloor, the screech o f an owl , the insistent whirr o f

the cicadae, and those multitudinous crackings andcreakings which seem to afflict Japanese dwellings

when the sun is off them and the mystic hours o f darkness have arrived .

At length he fell asleep , and by some strange freakof the sub -conscious mind his dreams were not of MioSan , but of Violet Desborough far away inTokio,


who as yet knew noth ing of this Japanese marriage

of his , or of the little musume’

who had captivated h issense of the beauti ful and uniquely strange .Next morning he was awakened neither by sunlight

nor the song o f the bi rds , but by the gaku !music !of Sh i-wono

’

s voice singing a welcome to her mistress

to come . For a few minutes , in the hal f-gloom o f his

bedchamber,Somervil le could not imagine what the

weird screechings and meanderings up and down an

unknown musical scale portended . But at last hedetected an inflexiono f Shi-wono ’

s voice which was

familiar,and he lay li stening

,reassured . Then he

reali sed that with in a few hours he was to marry Mio

San,and that within a few more hours beyond that

t ime she would be instal led as the mistress of the house ,as the arbiter o f his domestic destinies and peace .

Soon Shi-wono ’

s voice was heard outside inquiring i fhe had enj oyed “ honourable tranquill ity

,

” and when

he would wish breakfast . And then began the rattl ingand sliding back of the outside shutters as she opened

the house to the radiant,early morning sunshine .

A fter the meal,which proved to be the best sub sti

tute for a breakfast which he had had in'

Japan , forShi-wono had learned to consult English tastes some

what in such matters whilst servant at the hotel ,Somervi lle gave orders that the house was to be readyto receive its mistress by sundown

,and then he set

off down the rather rugged path to the town .


In the woods the birds were yet singing, for i t wasqu ite early ; and below the harbour gleamed l ikefrosted si lver under the slight m ist which hung overits surface and invaded the portion of the town nearits shores , the foreign settlement , and the bui ldingsupon Deshima . But long before Somerville had

reached the outlying part o f the town nearest to theslopes of the hi l ls on which his dwelling stood

,the m ist

had l ifted , and the distant hills and harbour entrancewhich they environed became clear and distinct .Into the narrow , steep , and sti l l descending streets

he at length plunged on his way to the Bund and Yumoto ’s office , anxious to make sure that his Japanesefriend am id the pressure of tea harvest had not for

gotten that he was to assi st at the ceremony which

was to take place at the Consulate about noon.

McKenz ie he knew he could trust.

Yumoto was in,and when Somervi l le entered his

office he greeted him almost w ith effusion , so anx ious

was he to make him understand that i f he !Yumoto !thought h im unnecessari ly punctil ious in this marriage

o f his , he was desirous of lending h im every possible

assistance in its consummation .

You are really sti l l serious , my honourable

friend ? ” he questioned , after the exchange of the

usual elaborate greetings . And when Somervilleassured him that he was , Yumoto laughed and sm i ledan enigmatical smile

,as though he thought that his


would certa inly d ie a natural death by reason of the

separation o f the twain—the natural j ealousy whichi s sure to exist where two women pursue the sameobj ect . But he dismissed Yumoto ’

s disqu ieting sug

gestion from his mind . The day was too instinct with

happiness and too radiant w ith sunshine for gloomythoughts and forebodings .

“You estimate Katakuri San ’s regard for me too

highly, my august friend , he replied , laugh ing.

Surely she could not have been j ealous of hermaid ?

Yumoto sm i led knowingly , and said after a pause ,Not of her maid

,but of a beauti ful musumé

’

s

influence over you,my most excellent but not too far

seeing friend . Women are naturally the quarry , men

the hunters ; but when passion reverses that delightful

order of things the hunters have no pity to spare

for others engaged in the chase . Take my word , let

what I say sink deep into your most honestly simple

mind ; beware o f the woman who has loved you when

you love another woman . But much as I am enj oying

your society,my contemptible business demands that

I should attend to i t i f I am to arrive at the Consulatein time to witness the pleasing ceremony your honour

able puncti liousness i s to provide .”

Which means ,! exclaimed Somervi l le, rising and

smiling,“ that I am to go ?

”

I regret the necessity, but the tea harvest leaves


one no .cho ice . Whilst you dreamed on your verandah o f Mio San and happiness last night , I was heredrowned in figures

,sick of tea and everything which

provides my miserable body with the right to exist .“You will not fai l me ?

” said Somerville,with his

hand onthe door .May I be troubled for ten thousand years by the

ghosts of my ancestors ,” rej oined Yumoto grandi

loquently in reply . And then as the door closed

behind Somerville he returned to his invoices and bil lso f lading with a sigh o f rel ief . This marriage o f his

English friend was made of far too serious a descript ion , marriage , to Yumoto

’

s O riental mind , merely

being a male tribute to women ’s charms and usefulness .

Somerville walked along the Bund,and turning

up a by-street from the waterside he soon reachedFunadaiku-machi and Hoshin’

s shop .

Hoshin , the lacquer merchant , was sitting in thed im recesses of his well-known shop thinking o f the

possible customers who might patronise him on themorrow when the great j okisencame in from Hong

kong ; but he at once caught sight o f Somerville andcalled out a welcome . Then he summoned his wife ,Haru San , who , however suitable her name ,

“ Honourab le Spring

,

” might once have been,was now

decidedly in the autumn o f l i fe . Haru San’s voice

could be heard coming from the back o f the house


call ing in a shri l l tone , Hai-i-i ! and a moment latershe appeared .

Haru San could speak but a word or two of so

called English , but she reali sed whom it was Somer

ville required , so , after she had kneeled on the floorand bumped her forehead in salutation

,she contented

hersel f with pointing to the open karakami and ej aculating the words Mio San

, achira.

”

With a polite Arigato,” Somerville stepped

through the shop and the room behind it,and sl iding

back the shoj i let in a flood of subdued radiance fromthe strange little garden which lay shut in by otherhouses . It was very small , but in it were all theelements which go—ou a larger scale—to the mak ingof a garden of size . The miniature rivulets , tiny

rocks , and dwarf trees , scarcely so large as one’s

knees,which possessed m iniature branches l ike giant

oaks and cedars,and had the appearance of full-sized

trees though so badly dwarfed,all contributed to the

strange feel ing of unreality which such gardens bringabout

Sitting onone of the art ificial rocks near a tricklingstream , scarcely larger than those one sometimes sees

in old-fashioned mechanical models contrived by arevolving spiral of glass , was Mio San

,patiently

awaiting the arrival of her august husband and very

condescending honourableness to be .”

At sight of Somervi lle she rose and hastened for


he had not seen one of her n ieces , whose eyes , shedeclared

,were as beauti ful as the stars in the sky , and

whose figure was like the willows in O -Suya Park .

But , she continued , should your great augustlycondescending eyes not remain pleased with thehumble girl who is about to marry you, perhaps othermore supremely excellent beauti fulness might pleasethem .

”

To Haru San , thought Somervil le , as by Yumoto ,this marriage of his was evidently not regardedseriously .

CHAPTER XII

U MOTO was at the Consulate punctual tothe minute

,for, as he used to say ,

“ Time iswhat a fool squanders and a wise man saves

,

”

and Yumoto was singularly wise for his age . The

ceremony, i f so prosaic a proceeding as that whichtook place before the benevolent and somewhat

amused official could so be properly described,was

brie f enough to meet w ith the approval o f the mostreti ring male .

A quarter of an hour after Somerville had enteredthe room with Yumoto and M cKenz ie , where he

found Mio San,Hoshin

,and his wi fe awaiting him ,

he emerged the husband o f one o f the prettiest and

proudest of musume’

in Nagasaki .Hoshin’

s wrinkled and generally impassive face was

as overlaid with smiles as though he had sold an Imariforgery or a bit of Birmingham bronze to a Yankeetourist for a long price . The present o f twenty yenwhich his wi fe had received from Somerville for MioSan ’s board and lodging was looked upon by both him

and her as a direct commission upon the l ittle mar


riage they had j ust w itnessed . Their only regret wasthat the goods ” had not been one o f their ownnieces .McKenz ie ’

s wedding gi ft to the br ide had been amagnificent obi of apricot-coloured satin , on whichirises were embroidered

,and to the bridegroom his

gi ft a box of excellent cigars . Yumoto had placed

a roll of satsu in the bride ’s hand immediately theceremony was concluded

,and had informed the

bridegroom that a case of “ very inferior whi sky

sake” awaited his pleasure up at his house . The

sp irit was excellent,Somerville wel l knew . It was

only Yumoto ’

s politeness which caused h im to de

preciate his gi ft .French fashion , the br idal party , consist ing of

Yumoto,a musume to whom he was j ust then paying

attention,M cKenz ie , and Fo lkard , visited a restaurant

for banmeshi !dinner! after which , j ust as the sun

was setting behind the hills opposite the foreign set

tlement,turning the water of the harbour into a lake

o f blood,and the sky into a riven glory of crimson

and gold,Somerville and Mio San set out for Sunset

View , which was the Japanese name of thei r homeEnglished .

Mio San was t i red,though radiant with happiness ,

which took many quaint and amusing forms of expression . During the dinner at the restaurant nothing

would persuade her to permit the attendant geisha to


gate which led into the lower end of Somerv i lle ’sgarden . Mio San dexterously unpacked hersel f froma position which to a European lady would have beentorture , and slid from beneath the matting roof of herpalanquin . Somerville , who had paid the men so gen

erously that they called down interminable blessingsupon his augustly wise head

,

” pushed open the l ittle

gate,and taking M io San ’s hand in his led her up the

garden path .

In the oncom ing dusk the beauties o f this l ittledomain amid the cryptomerias

,pines

,and maples

were rendered but half apparent,but along one side

o f the path gleamed almost ghostly the pale-floweredirises

,looking like huge moths hovering in the cool

night a ir amid a miniature forest o f spears . The

quaint trees onthe other side o f the path were weird

and mystic in the shadows thrown by the higher pines ,and Mio San on catching sight of them drew closer

to Somerville . The perfume o f the cooling earthand of flowers fil led the air

,and the gent le soughing

of the breeze in the pines made nature musi c as theyadvanced up the path .

The honourable moon will soon be up,said Mio

San softly,

“ and then the garden will be stil l more

beauti ful , O my augustly big husband . Even the

cicadae are singing a welcome .”

Somerville looked down at her upturned face and

smiled . In the pearly twilight it was radiantly beauti


ful with happiness and content . He drew her towardshim and kissed her . The almost shadowy little figure

with its mystically glowing face appealed to hi s sense

o f the beauti ful . Surely this marriage o f his was

destined to last ? Yumoto’

s sceptical face had haunted

him almost al l the way up from the town,and it was

only when he and Mio San were alone in the twilight

o f the exquisite garden that the doubts of Yumoto

and even M cKenz ie had conj ured up began to

dissipate .Are you happy , l ittle M io San ?

” he asked gently .

Great much happy,

” was her reply . No moreKatakuri San to scold

,no more Katakuri San to drive

me awav from your side, O most augustly shining

one .

”

Somervil le laughed . Mio San ’s'

happ iness seemedto depend upon such simple things .A turn of the path

,and the house came into view ,

ablaze with a galaxy o f paper lanterns which Sh i

wono and a sympathetic coolie who had brought up

Mio San ’s luggage earlier in the day had hung along

the whole front o f the verandah , and lit up against

the dark green background o f the trees .

Mio San gave an exclamation o f delight , which

brought Shi -wono, who had been onthe qui r ive for

an hour or more, out onto the verandah in welcome .

The light from the red,orange

,and moon-white paper

lanterns fel l upon the iris beds beneath the verandah ,


danced in tinted zigzags upon the path lead ing to thehouse

,and shone in mimic reflections in the trickl ing

stream and tiny ponds .

Irasshaimashi ! Oagannasai, O-ku-S ama. [ ras

shaimashai

To Mio San ’s ears this Welcome ! please to enter,O honourable lady of the house . Welcome ! ” must

have been sweet music . She smiled,and then

,when

she had climbed the short fl ight o f steps which led on

to the balcony , forgetful , perhaps , that she was the

august Englishman ’s wi fe, or in pol iteness to Sh i

wono , she slid down upon the spotless matting and

made her usual prostration o f welcome .

It formed an almost comical scene in Somerville ’s

eyes , old Shi-wono in the doorway of one o f the rooms

which opened out on the verandah kneeling beforeher l ittle mistress with her forehead resting upon the

backs o f her hands,and Mio San doing exactly the

same thing j ust on the edge o f the verandah steps ,with her high

,lacquered clogs sticking out from b e

neath the folds o f her beautiful kimono .

When this ceremony was finished Shi-wono backedinto the house and M io San took possession . Thehouse

,though smaller than that o f Katakuri San ,

appeared wonderfully spacious to its little mistress,for it was her ownso long as she pleased her augusthusband .

Has the coolie brought my luggage ? ” she asked


o f rich si lk , and each delicately designed kimono,and each shawl of soft silk crepe as she placed it upon

the unsubstantial shelves of the fukuro dana, whichopened in the wall l ike a doorway leading into anotherroom

,was an offering upon the shrine of her love .

To-morrow,she thought whilst folding the gar

ments,she would display all the glories of them to

Shi-wono . But not to-night. To-night belonged tothe giver of them .

At last Mio San ’s wardrobe was disposed to her ful l

satisfaction within the fukuro dana, the door was shutupon the treasures

,and she hersel f was at l iberty to

inspect the room more thoroughly .

To her it seemed a wonderful chamber,because it

was her own. In it were a marvellous and largeswing—mirror ; vases which she could take a delight infill ing with flowers out of the garden ; a chair which

extended itsel f in a wonderful manner ; a high table

for her honourable husband ’s convenience when sb av

ing ; a gaku or maxim along one o f the ceil ing beams ,in the grooves of which ran the karakami ; and a

kakemono or two onthe wall and in the alcove . That,with the beds and mosquito curtains

,comprised the

contents of the room . But not quite , after all , for inthe alcove Shi-wono had arranged some flowers andgrasses with skill , a meaning which when Mio San

’seyes rested upon them caused her to blush hotly and

her eyes to fall , though there was none save the im


pass ive face o f Buddha to see her in the soft,dim

light afforded by the two paper lanterns .As though afraid to remain longer alone in thespotless , partial ly li t room in which strange shadows

seemed to her to have suddenly come into being and

asserted themselves , she went out onto the verandah .

Somervi lle was smoking and thinking,and for the

moment scarcely noticed Mio San ’s approach and pres

ence. He had been wondering what the many artist

friends he had left behind him in the Quartier Latin

would think o f his marriage . Some would probably

be amused , and others o f them envious—envious,

could they but see her, of M io San

’s freshness,youth ,

and exquisite,uncommon beauty . Youth counts for

so much in the Quartier .

Down below to the right gleamed the thousand

l ights o f the town like luminous eyes , and above al lhung the radiant cloud which always marks the posi

tion o f a bri lliantly li t city at night . The noises came

softened by the di stance,save when they were aug

mented by the ringing clangour o f a gong at some

tea-house ; but they were suffi cient to mask the soft

shoo-shoo o f Mio San ’s approaching footsteps , and it

was not until she laid a timid hand upon his arm that

Somervi lle realised that she was at his side .

He swung round and saw her upturned face , from

which the flush had not yet entirely faded , gazing

almost timidly at him,but with the dark eyes radiant


and smiling. It would not, he dec ided, be a d ifficultmatter truly to love Mio San .

A l l done ,” she said slowly ; and then she added , as

she saw he understood , I love you,Mister august

Englishman .

”

Somerville laughed and drew her to him . And forthe moment she feared lest his laugh indicated that hewas offended .

“Kekko,

” said Somervi lle approvingly, but notMister . Say Leslie .”

But Mio San only shook her head .

A l l the Englishmen who had come to McKenz 1e s

had b een Mister,

” and she could not think of calling

her honourable husband anything else except in Japanese . So for days afterwards Somervi lle was

amused by Mio San ’s persi stence with the Mister.”

Something prompted him to inquire i f she were

happy,or whether thoughts of Katakuri San disturbed

her mind .

Much happy,she replied . Katakuri San a long

way . No afraid her .” And when she smiled up at

him he was bound to believe her .

To Mio San her late mistress had become almost anabstraction which

,once existing to her distress and

discomfort,no longer did so . Love of the man at her

side had effectually blotted out the past, j ust as it

merci fully obscured the future .

In the kitchen S hi-wono was wondering how long


Somerville, but you may close the amado and enj oytranquill ity yoursel f .”

“Arigato !

” exclaimed Shi-wono,relieved that she

would not be required to keep her eyes open anylonger .When she had gone , and sounds and squeaks of thesliding along of the outside shutters showed that she

was closing up the house to its nightly semblance of a

huge box , Somervil le and Mio San entered the roomwhich he had set aside as a studio . In it were al ready

placed all the curios and articles which had formerly

so deeply interested Katakuri San ; his easels and the

lacquer cabinet with its numerous drawers secured by

a marvellously ingenious combined lock . As Somer

vi lle ’s eyes rested upon the cabinet he suddenly re

membered Katakuri San ’s wedding gi ft for Mio

San .

Should he give it her or wait ti l l the morrow ? Someinstinct seemed to tell him that the gift was not l ikely

to give pleasure , for Katakuri San could scarcely wish

that to her rival,so he did not unlock the drawer in

the cabinet in which the small oblong box lay .

Onan easel in the far corner o f the room stood theuncompleted portrait of Katakur i San , and as M ioSan

’

s eyes fell upon it Somervi lle noticed that an expression of annoyance passed across her face .

“You do not like to see the picture of Katakuri

San ? ” he asked gently.


No ,no

,was the reply , expressed tim id ly. She

bad woman . She make me sad .

”

Very well , said Somervi lle see,I wil l turn her

away !and , stepping to the easel , he took the canvasdown and placed it against the wall ! , and to-morrow I will begin to paint something more augustlypleasing .

”

Now that her rival was turned face to the wall M ioSan felt happy again , and could look at all the won

derful things which were in her august husband ’sroom .

To her mind there was no idea of dual ownership

presented by this house and its contents . They b e

longed to the man she had married,j ust as she did to

him . They had interest for her chiefly because theywere his .

But at length even a new home and the possessionof an honourable English husband could not keep Mio

San ’s eyelids from drooping so that their long, thick

lashes lay onher cheeks when she seated hersel f in the

long chair which was so strange to her , accustomed

to sit upon z abutonplaced upon the floor , and so com

fortab le . And soon as Somerville busied himsel f in

placing a few o f the things in better order , he heard

sounds of deep and gentle breathing which told him

that she slept .The sounds o f night from the garden came so sub

dued by reason of the closed amado that there was


almost a perfect sti l lness in the house . Then camethe usual croakings and cracklings as the woodworkproclaimed the cooling of the air, and at last the sounds

of scampering nez umi as they raced beneath the flooror ran up the outside walls .

Somerville moved about qu ite s i lently onthe whitematting, and wondered vaguely , when the scampering

nez umi made more noise than usual , or when some

huge , soft-winged moth fluttered down from the papered cei ling against which it had been b eating itswings

with a rattle l ike that of a miniature drum,i f Mio San

,

l ike most women , was afraid of such things . In a corner o f the room the big image o f Buddha , which he hadpicked up in the curiosity shop at the far end of the

Bungo-machi,sat perched on i ts shel f, regarding

sleeping Mio San and him with benevolent countenance

and lack-lustre eyes ; and as Somervi lle gazed at it

critically he could almost imagine that a smile of

sardonic wisdom replaced that o f indolent benevolence .

Stil l Mio San slept . There could be no pretence

about it,for

,thinking that he had seen her eyelids

quiver and partially unclose,Somerville had taken one

o f the paper lanterns with which the room was lit andhad held i t over her . A lthough a smile—for MioSan ’s dream was a happy one—flitted across her face ,her eyelids neither trembled nor unclosed , and when

he stooped and kissed her l ightly onher brow she didnot sti r.


such hearty laughter that the frail .paper walls of the

room vibrated like drums .A las ! the furniture of a Japanese room affords l ittl erefuge for those who fear the august Misters Mice ,

”

and at last,when the scurrying to and from o f these

monsters,which had stopped with Mio San ’s scream ,

recommenced,with one swift look for something on

which to stand the terrified little woman,dropping the

skirt of her kimono, l iterally threw hersel f into her

honourable husband ’s arms .Sti l l laughing at her affright

,he carried her

,w ith

her head nestling against his shoulder,out o f the

room , which had for her such noisy terrors , along the

now shut-inverandah to the chamber where a bronzefigure of Buddha sat enigmatically smiling on its narrow shelf

,and the slatey-blue gauze mosquito curtains

prepared by Shi-wono hung swaying from the rafters

in the draught of air like ghostly spirits in the dim light

o f the paper lanterns .

The no i se of the scampering h ozumi was no longerheard

,for there was no basement under this room

fi l led with rice or other stores to invite their presence ,and Mio San was not there fore afraid to stand on herowntabi-clad feet on the matting floor .She yawned

,for it was late . And then

,after she

had slid back the little door which masked the cupboard containing her wardrobe and taken from it along, cl inging, wide-sleeved gown of cotton , she


s l ipped gracefully and swi ftly from her kimono andobi into her night robe , and w ith a deft twist of herslender fingers tied the muslin sash around her waist .Even the celerity of a model ’s toilette in the

studio,thought Somervil le , could not compare with

this sudden transformation o f a bri lliant-hued butter

fly into a sombre-coloured night-moth , as with a plaintive moue o f fatigue and sleepiness the el f- l ike l ittle

figure of Mio San disappeared beneath the sem i

transparent canopy of the mosquito curtains .

CHAPTER ! III

EXT morn ing whilst M io S ansat watching

Somerville painting in the sunshine o f the

garden near the lotus pond,the latter sud

denly remembered that Katakuri San’s gift sti l l lay

where he had placed it in the drawer of the cabinet .Mio

,

” said he,Katakuri San gave me a gift for

you. Go and fetch it ; it i s in the third drawer o f thecabinet .”

At the name o f her late mistress the l ittle w i fe’s

face clouded over as a beauti ful landscape will when a

cloud sweeps across the sun . Simple—minded as shewas , she could yet not believe that anything the woman

who had loved and sought to entangle her august husband inher toi ls had sent could bode but i l l to her and

perhaps to him . And so when she rose to carry out

Somerville ’s command she did so without that ex

pression o f pleasure on her face that the receiving of

a gi ft should bring.

Into Somerville ’s mind,engaged as he was w ith his

work of sketching the iri s pond which lay lower downthe course o f the little stream

,no thought of i ll from

Katakuri San ’s gi ft entered,and he was therefore

198


Come ! ” said Somerville , see what Katakur i Sanhas sent you . It may be a peace-off ering.

”

But Mio San only shook her head .

Though so young, that in her simple house kimonoof printed l inen she looked little more than a child

,

her woman ’s heart , which had been stirred and

awakened into being by love,told her that from a

j ealous rival such a thing was scarcely likely to come .

But at length she summoned courage to unfasten thestring and undo the paper

,whilst Somerv i lle looked

over her shoulder the while .The box that was disclosed when the paper was

removed was of fine lacquer,on the lid of which was

depicted one of the mythological-looking dolphins b eloved of Japanese lacquer-workers and enamellers .With trembl ing fingers Mio San slowly took off the l idas though she expected some reptile to suddenly springout

Hayaku ! exclaimed Somervi l le , smiling at her se

r ions face,and endeavouring to take the box from her .

Mio San started back, cry1ng

“Abunaiyo ! A bun

aiyo !” Take care ! take care ! in alarm lest the

evil thing she hal f-expected to find should harm himshe loved .

But when she had courage to look there was nothingto be seen but a long slip of pink-hued rice-paper

,

such as love-letters are written upon,downthe right

hand s ide of wh ich ran a message .


San ’

s sprawling characters looked black and s inister,fluttered for a moment in M10 San ’s hand and thenfell from her nerveless fingers to be caught in astrong draught of ai r from the hil ls above and then

borne upwards and away over the trees like the petal

o f some huge flower .

A lthough Somervi lle had been unable to read

Katakuri San ’s note he gathered something of its pur

port from the slender,gleaming

,murderous- looking

thing which he held in his hand and from his little

w i fe ’s pale and terrified face .She say your love will go soon . That the fire for

me will die out of you . And then —her eyes fel lupon the thing in his hand there is something that

will be wanted .

”

The man grasped the situation now l ike a flash .

How adorable this pale-faced,frightened-eyed child

looked ! He would have taken her in his arms and

crushed her to him but for the keen-bladed thing heheld in his hand .

One of those signal inspirations which come occasionally during crises to men such as Somervi lle seizedhim .

He took the dagger by the hilt and cried,Look

,

Mio ! I shall not leave you . Love does not d ie as

Katakuri San says . This will be for you a uselessthing . See ! ”

The dagger soared far up into the sunlit a i r,and


descend ing w ith a steel blue flash of blade , l ike a swiftkingfisher to its prey

,clave its way through the green

grey water of the deep , gurgling pool near which theystood .

Then Somervi l le turned and clasped M io San inhis arms . But though she tried to smile there were

tears in her eyes and her l ips quivered , and in her

heart Katakuri San ’s handful of fares had been

sown .

The dagger lay in the mud amongst the lotus stems

and roots at the bottom of the pool ; the rice-papermissive containing such sorrow-weighted words had

floated away across the dark-hued cryptomerias and

pines whither none knew . But for the t ime the beauty

of the day had died in the heart o f Mio San , and when

she was released from her husband ’s embrace she fled

up the small path to the house .

When she had entered her bedchamber and had

closed the shoj i behind her she fel l down prostrate b e

fore the bronze image o f Buddha and murmured one

o f those strange,incoherent prayers which come to the

lips of women who suffer as she suffered .

The impassive Buddha with unseeing eyes seemed

to regard the l ittle bent and swaying figure in the

gloom below with an ironical smile . But Mio San ’s

faltering words were not addressed to Buddha or

any o f the thousand other gods o f her race,but

to some !to her! vague Being beyond the sun ,


moon,and stars who seemed to offer her protection in

trouble .When Somerville , becom ing anxious at her longabsence , came back to the house he found her sti l lbefore the image of Buddha

,in front of which two

little o il lamps were burning . And i f Katakuri San

could have but seen her rival ’s face she would have

been satisfied .

In Mio San ’s mind the subtle poison of doubt

worked , for she had been told many stories by her

mistress , even before Somerville arrived , of the mar

riages of the women o f her land with foreign merchants

and tourists,who took girls l ike hersel f as toys , which

they deserted or cast aside when their caprice wassatisfied . And recognising as she did

,in her humble

love for h im that was her honourably condescend ing

husband,whose voice thri lled her and whose glance of

tenderness caused her heart to beat tumultuously in

her breast,that he was so high above her in his august

learning and wealth,the words of Katakuri San ’s

letter had taken deep and easy root .

To Somervi lle ’s more material and masculine mind

what had taken place presented only the idea of a tiny

tragedy caused by a spiteful woman ’s keen wit . As to

most men ’s minds a vanquished rival in love no longer

exists ; to most women the possibi l ityi

o f attack after

apparent victory i s Often as much feared as before .And this made it imposs ible for him to penetrate the

206'

A JAPANE SE ROMANCE

subtle word or phrasing, the ve i l , which obscured thefact whilst they loved in s i lence , was li fted for a

trans ient moment .

To Somervi lle Mio San ’s qua intly involved Englishwas infinitely preferable to the more grammatically

correct parrot talk o f some of the geisha and masume

’

at Hanaz ono R estaurant or Sei-yo -tei,who ex

claimed I love you ,” without a quali fying blush

,and

wished him Good-morning with the aplomb of an

A . B . C . girl at home . But,secure that she would

never talk as they,he fell will ingly into her scheme of

teaching her .

With Shi-wono ’

s somewhat harsh voice crooning

down in the basement as an accompaniment o f the

lesson,Somervil le started upon Mio San ’s course of

instruction . Whilst he smoked she , with solemn face ,which would on occasion pucker up most comically in

her efforts to sounds good make,

” wrestled with a

language which to her must have presented difficulties

quite equalling those noted by Mark Twain relative toGerman . So much in earnest was she that she would

not allow her attention to wander, even though a

beauti ful green lizard fel l with one last protesting

waggle o f its tai l from the verandah onto the stone

paved path below after a balancing feat which wouldhave put a human acrobat to shame . Nor did she do soeven when a huge spider descended his tough

,s ilvery

web within a couple of feet o f her bare and inviting

!A JAPANE SE ROMANCE 207

neck,at the peach-hued skin of which Somerv i l le had

been gazing with artistic admiration .

I am your wife . You are my husband . Shi-wono

is our cook . The coolie i s running . Good-morning !Good-night ! House , room , book , letter ,

” and a hostof other words and phrases , some o f which she nowremembered to have heard at the missionary ’s house

in Ureshino,M io San said them all through w ith

wonderful difficulty and marvellous mispronunciation .

But most times she ended up with rippling laughter,

and I luff yew .

”

At the finish she took out her little pipe and smoked

fine,l ight-coloured , native tobacco , almost o f the hue

of yellow-bronze si lk . It was such a tiny plaything of

a pipe that had not Somervi lle been already long

inured to the practice of women’s smoking he would

not have had the heart to forbid her . Three or four

whiffs,and then the small bowl

,scarcely larger than

an acorn-cup , was knocked with a sharp pin-pin

against the metal edge o f the tabako-bon, and Mio

San ’s smoke was finished for the time being .

The afternoon sun was now fall ing into the garden

slantwise over the tops o f the taller pines , throwing

long shadows across the iris ponds and trickling

streamlet , and giving the azalea blossoms under thetrees a chastened colour . And onto the matting floor

o f the verandah the lilac wistaria,which swayed in the

gentle ai r outside,threw deep shadows like enormous


and elongated catkins . It was the hour for tea , and soMio San rose with a smile , exclaiming , Tea !

”

And when she saw that Somerville hesitated sheadded persuasively in Japanese , Most excellent for

honourable weariness it i s . ” And he , having heardKatakuri San use the same phrase ona like occasion ,understood

,and smiled back , Gokura sama

”

Many thanks for your kind thought

Ere Mio San returned,bearing the tray with its tiny

cups,of which so many were required to slake her big

husband ’s honourable and august thirst,sounds o f

footsteps coming up the garden path caused Somer

vil le to turn in his chair and look out through the

verandah balustrading.

A rockery and some dwarf trees upon it obscured

the turn o f the path,and it was not t i l l some moments

had passed that Yumoto came into view,hot and

somewhat breathless from his climb up from the

town .

Good-afternoon,he called out. And then he used

a word which i s typically English and seldom heard in

Japan . You are high up,my honourable married

ness ,” he went on, as he puffed up the verandah steps

and sank down into one of the deck-chairs . But in

climb ing to it I am become as hot as in the fires ofKwakkto Jigoku . Have you yet had time to sparefrom O Ku Sama to open a bottle o f the m iserablewhisky sake I sent you ?

”


th ing. It i s wel l that the gi ft was sent wrapped inpaper, and not in Mio San

’s heart . But ,” he continued ,

to pause as Mio San advanced along the verandah ,“ i f you are not foolish

,my august honourableness ,

you will not bring the women too close together .”

Welcome ! I hope your august l imbs are not much

wearied ,” exclaimed Mio San . P lease partake

,

” and

she put down the tray of tea and made the polite

obeisance . Then as she raised her head from her

hands she noticed the whiskey sake, and smiled . As thehonourable lady of the house she had for

'

the moment

forgotten what she knew as Katakuri San ’s maid ,namely, that Yumoto never accepted tea when whiskysake was available .

August pardon deign , she exclaimed , with asmi le . And then she handed Somerville the tea .

No more was said concerning Katakuri San,but as

Yumoto drank his whisky sake in quiet content,he

wondered whether Madame M cKenz ie would restsati sfied with the moral stab she had infl icted with suchrefinement of malice upon her rival .

Whilst Somerville and M10 San were drinking theirtea and chatting to him inconsequently about the

garden and the view from the verandah,he came to

the conclusion that how much ill Katakuri San waswilling or able to infl ict largely depended upon the

opportunities Somervi lle and Mio San might give her .That she had no morality to deter her from anything


wh ich malice might suggest he well knew . Her l i feat the restaurant in Hama-no -machi

,and her deal ings

with its less reputable frequenters had bereft her nature

o f moral fibre . and sullied her soul almost beyond

redemption .

Mio San broke in upon his reverie . Me Engleeshquick learn speak ,

” she said . And then she fired off a

cataract o f words and sentences which Somerville had

been making her repeat during the afternoon .

“ Love has the same language in al l climes,said

Yumoto , when he had finished laughing at Mio San ’s

wonderfully incorrect pronunciation o f some words ,remembering a phrase from a French novel of ques

tionab le character,but the woman who can talk most

fluently generally makes the best bargain . Therefore ,O Ku Sama ,

” he continued , addressing M io San , be

augustly wise and learn to talk the tongue of your

honourable master .

But such philosophy was beyond the comprehen

s ion of Mio San , and she took refuge in a perplexed

smile .Then the two men talked of o ld times as men whohave first met in foreign lands will , and Mio San sat

with her head resting against Somerville’

s knees li sten

ing for words she understood , and finding so few , thatshe was once more driven in upon her own sad

thoughts o f the gi ft o f Katakuri San which had flashed

upward and downward in the sunlight that morning,


and now lay amid the water-weeds in the lotus

pond .

She would have given years of her l i fe to haveunderstood the strange words that fell from her hus

band ’s lips—words that le ft her mind as dark as totheir meaning as though she were deaf , and so keen a

pain of non-comprehension at her heart that it caused

her to clench her hands so tightly together under cover

of the wide hanging sleeve of her kimono,that the nail s

bit deep into the skin o f her soft, rosy palms .

At last she heard the name of Katakuri San , and a

little shiver ran through her body . What was her

honourable husband saying about the woman who ,because o f her love for him , had driven her into dark

ness and despair ? Here and there she caught the

meaning o f a word , but most were spoken so swiftly

that to her unaccustomed ears their meaning was in

extricably j umbled .

“ Love,woman , shameless , Mc

Kenzie,night

,beauti ful

,hate , in a month or two .

”

She heard all these ; she had heard them over and

over again whilst acting as Katakuri San ’s maid . Butnow her anxious , fevered mind refused to translate

thei r meaning to her quickly enough for her to under

stand . Each time the words Katakuri San fell fromeither speaker ’s lips she shivered

,and at length Somer

vi lle noticed it .

Are you cold , Mio ?” he asked kindly . But she

did not at once reali se what he said .

CHAPTER XIV

HE days passed very slowly to the littlehousehold at “ Sunset View . Except forthe visits o f Yumoto and M cKenz ie , and

descents upon the town made by Mio San and Somer

v i lle , l ittle occurred to break the monotony . But the

honourable tranqui ll ity o f his existence,as Mio San

phrased it,was pleasant enough to one o f Somerville ’s

arti stic temperament . He worked hard ; for seldom

had painter surroundings fuller of inspiration or sub

j ects of greater beauty of atmosphere and colour .

An exquisite pastel of Mio San with her face hal f

buried in an armful of azalea blossoms,done , with the

daring o f a true artist,upon a long strip of delicate

grey-toned paper,adorned one o f the walls of the

studio , and his sketch-book was full of studies of her .

She proved,like most Japanese girls

,an excellent

model , capab le of arti stic and quick appreciation of

pose , untrammelled by conventional ideas . And i f

ever she were weary, for Somerville was an exactingand somewhat cruel taskmaster in his enthusiastic

pursu it of his art , she showed it by nothing more dis


qu ieting than her face . Neither by fidgetiness norcomplaint .But during these long s ittings , whether in the

bri l liant l ight of the open air or in the studio withthe softened radiance which fi ltered through half

drawn shoj i of translucent paper, whilst Somervillesketched in rapidly or laid on h1s colours with a sure ,deft hand

,Mio San ’s thoughts Often reverted to the

words which accompanied Katakuri San ’s wedding

gi ft,and she wondered whether the glow o f passion

always dies i f the woman sedulously fans the embersonLove ’s altar . Her heart asked thi s question over

and over again , which nothing save time could answer .

One day , when Somerville had taken her up theh il l that lay at the back o f thei r house to a l ittleruined pagoda and an exquis ite grotto he had acci

dentally discovered , where she posed all the morningin the ambient shade of pines and icho as a nymphof the crystal spring that sparkled forth like l iquid

diamonds from the recesses o f the grotto , he had

scarcely spoken to her , so intent had he been upon hiswork .

She felt a growing chil l o f apprehension attackingher heart . Between the twain seemed to be a barrierwhich had not existed in the earl ier days o f marriage—an impalpable something which she was incapable

o f analysing . Into her heart crept a feel ing almost

of j ealousy of that other woman , her idealised sel f,


which Somervi lle painted w ith so much greater at

tention than he had bestowed upon the l iving woman

who posed .

How could she explain to him her growing fears ?

How could she tell him in that so strangely difficult

language of his what she,his humble wi fe

,felt ?

what thoughts pursued thei r disturbing way throughher mind in the silence o f the night , in the shade o f

the wood ? O f what use were the words and phraseswhich she had learned so laboriously for such a need

as hers ? These things which had afforded her some

dim insight into his thoughts and meaning when he

conversed with Yumoto or McKenz ie o f an evening

upon the verandah failed her at the crisi s o f her men

tal needs . Nothing suggested itsel f to her sad littlemind save the eternal question o f women concerning

the men they love Does he love me ?

Ontheir way down the hillside through the pines,over the soft , velvety carpet o f emerald—hued mossand grass and golden l ichen

,Mio San spoke very little

to Somervil le,and he was absorbed in the work he

had accomplished . At length he said , Mio,did you

feel cold ? There was not much sun,I fear

,where

you posed . I ’m a selfish sort of beggar when I am

painting , but you must not mind . It i s only forgetfulness and not intention .

”

Mio San gathered much of what he said,although

she could not comprehend all . I was not much cold


brown dust . And when Somervil le spoke again inhalf-apology for his forgetfulness she checked himwith a ripple of laughter

,and nestling close to his side,

exclaimed,Immense big augustness honourable par

dondeign . I luff yew . You luff me much ? ”

Yes , much ,” Somerville replied , believing that he

really did , as he bent down and kissed her upturned

face .Do it again ! ” begged Mio San , who had learned

to kiss much as a baby would have done,not by in

tuition,for the kissing instinct i s non-existent or at

all events dormant in Japanese women , but fromseeing others do it and by practice . When Somerville had satisfied her demand she felt happy again .

The contact o f his lips and the sunshine had donesomething towards di spelling for the time that shadow

which so often brooded in her heart , that distrust of

the future and what it held for her which had had

its birth when she opened the box containing Kata

kuri San ’s wedding gift and read the poisoned wordswhich accompanied it .They met few people along the road

,for it was the

hour when many of the inhabitants o f the neighbouring vil las would be taking hot baths in lieu of siestas .But j ust as they reached the turning where the pathbranched downwards an o ld man came along who ,when he caught sight of Mio San

,called out in a

drooning, monotonous voice , Give me alms , most

A JAPANE SE ROMANCE $219

generous and beauti ful lady , that I may tell you the

future . ” Somerville , not understanding what he said ,would have passed by him , contenting himsel f withcasting a few cash into his outstretched box

,but Mio

San paused in front o f the wayfarer , who was scanti lyclad in a ragged

,dark blue cotton kimono

,and whose

feet were lacking even the cheapest of straw sandals .“Jz

'

u sendozo ! ” exclaimed M io San .

Ten sen ? Too much ,” replied Somerville laugh

ing , but giving her the coin . What is the matter ? ”

Mio San with a mysterious ai r gave the o ld man

the money and drew from a division o f his b ox a

t iny slip o f bamboo onwhich a Chinese number was

written . This she handed to him with a smile and afew apologetic words to excuse herself for troubling

him . The old man took the strip o f wood from her ,and placing it close against his near-sighted eyes he

read the number .A fter a minute he shook his head and ej aculated

,

Kyo !” whilst he fumbled with stiff fingers in a

little drawer which opened at the back o f the b ox .

Somerville was watching the performance withinterest . A lthough he only partially understood what

Mio San and the o ld man had said , he soon gatheredthat the latter was either a teller o f fortunes or a“ quack .

” When the o ld man said “Kyo

” in so re

gretful a tone he turned to M io San . She stood there ,w ith the strong sunshine o f the road lighting up the


amber-t inted skin o f her face and neck til l it wasalmost transparent

,with an expression of dull distress

in her eyes and face .At length the old man produced a small slip of

paper which bore on its outside fold the same figure

as that upon the bamboo . Mio San put out her hand

for it and turned away .

With the o ld man ’s blessing for such honourable

patronage in their ears Somerville and Mio San madethei r way down the sloping path which led to the

upper entrance to the garden .

Mio San did not unfold the paper,but tucked it

into the sleeve of her kimono, and when Somervil leasked her what it was she told him that it was a sacredwriting . But she did not tel l him how her heart hadsuddenly turned heavy as lead at the o ld man ’s words

,

although but a short while before the sunshine andhis kisses had made it so tumultuously light w ithhappiness .

At last they reached the house in silence,for S om

erville’

s vocabulary was not equal to the inquiries hewould have made . He put away his painting things

,

and whilst he was doing so Mio San retired to herroom and taking out the small piece of paper sheproceeded to read it . It did not take her long to do so .

Whoever draws this miknj i,” i t ran

,will be well

advised in obeying the heavenly law,and so should

also Kwannon the Most Merci ful be continually


had meant,and for the moment not connecting it in

any way with the old mendicant they had met alongthe road .

Softly under her breath Mio San murmuredEnmei soknsai May we enj oy long life and sorrow not trouble us “

kanai anzen” Grant that

our family may be “ka-oi-mongaku ”

!“ That this house may for ever be fortunate and

then a prayer that “ for ever my august husband may

dwell with me and regard me favourably .

”

Over and over again,with her eyes sometimes

closed and at others fixed upon the l ittle shrine,M io

San prayed , but deep down in her heart there was an

element o f superstition which bred the thought that

al l these words would be useless to prevail against thei ll- fortune forto ld by the mikuj i.She knelt repeating thes

‘

e silent prayers so long that

Somerville was about to seek her when he saw Mc

Kenzie and Katakuri San coming up the garden walk .

This was the first visit that the latter had paid ,and she had spent several hours that morning in

her preparations . As she came up the path a littlein advance of McKenz ie , who had stopped a momentto inspect the iris-bed

,her lacquered clogs inlaid with

pieces of mother—o f—pearl and highly polished metalflashed from beneath the skirt o f her kimono. Andwhat a kimono ! It was one that in a fit of exceptionalgenerosity McKenz ie had purchased for her at O


possession , and she saw at a glance that her face wascolourless and that there were circles left by her distress of mind beneath her eyes

,which shone so

brightly with unshed tears . She could not go forthto meet Katakuri San ’s scrutiny thus . There wasscarcely time to make her toilet properly

,but she

sat down before the mirror with her l ittle dressing

table o f acacia and camphor-wood in front o f herand set to work .

Outside on the verandah Katakuri San was beinginstalled in one o f the deck-chairs

,and was laughing

mus ically during the process . It was not until McKenzie had sauntered up and mentioned M io San ’s

name that she remembered to inquire if O Ku Sama

!the honourable lady of the house ! was at home and

well .Yes

,replied Somerville

,she is both . She is in

her room . I wil l cal l her . ”

Do not honourably trouble yoursel f, said Katakuri San

,laughing

,and glancing up at him archly .

But he ‘called out “M io ! M io ! Oide nasoi ! ” al l

the same ' and in a moment or two came the answering call , Hai-i-i todaimo .

Katakuri San leant back in her chair and regardedSomerville narrowly . Her li fe at the restaurant inIma-machi had made her a keen observer o f men and

their moods . Now she was engaged in attemptingto discover whether the man she hersel f so much


adm ired and had sought to ensnare was content w ithher rival .M cKenz ie broke the si lence by inqu iring whetherSomervi lle had finished a picture which he had seenhim painting one morning on the Bund . It was a

large canvas depicting some Murotsu fishermen and

women idling and gossiping onone o f the quays .“ Yes , replied Somervil le ;

“ I finished it off lastweek . It ’s in the studio . Would you care to see it ?

”

McKenz ie j umped up .

“ I should,

” said he,

“ and

perhaps when we return we shall find O Ku Sama

has come out.

”

When the two men walked along and entered thestudio Katakuri San had at first been inclined to fo l

low them ,but j ust as she was about to do so Mio San

appeared at the end o f the verandah and advancedtowards her .She had exchanged the cotton kimono which she

had worn in the earlier part o f the day for the beauti

ful one she wore at her wedding, and although her

eyes bore some slight traces o f distress they werebright and smiling

,for in the stil lness o f her own

room she had had time to think,and decide that she

would meet her enemy with a smile upon her face ,whatever might l ie at the bottom o f her heart .Katakuri San

,notwithstanding that the advancing

girl was once her maid,rose and politely inquired

after her health,whilst the latter sl id onto her knees ,


and w ith the word Irasshaimashi onher lips, madeher elaborate obeisance .Before she did so , however, she had had time toremark with what care her v isitor had attired hersel f,how exqui s ite ly beauti ful , though so artificially enhanced

,her face was . It was truly , as San-to had

once said , the face of one who eats men . Her dark

eyes told the sad , ineffaceable story of an impuresoul .M io San sat down opposite her vis itor and re~

garded her furtively,a fact of which the latter was

by no means ignorant . It was the measuring ofswords by two duelli sts ere the attack . The voicesof the two men came indistinctly from the studio hardby , and the noise of the 11-1-1-1-1 of the summer c icadaein the bushes near the verandah formed a stridentchorus . Katukuri San noticed the dark circles under

Mio San ’s eyes,which even the pondre de riz could

not successfully disguise , and she thought they told adifferent tale to the true one . .Her mean heart beatwith satis faction . This marriage was evidentlyalready

,though scarcely more than a couple of months

old‘

, a fai lure . Perhaps,even

,Somervil le had beaten

the girl who sat facing her and saying nothing . She

hersel f had been beaten by a man once . That was inthe days of her l i fe at the choya.

At length she said in Japanese,with a sm i le . You ,

O honourable lady,look marvellously happy. Th is


then one must know how to flatter them and how topull them back when some other eyes suddenly seembrighter and some other voice sweeter. And you ,what do you know o f them ?

Mio San was silent . In her heart the o ld fear wasreviving as Katakuri San artfully heaped fuel onthe

smouldering fires of distrust . A ll the stories of deserted geisha,

of abandoned musume’

,that San -to

when in garrulous mood had told her came rushing

back to her recol lection,and she shivered .

“ But there is always,

” continued Katakuri San ,death . It i s but a moment

,and then one does not

know any more sorrow . When your honourable

foreign husband descends to the town,it may be to

look into the eyes of another who had bewitched him

into thinking her more beauti ful than thou art , what

i s there for you ? ”

Mio San did not reply . What could she say ? The

woman whose face was so near hers , because she inspeaking had sat up in her chair and rested her face

upon her hands , was so beauti ful and yet talked of thefaithlessness of men .

Mio San would have gladly risen and made someexcuse for leaving her guest

,but none suggested itsel f

to her tortured mind . She could only sit stil l andli sten , and wonder i f Katakuri San could be wrongwhen the miknj i had foretold evil and sorrow also .

You cannot talk your honourable husband ’s


tongue,Katakuri San went on, nor he yours but a

little ; then how can you hope that he will remain by

your side ?

Al l the o ld knowledge of the gul f which yawnedat times between her and him when she failed to com

prehend his meaning was re-awakened in her mind .

She was about to explain that she would cl ing to him ,

would not let him go though he should trample uponher

,would strive to learn that most difficult tongue

in which he spoke to his foreign friends , when S om

erville’

s voice fell upon her ears . That loved voice , so

clear and deep that it seemed to her l ike the music o f

the river which ran near her o ld home at Ureshino ,recalled her to hersel f, and made her for the time atleast brave and strong .

She rose,and stooping so that Katakuri San could

hear her , she said in a low ,distinct tone

,Listen

, O

Katakuri San . You sent me a gi ft the day I becamethe wi fe o f O Somerville San . I thank you . It wasa useful gi ft for a fool . But when it fel l out o f theb ox onto the stone o f the path down yonder I felt

I should have no use for it . And so my honourablehusband cast it far away into the air

,and it fel l down

and down til l it plunged into the depths o f the poo lin which the lotus bloom and sank . It now l ies in themud at the bottom . I shall never need it . I have notknown many foreign men . But the one I know i smy husband .


For a minute or more Katakur i San sat rigid with

astonishment. Her gi ft she at length realised—forshe could not know the wound it had made in the

recipient ’s heart—lay in the mud at the bottom of apool . Perhaps even Somerville had laughed at herfol ly as he cast it away, so that M io San could neverbe reminded by its presence of the use for which itwas intended .

M io San ’s face was flushed now and her eyes bright .She had made her reply

,and she knew that it had

told . What Katakuri San could not know was howthat dagger , deep though it lay at the roots of thelotus and water-weeds

,often wounded her sti l l .

There was something almost tragic in the po se ofthe l ittle figure as she finished speaking, and the twomennoticed it as they came along the verandah .

“ Hello ! ” exclaimed McKenz ie ,“ what have our

wives been up to ? Mio San looks like some smal ltragedy queen and Katakuri l ike a d iscomfited rival .Somerville laughed , and before he could glance at

Katakuri her face was wreathed in smiles .“ A devil ish fine picture ,

” said McKenz ie , s inkinginto a chair and lighting a cigar .Which ? M ine, or our wives ?

” asked Somervi l le .Both .

”


of the Dead! that Somerville suddenly became awarethat Mio San failed to interest him as formerly. She

was kneeling in her room before the little butsnma

!shrine ! , in wh ich on the first day of the Festivaltiny new mats of the finest rice-straw woven ex

pressly for the purpose had been placed . He was inthe studio before the cabinet tearing up letters ; afew more lay at the bottom o f the drawer, the con

tents of wh ich he had been turning over. They werefrom Violet Desborough

,and as he picked one up and

read it through his mind seemed instinct ively to followup a train o f thought which was chiefly concerned

with the difference that existed between the writer andMio San . The latter he knew had l ittle in commonwith the former

,and alas ! l ittle in common with h im .

This sudden realisation by him of the unbridgeablechasm which lay between M io S anand h imself seiz edhold of him w ith an acute stab of painful knowledge .She , woman-l ike , had long been conscious of thegrowing chil l o f his caresses

, of h is looks,of his

words ; but he , man-l ike , had only til l j ust now hal freali sed the fact . A l l the wisdom which Yumoto had

dropped upon the subj ect of serious marriage at various times prior to and after his wedding of Mio Sancame back to him . Little defects of intell igence

,l ittle

habits which at first pleasing him by reason o f theirnovelty had of late become almost tiresome ; humble

efforts to show her love for him which,when he was


cold and thoughtful,worried him insensibly, came in

serried array before his mind . One o f those sudden

awakenings to facts which come at times to natures

such as his now assailed him with sickening intensity .

He real ised that he no longer loved M io San . Had it

been a vase for which he no longer cared it could

have been broken , or, i f valuable , sold or given away .

But M io San was a permanent obj ect for which hisaffection had waned , and according to the ordinary

code of morals there was no way out.

Like the memory of a desire for some half-for

gotten perfume , the English girl who had loved him

and whom he had nearly loved came back to assumeimportance in his l i fe and interests . In him had takenplace one o f those strange re- incarnations o f senti

ment which needed the death of merely arti stic and

physical love to nourish it and bring it again intobeing.

Did Mio San know ? he asked himsel f . And thenlittle incidents in their l i fe o f the last few weeks , the

tears which had once or twice glistened in her darkeyes , the flush o f pain which had stained her face

at some little act o f indifference,came back to him .

He had nothing save pity in his heart for her , but o fwhat service was pity to a woman in circumstanceslike hers ? And then as he stood with Violet Desborough ’s lette r in his hand be blamed himsel f . He

should have known better . He had been foolish,


obstinate . The impulse of pity had cheated him intobelieving that the sentiment he felt was somethingdeeper than admiration for a beauti ful obj ect which

happened to be a woman . They way out ? He mustthink . Surely there must be some .

Out in the garden the si lvery blue of oncoming

night made al l mysteriously beauti ful , and the whirring j i-i-i-i-i-i o f the cicadae swelled to a shri l l crescendo

,to die away slowly . And then from the dim

ness of the woods or the twilight vault above themcame the dolorous note of the hototogisu l ike one

crying in pain—the mystic b ird believed by many tobe a wandering spirit from the Land o f Darkness

where the honourable ghosts rest awhile onthe ir wearyp ilgrimage to the dominion of the King of Death .

In Mio San ’s heart,as she knelt before the tiny

batsnma which she had bought and carried w ith suchreverent care up the hillside from the town

,the sad

note of the hototogisn awakened a strange longingfor her home beside the river at Ureshino and thesight of her mother ’s face . She rose to her feet witha little shudder of superstitious dread and hurriedalong the verandah to Somerville .

Have you heard the cry o f the hototogisn? she

asked , as she pushed back the shoj i. It i s bad tohear it .” And then she lowered her voice to thewhisper in which she addressed Kwannon the Merci

ful, and added , The thing is a spirit from the Land


kling lights,marking the cemeteries where thousands

o f relatives of the departed ones were gathered to paytheir devotions to the visiting spirits . And down belowgleamed the sti lly surface o f the harbour with a sheenlike that of a black pearl , upon which at midnightwould be launched the tiny boats o f barley-straw

,

plaited close,fi l led with the best offering of food their

owners could afford,l ighted by miniature lanterns at

the prow,and with glowing j oss-sticks in the stern

,

and containing written paper onwhich were inscribed

messages of faith and love for the visiting spirits,to

aid whose return to Shadowland they were intended .

Neither Somerville nor Mio San spoke much onthe irway down the steep road which led into the bril l iantlyl it town . She was thinking of the ghosts o f honourableancestors

,and wondering i f the flower offerings

,and

sprigs of shikimi, and lespedz a, and choice food in thetiny bowl which she had placed upon the white rice

straw mats in her little shrine would have pleased them .

He was wondering over the strange fact that the daintyl ittle figure which looked so fragile in the dim lightof the lanterns should have in so short a while for himhave lost so much o f her interest and charm .

Just as they reached the bottom of the road Mio

San stumbled,and to save her he threw his arm around

her. Her lantern fell and became extinguished . To

Somervi lle the incident suddenly presented itsel f assymbolical . To Mio San it was yet another warn ing


that evi l was in store for her . In the gloom o f theroad

, onwhich thei r dark shadows danced , thrown bythe light from the swaying lantern

, so that they b ecame elongated and enormous , she clung to him inchi ldish terror and pressed her face close against his

shoulder .Why are you afra id ?

” he asked , steadying himsel fand her

,and about to release his grasp so that he might

recover the extinguished lantern .

“ Fear has taken hold o f me , was the trembling

reply,

“ because I know that i ll-fortune comes to me

now that your love is cold for me .

”

A wave of compunction for the indifference whichhe had felt of late swept through him ,

and he kissedher tenderly

,tel l ing her the while that she was wrong,

and that he loved her as before . But she scarcely

heeded the words , for her woman’s heart could not be

deceived .

Why did you cast the gi ft o f Katakuri San away ?

she asked . When the love o f one ’s august belovedone no longer burns for her

,the woman welcomes such

a gi ft as hers .There was no answer

,and after a moment ’s pause ,

during which Somerville rel ighted the lantern in

silence , they continued thei r way down into the outski rts o f the town .

Past some sheds used for the storage of rice , straw ,

and farm produce they went,and then they suddenly


found themselves in the winding , i ll-paved , and narrowstreet which led into the wider one running westwardtowards the Bund . Even this usually comparatively

unfrequented thoroughfare was ablaze with lanterns,

torches,and lamps placed outside the tiny

,queerly

shaped shops , to il luminate the goods which werespread out ontemporary stands .From the tragic l ittle incident of the hills ide the twoplayers in it were transported by the irony of fate into

the midst of a happy,laughing throng . The strident

cries of the street merchants,sel ling the lotus flowers ,

real or of paper , which were used to decorate the

tombs onthe hill side,the altars of temples and of

household shrines,the shallow plates o f red earthen

ware for the use o f ghosts , the Bonlanterns whichserve to guide their silent footsteps

,and the l ittle straw

horses for them to ride,rose above the sharp ring of

geta as women and girls hurried along over the i l llaid paving stones . And the murmur o f voices camel ike that o f surf breaking on the shore of Nomo Sak i.Hasn-no-hana! Hasn-no-hana! Ogara!

” “Kara

wake !” “

Karamoko-ya! O-

yosni ! sounded thevoices of the sellers as Somerville and Mio San pushedthei r way through the throng . To do this it was mecessary for her to cl ing. on to his arm like honourable

foreign women ,” as she at first used to describe it. At

contact with him and surrounded by the throng of

hurrying pedestrians,and amid the bril liant gaiety


common politeness made obligatory, and was ev identlyanxious to go .

A great concourse of people now wending the ir wayfrom the lower streets up Nishiyama Go swept themapart . McKenz ie ’

s hand was waved above the headso f the l ittle women and men who engul fed him , and

his strong,deep voice rang out “

S ayonara! and then ,with the echo of the same word from Somerville ,Katakuri San and he passed out of sight .Borne along by the crowd Somervil le and Mio San

at last reached O -Suwa Park . Thousands of lanternsdanced beneath the pines and cherry-trees

,and the

tea—houses were crowded with laughing,happy throngs

o f customers . Beneath the pines outside o f the mostpopular resorts were mnsnmé in exquisite cloth ingseated on improvised benches , swinging their paper

lanterns to and fro so that the soft radiance from thei l lum inated sides fell in quaint patches on thei r happyfaces . High up , above all the clangour of the getashod feet of the women

,the hum of many voices

,the

blaze o f l ights around tea-house and booth,stood the

Temple , also lit so that from the harbour below it musthave looked like a fairy palace enféte . Up the fl ighto f wide steps , between the huge l ichen-stained lanterns of stone swayed a l iving ladder of people carry

ing lanterns and struggling to preserve a foothold .

Once more in the midst of this immense throng therecrept into Mio San ’s heart the aching feel ing of lone


l iness and i solation from Somervil le , the carking senseof her ostracis

'

m from his thoughts and li fe .Amid all thi s brill iant festival o f dead humanity

was for her the sad festival o f a dead love . The chil lo f the myriad graves upon the hillsides above them

,

which stretched through pine-woods and avenues of

giant cryptomerias,descended upon her—the ghosts

o f the happy first days after marriage,the ever-return

ing ghosts for her which would not depart .At last they reached the terrace o f the temple .

Down below them lay the town brill iantly l ighted , and

from it came the low murmur o f the moving multitudes l ike the sough o f wind in the pines . At Ohata

the people were already gathering in preparation for

the last tender rite o f the festival— the launching o f

the tiny,phantom fleets which throughout the country

side would be set adri ft on lake , river , and creek to

go floating to the open sea . Every now and again

the gong of a temple sounded musically , tell ing of

some offering or prayer ; and in the deep , blue vaulto f sky sprinkled o

’

er with a diamond dust o f starsthe white- faced moon was swinging slowly upward tothe zenith .

Mio San leaned upon the balustrade running alongth e terrace sad at heart amid all the bustle o f throbbing , hurrying li fe which surged along the paved walkbelow and around her . Somervi lle stood beside her

gazing out upon the mystic beauty o f the scene,


wondering why by some sport of chance this festival

o f the honourable dead should seem like the end of

love between him and Mio San .

Mio San ’s cold l ittle hand stole along the rail of thebalustrade and touched his arm

,almost furtively

,as

though she feared that her doing so would displeasehim . He took it gently in his own

,but it brought no

answering thrill ; the indescribable magnetism of the

past was lacking.

You are cold , he said . Let us go .

But Mio San shook her head . It was better evenhere , she thought , than up there in the lonely houseon the hills ide . Here occasionally some dropped

words of passers-by , some sight, some movement of

the crowd around or of the darker mass of people

streaming up the wide fl ight of steps leading to theterrace on which they stood

,diverted her attention for

a moment or two from her ownsad thoughts .“l ye, iye ! she excla imed

,shaking her head ,

adding,after a moment ’s pause ,

“Arigato, atsnknte

shikata go nai”

!Thanks , i t i s quite hot

But even in the heat of a summer night he felt shewas chi ll

,and so he insi sted upon walking about .

Al l the while the heart of Mio San was saying overand over again

,We are two persons . He walks at

my s ide and I at his , but in him there i s a mystery ;something has happened which I cannot understand .

”


lantern shaped like a fish hanging ona small tree,and

by its light he read it,whilst Mio San watched his face

intently .

It ran

KOJ I MACHI , TOK IO,July 1 1

, 19

DEAR MR . SOM ERV ILLE .

—I was glad to get yourlast letter tel l ing me o f all the interesting things you

have been seeing, doing, and painting. A las ! thatI am now not likely to see the latter

,at least unti l you

make up your mind !i f you ever do ! to leave Japan andreturn to England . We are in the midst of al l thehorrors of leavetaking and packing up . A l l my dear

little Japanese girl friends are bringing me the sweet

est and quaintest o f souvenirs , at the number o f which

my good and generally amiable uncle i s gradual ly b ecoming alarmed .

I have but l ittle time for writing thi s letter,so

please excuse its shortness and perhaps incoherence .

I wonder i f you would care to make the acquaintance

of my ‘august relatives ,’ to revert to Japanese phrase

ology ? I f you would , I find the steamer will stop for a

few hours at Nagasaki onher way to Hong-kong, andwe shall be pleased to see you . I suppose there i s no

chance o f your return as yet to Europe ?

We have been fortunate enough to get good staterooms onthe Empress of China, which i s due at Nagasaki on the Z I st. I shall quite hope to see you on


board unless you have gone away into the country

to pa int .

With k ind regards , believe me ,Ever yours sincerely

,

VIOLET DE SBOROU GH.

Lesl ie Somervi lle , Esq .

P . S .—Do come and see me i f you can .

Whi lst he was reading the letter an expressono f

such pleasure passed across his face that Mio San

became nervously curious as to its contents .

Good news it i s ? ” she questioned , as her husband

folded the letter and replaced it in his pocket .Yes

,

” he repl ied quickly ;“ a friend is coming

here onthe way back to my land .

”

“ A she-friend ? queried Mio San,with a s inking

heart .

Somerv i l le did not reply for a moment . He ranrapidly over in his mind the pros and cons in favouro f candour . He did not wish to hurt her ; perhaps

she would be distressed without reason . But some

thing inhim revolted against a l ie which would nothave the palliating excuse that he loved the one to

whom he told it . Mio San ’s questioning and saddened

face caused the decision to.

tremble in the balance ; butat last he said with studied carelessness

,An honour

able lady friend , but she will be here on the great

j okisenonly a few hours .

246 -A JAPANE SE R OMANCE

In the breast of M io San came a s ickening sense

of pain and apprehension . This friend of her augusthusband was perhaps a woman of his ownrace—onewho could understand his language , who could comprehend his thoughts , who could l ive hi s inner l i fe

that she,loving

,striving as she did , could never do .

She knew that he stood outside the radius of hermental grasp , lived an inner spiritual existence of whichshe

,groping in the darkness o f insufficient knowledge ,

could never !though they lived side by side for many ,many moons ! find the key . He was a man , and therefore incapable of comprehending the j ealousy of thi sunknown woman which to re her heart .I am cold

,much cold

,

” she said at last,shivering

in the warm air which,laden with the odour of senko

from the temple,came along the terrace .

Very well ,” Somervil le replied ;

“ let us be going .

They walked along the now nearly deserted terraceand descended the broad fl ight of steps which led downinto the Park, and thence , caught in the human eddyof the departing throng

,they were swept along

N ishiyama Go . The streets were stil l thick withpeople , and they turned into by-ways to escape the

crush , and at length reached the narrow road whichwould take them to the foot of the hil l onwhich theirhome stood . A lthough there had been a few j inrikishos in the principal streets , and the cries of the coolies

who dragged them could sti ll be heard in the distance ,


vi l le turned away to enter the studio , add ing under

her breath, O most beloved and augustly beautiful

one .

Good-n ight , l ittle Mio ,” he repl ied l istlessly , and

without an embrace .When he heard the shoj i close behind M io San hecast himsel f into a chair to think .

What was the meaning of that sudden sense of

satis faction and even j oy with which he had read ofthe other woman ’s coming ? Was it the beginning ofthe kindling of a greater passion than Mio San had

been able to inspire ? Was it love brought strangelyabout by the revulsion from the merely physical at

traction he had felt for fresh innocence and beauty ?

Who could tel l ?

But in his heart stirred an intense longing for thoseof his own race ; for the mind which could think in

unison with his own; for the tongue which couldspeak without impotent searchings after unknown

words . In the weakness of fatigue an exaltation

seized him,and he could have called aloud for j oy that

i t was so .

Then in the sti l l night from the end of the verandah ,onwhich the si lvery moon threw a pure soft light

,

came the sound of the other woman’s tears sorrowingover the mystery of a lost love.

CHAPTER XVI

OMERVILLE had seen Violet Desborough,and by this time the Empress of Chino was well

on her way towards Colombo , when one morn

ing he descended to the town and , walking along theBund , entered Yumoto

’

s office . The Chinese book

keeper , the skin of whose face on account of its

wrinkles looked like a section o f buff-coloured , tesselated pavement

,informed him that Mr . Yumoto had

not yet arrived . After waiting a short t ime Somerville heard his friend ’s voice outside

,and a few mo

ments later Yumoto came in,whistl ing gaily and smok

ing a cheroot .

Ohoyo ! he excla imed upon catch ing sight of his

vis itor Why this early visit,augustly welcome

one ? ”

Ohayo ! replied Somerville , most honourab le i f

late to arrive friend . I wish to consult you.

”

Me ? ” said Yumoto,with affected surprise .

Very well ; follow my unworthy shadow up the

stai rs .

Yumoto’

s l ittle private room ,l i t by the brilliant sun


shine of an August day coming off the surface of the

water o f the harbour outside in golden sheets of l ightwhich fl ickered onthe walls

,looked even more garish

than usual with its gaudy bi lls and pictures .Somerville seated himsel f

,took and lighted the cigar

Yumoto offered him,and then there was si lence .

Well ? queried Yumo to,after a slight pause

,giv

ing a keen glance at his friend ’s face .

The latter smoked a whiff or two without replying,and then said very slowly

,I have decided to return

to England, o r at any rate , to Paris .

He looked intently at his l istener to see whether

any expression o f surprise at the announcement would

fl it across his usually impassive and inscrutable face .

Nothing betrayed what Yumoto thought,and it was

perhaps a !couple of minutes b e fore he made any signother than a whistle

,which with him meant almost

anything .

Then he remarked, S o you have ti red , as I always

expected , honourable but none too everything calculat

ing friend , o f your musume’

,who must

,after all

,have

been destined by Fate to dance ChonKino and have

many husbands at the house o f Honj o the vi llainous .I am not surprised . Then he continued

,as though a

bright idea had suddenly occurred to him,A week

ago you went onboard the E mpress of China. I sawyour sampanfrom the window . You were very anx

ious to see some one onboard her,for your rowers


should be vo icing an act of indescribable treacherymy wife of the last few months up away yonder onthe h i l lside .”

“ And so , said Yumoto slowly, you have deter

mined to leave Nagasaki—to leave Japan . Well , whati s there to prevent you ?Somerville gazed at the speaker fixedly for a moment

or two , and wondered whether it was the heat of the

l ittle office or that of shame which brought the beads o f

sweat out thickly on his own forehead and set h isheart beating irregularly .

The words came from him very slowly,Mio San,

what o f her ?

Yumoto laughed . Mio San , he repeated . As

I told you at first , i t would have been better had you

taken her as a mistress and not as a wi fe . But you

chose your ownmethod of acquiring her. Now you

come to me and lament the fact .” He paused , butSomervi l le d id not reply . His face flushed and heopened his l ips as though to speak

,but contented him

sel f with aninarticulate ej aculation,and Yumoto went

on. But why worry, there is no child ? Your way i smuch more easy than you apparently think

,my friend .

Mio San canbe divorced without much difficulty i f

you are not sati sfied by the more s imple process ofmerely go ing away and leaving her . Divorce is easyin Japan . Surely she has been disrespectful to you ; orhas embro i led you with McKenz ie and his wife, your


friends ; or she has shown j ealousy ; or—ah ! ” hewent onsuddenly , as though a bright idea occurred tohim

,she has talked too much . She must surely have

often wear ied you with her dismal conversation .

”

I f a great sense of shame had not swept into Somer

vi lle ’s heart at the idea of these subterfuges for obtain

ing his freedom from the child-woman he no longer

loved he must have laughed at Yumoto’

s relieved expression o f countenance , and his suggestion that the

poor little wi fe who had clung to him but a couple of

hours ago in a paroxysm o f grief could have spoken

too much . The memory o f her stumbling, halting

efforts to talk to him smote him suddenly and painful ly .

“ No,she has done none of these things , O wise

one , he replied slowly ;“ and the chain would be

there though the links were legally snapped for so out

rageously inadequate a reason .

”

You are too augustly punctil ious , said Yumoto ,with a shrug of his shoulders . You have married a

Japanese woman , why not get rid o f her in a Japanese

manner ? ”

But Somervi lle only shook his head .

Very well,continued the other after a pause ,

there i s only one other way . Leave her. Go back to

England , and you will soon forget her and she you .

She need not go back to Honj o . !Somervil le shud

dered . !“ But she can get another situation in one o f

the foreign restaurants ; and in time she will marry


again , my friend . She i s sure to marry again , and thenyou wil l be free . It i s al l very simple , though not somuch so as I would have made it . I will let you knowthe date of her remarriage . And I shal l expect you

,

”

he continued , to send me out some of those excellent

cigars you gave me when I come up to your house .The news will be worth five hundred of them

,wi l l i t

not ? ”

Somervi lle winced . He was perfectly well awarethat he would in the end accept Yumoto

’

s solution of

the situation , namely , that he should return to England

and abandon Mio San . But his friend ’s perfectly

sincere proposal that Mio San should be divorced for

some trumpery or imagined reason revolted his better

feelings .

Onhis way down to the town he had tried to per

suade himsel f that it was the terrible home hunger ,which so often smites such a temperament as his in a

foreign clime,that had seized him in so torturing a

grip,and that there was no woman as the first cause o f

his sudden moral and temperamental upheaval . And

because he was not altogether callous he had not suc

ceeded . He had been endeavouring even as he sat there

opposite Yumoto of the benign and inscrutable face topersuade himsel f that he would some day return

,but

the image of Violet Desborough and the look he hadseen in her eyes when she welcomed him as he steppedonto the Empress ofChina

’

s deck rudely brushed as ide


Somerville did not reply,but his face flushed

,and

he opened his l ips as though about to speak .

Yumoto laughed outright, and continued, Whendo you sail ? The Orient Queencalls in ten days

,and

it would be most excellent for you to go by her . You

would be reminded of the woman you desire, and the

image o f her you have found no longer interesting

would be correspondingly obl iterated .

”

I t al l appeared so simple to Yumoto that his friend ’sreluctance seemed quixotic , and even foolish .

Believe me,

” he continued , it i s the best th ing todo . And i f I can assi st you to smooth matters with

Mio San I am at your service , my honourable friend .

You will see that I am right and that you—augustlywise in art and many other things though you are

w i l l prove to be wrong . Mio San will shed a few tears ,perhaps

,but then she wi ll accept the honourable

amount o f tangible consolation your augustly good

nature wil l prompt you to offer , and—forget . In afew months I shall be able to write and tell you of the

husband or lover she has taken ; and then , w ith all your

quixoticness, you will be glad that you took my advice .

I know women,

” remarked Yumoto with an enigmatic

smile , glancing out of the window . Their hearts are

like those wonderful boxes Kizaki sel ls there is

always something further ins ide them than one thinksor at first discovers .”

I w i l l think over what you have said, Somer


vi lle replied , after a moment’s pause

,and in a day or

two I will let you know .

”

Yumoto smiled . In his mind ’s eye he could already

see the Orient Queendisappearing through the nar

rows between Ogami and Megami Points with Somervi lle onboard

,bound for England and the woman he

desired .

Very well , he remarked , you are go ing to be aw i se man . Very good . Let me know ,

and I will assist

you to make a comfortable end to your affai r with Mio

San . You will not need to pay her as much as you

would have to do i f she l ived with her parents . That

i s good .

” And Yumoto nodded his head solemnly, for

his was a mind that economised in al l things , even in

his affections .Somervil le rose . The conversation promised to

become d i stasteful,and he had suffered enough from

the fire of sel f-contempt during the interview already .

I must be going,

” he said,extending h is hand to

Yumoto ; I have to call at Hoshin’

s for a piece of

lacquer he has been repa iring,and there i s also a

sketch to be got off by the next mai l for a man in

Paris . Good-bye . Come up and have a smoke soon .

”

“S ayonara, rej oined Yumoto

,taking h i s hand .

Do not worry . It i s so simple a matter , th is affair o f

yours . She can have no grievance , for you are going

away . You are not about to instal l a rival .”

When he got outside in the sunshine of the Bund


Somerville felt he had escaped from anordeal of h isown seeking which had proved him and found himwanting . He was vexed that he could not feel moreindescribably mean than he did . But his regrets were

all lest he should hurt one who had never done him anyinj ury , and not because o f the defection of his love .

The mere idea o f going home caused the sunlight to

appear o f yet more exquisite radiance , the ai r less en

ervatingly hot . He was going home , and at the end of

the j ourney there was Violet Desborough .

As he walked along the quay and,turning inland ,

made his way through a shady by-street towardsFunadaiku-machi he did not give a thought to what the

latter would say to h im . By a strange development of

ideas he forgot the fact that it might be impossible to

prevent the existence o f Mio San from coming to herknowledge . He only remembered the look o f greeting

in her eyes,and her hal f-playful , hal f-serious chiding

that he had never after all come to Tokio .

Hoshin, who besides being a dealer in curios was a

metal-worker of great skill,was sitting crosslegged at

the back of.his shop tapping a piece of lacquer onastrange little bench about ten inches high with a tovl ike mallet

,when Somervi lle ’s shadow darkened the

door . He glanced up at once , and his bright , slit-l ike

eyes,which always seemed on the blink because of

thei r near- sightedness,opened a little wider in welcome

to his visitor .


Somerville smiled and dropped the money with arattle into the tiny brass bowl which served Hoshin

when he was himsel f there to guard it—as a ti l l .The sound of the money ’s chink and of Somerville ’s

’

voice must have penetrated to the back of the dark

little shop,for the fusama was slid back and Haru

San,smiling and wrinkled , appeared .

A fter the usual obeisance she exclaimed , It is along time since I have hung upon your honourableeyelids . P lease to make your honourable sel f at homein thi s our wretched place .

” Which meant nothing

more terrible , Somervi lle knew , than“ It i s a long

while since you were last here . P lease be seated .

After he had suitab ly replied came the inevitablenquiry after the health o f M io San

,and whether he

were sti l l satisfied with her . He tried to fence with

the question for a moment or two,and then he said ,

with as casual an air as he could bring himself toassume :I am thinking of returning to England soon—for

a time .”

Naru hodo ! both exclaimed in a breath .

Then Haru San inquired what was to become of

madame the honourable lady of his house, and asked

Whether he would divorce her .Even in the dim light of the shop Somervi lle felt hischeeks burn at these inquiries . But he need no t have

troubled himsel f, for to both Hoshin and Ham San


!used to fore ign marriages and the ir inevitable andforeseen ends ! his departure and abandonment of the

musumehe had seen fit to marry with such unnecessary

trouble to his august condescension was the most

natural thing in the world .

Ah ! ” exclaimed Haru San , as she found he had

no very definite plans,and with a recollection o f the

“ excellently many yen ”M io San ’s former stay b e

neath thei r roof had produced , should she need a

dwelling whilst your august honourableness i s away,what better one than here ? ”

Hoshin shook his head in deprecation of the idea ,but Haru San was not to be put off.

She will be quite happy,

” she continued,and I

will see that no one marries her during your honour

able absence . Ah ! but it was truly an august con

descension for you to marry the miserable girl . And

should you not return !Somervi lle thought that he

saw Haru San smile somewhat sardonically,even

though the light was so dim ! , she would willingly

become a widow and be grateful to you for the many

fine gi fts she has received from you,her lord .

”

Whilst Haru San was speaking an idea had pre

sented itsel f to his mind . It would no t appear so

heartless a desertion i f she were le ft with people sheknew . But he must think the matter over . Some even

better solution of the problem might eventually suggestitsel f .


You are marvellously k ind and condescending,he replied

,and your wish is a good one . I w i l l think

of what you have said to me , but I have much to do ,and must not give mysel f the honour to remain talkinghere longer .”

When he had left the shop and d isappeared along

the street Haru San promptly sat down beside her

lord , who had recommenced the tapping of the metal

plate with his tiny hammer,and set to work calculat

ing how much she might reasonably ask of the wealthv

Englishman for taking care o f the wi fe o f whom she

felt sure he had tired .

Tap,ting

,tap

,

” went Hoshin’

s tiny hammer w ith

j ust the noise a woman ’s pipe makes when hit sharply

against the smoking-box to rid it o f its ash , and every

tap counted a yen in the ears ‘

o f Haru San til l her

head grew dizzy with the wealth she imagined to beflowmg in.

And meantime Somerville had faced towards home

and M io San , and was trying to imagine what hewould say .


then she whispered the secret j oy that she held in herheart , and watched his face to see the change of purpose which she thought must surely come . But alas !

it came not, the face that looked into hers flushed

and then paled,but the look in the eyes was unchanged ,

and she knew he would go .

During the days which followed , Mio San wentabout with so heavy a heart that she could make no

response to his attempts at cheerfulness—couldscarcely seek to charm him in the old way with herna

’

ive affection,her quaint conceits , and equally quaint

efforts to learn the language that he spoke . To her

the sun seemed to have for ever set , the light to have

faded out of her li fe,the fragrant flowers in their ex

quisite garden to have suddenly lost the ir perfume and

d ied .

The Orient Queenhad come and gone , for Somervi lle had found it impossible

,after all

,to take his pas

sage by her . Another boat would cal l at Nagasak i

in about three weeks,and he hurried onh is arrange

ments so that he might leave by her.Mio San watched the gradual dismantlement of

the home with an aching heart . Shi-wono with a

loudly expresesd regret, for she had been treatedvery liberally by this eccentric Englishman

,who had

put himsel f to such unnecessary trouble by marrying

a musume'

who had taken'

his fancy ; and now ,unless

an’

o ther ' fore igner would be equally complacent; she


would have to return to the hotel and work harder forless pay .

During these last days Somervi l le alternately despised himsel f and excused himsel f . At t imes thecal l of his own land and race was so strong in his

blood that the latter was quite easy . And then hewould catch sight of Mio San ’s li ttle grief-stricken

face,—which gave the l ie to Yumoto

’

s loud assertions

that musume were butterfl ies , incapable of deep or

lasting feel ing,—and the '

old self-d isdain would assai l

him afresh .

When packing h is sketches and p ictures in the

studio he had made one last attempt at deception .

He had given into M io San ’s care several of thelargest pictures he had painted of her . Keep themti l l I return

,which I shall do some day , he said .

But she looked at him with large,tear-dulled , unre

sponsive eyes , in which he could read her disbel ie f .

In her heart there was always that terrible answeringnote , He will not return .

”

S o she shook her head sadly , and murmured underher breath the words which had often pleased himin the past ,

“Anota bakari son

”

!“ Thou art the

only one august one For her there could be noother .

She knew that she was to return to the care o f

Hoshin and Ham San,and she had accepted the

arrangement w ithout comment . What could it


matter ? ” she asked hersel f over and over again , nowthat her lord , who had once looked upon her withaugustly deigning favour

,was about to depart .

The last boxes were packed in the fading glimmerof the beauti ful September twilight . The house wasbare except for the merest necessities o f the few

remaining hours and the scanty fixtures which

Somervil le had found when he came to it . McKen

zie and Yumoto had both been up ; but the atmosphereof departure and of Mio San ’s uncontrollable griefdid not invite a long stay .

At the gate , after Yumoto had strolled away out

of earshot , M cKenz ie had disconcerted Somervil le

more than he real ised by one brief, terse comment

upon the s ituation .

“ By Jove, o ld fellow ,

” he had

exclaimed as his hand rested upon the gate,I believe

she loves you .

”

His friend had started as though struck by a whip ,and had turned away without another word .

Mio San awaited him on the verandah when he

returned slowly and thoughtfully up the garden path .

By some inspiration she had become possessed of

the desire to be the Mio San of old for the last time .

Something urged her to leave in his memory only

the fragrance of her when they both first came to

the home which was now stripped o f al l its charm .

As he climbed the steps his face,with its unwonted

pallor,sti ll bore traces of the blow McKenz ie

’

s words


vided an additional touch of melancholy as it reachedthem from the kitchen at the back of the house .

“ The end ! The end ! What an end ! ” the mankept th inking to himself . And the woman ! She

could not even think for the dull aching of her heart,and the overpowering sense of desolation which over

whelmed her .She sat watch ing the man she had called her lord

,

and from whom she had felt hersel f dri fting for weeksbefore the crisi s came , with sadly observant eyes ;storing her memory with pictures of him for use in

the b lank loneliness of days to come . She watched

every movement as he walked slowly about the roomor stooped to pack some almost- forgotten trifle in the

one box still to be fastened down . At last everythingwas finished

,and the room in which they had spent

so many of the happy hours of the first few weeks

after their marriage was stripped as bare , except fora l itter of paper and torn-up letters , as the day onwh ich Somervi lle first saw it . Her own th ings hadbeen packed in curious native-made cases a day or

two before,and the open doors of the fukuro dana

showed empty gaping cavities in the wall . On the

morrow coolies would come and carry her boxes toHoshin’

s house , where she had learned without emotion that she was to stay.

At last Somerville yawned w ith fat igue and the

heat of the summer ’s night, and then began and con


tinued for a while the melancholy screeching of the

amado pulled along hasti ly in thei r grooves as he shutup the house for the night .

Early next morning, whilst the dew sparkled upon

the few unfaded lotus blossoms in the pond at thebottom of the garden , the dj ins with their super

annuated j inrikishas, now used for conveyance o f

parcels and luggage , arrived at the gate o f the path

leading from the upper road down to the back of

the house,and a few minutes later the strong- l imbed

fellows descended and took possession o f the house .

There were six of them,and , laden with boxes and

small cases,they made their way swi ftly through

the wood,and in hal f an hour were well ontheir way

down the rough,stone-encumbered road to the town .

As Somerville and Mio San gazed out for the last

time from the verandah at the sunli t town below them

and the breeze-ruffled water o f the harbour a great

sadness possessed them both . But for Somervi lle

there was , however , the hope of the future—a hope

he could not have stifled even had he wished . For

the little being at his side there was the utter blank

ness and desolation of nothingness . Love’s fragile

charm and freshness had not served to preserve herfrom disaste r. Shi-wono had that morning , in not

altogether disinterested sympathy,assured her that

Somerville would return . But she had loved him with

the love that women of another race might perhaps


only have given to some god , and she knew that there

would be no reunion o f the frayed bond which hadonce bound her to him .

“ Come , said Somervi lle at length,touching her

arm .

Mio San gave a slight shudder, one more lingering,

comprehensive glance at the home she was about to

leave , which had been thrown open as usual so that

she could see into al l the rooms which were along

the verandah,and then

,with Shi-wono ’

s o ft-repeated

S ayonara in her ears,she descended the verandah

steps into the sunshine .Ere they turned the corner o f the path Somerville

threw a glance back at the house ; but Mio San , whose

face was very white and pinched by grief , kept hers

steadi ly towards the harbour . She had seen the last

of the home whilst stil l a part of i t . She would not

glance back at the empty,soulless thing . Somerville

closed the wicket with elaborate care .

On their way down the hi llside to the town theyspoke but l ittle . To Mio San the sunlight which envi

roned them seemed a mere mockery of the miserywhich possessed her heart . Once or twice Somerville

spoke with a feeble attempt at cheerfulness,but in her

anguish the knowledge of all the strange foreign words

she had so laboriously learned that she might con

verse with him in his own tongue seemed to have suddenly deserted her , leaving her painfully agitated mind


cle ft the sunlight and re-echoed amongst the sur

rounding hi lls , causing Somervil le to start and MioSan to shiver . It seemed the signal for departure

the end o f the tiny tragedy of the past few weeks .Somerville commenced to speak some halting words

o f farewell , for he had decided that there should be

no distressing, embarrassing public one either on board

the mailboat or on the hatoba. He feared Mio San ’s

outbursts o f grief and perhaps even reproaches ; and

there would not be a man amongst his friends and

acquaintances who would not consider him a fool for

exposing himsel f to e ither,for in their eyes , at least ,

Mio San was a native woman , to be taken up and

dropped as the mood o f her possessor dictated .

You will be happy , he said lamely I have seen

to that . Hoshin and Haru San will see that you want

for no th ing, and the time w i l l not be long. I shall

return .

But M io San,who had fallen at h is feet in a

paroxysm o f gr ie f, in an abandonment of entreaty

which at another time would have disgusted his sense

of woman ’s reticence,cried out with her heart full

of the knowledge that there would never be a return .

My lord,my augustly shining one

,the one whom

I worship , what i s it that I have done which has found

such d is favour in your all-seeing eyes ? Why have Ino longer favour in your eyes ? Why have I becomeas a most despicable thing that you desire nevermore


to gaze upon ? My lord , do not leave me . R emem

ber what I have told you. Do not turn the j oy,which

was in my heart at the thought o f the coming blessing

from the gods,into utter darkness—the darkness of

the night when the light of moon and stars i s hiddenand the dry earth trembles .”

Hush ! ” said he gently , but not seeking to raiseher . “ I must go . The land o f my ancestors calls

to me across the sea . There is in my heart the desire

which comes to many who hear the note o f thehototogisu when they are far from home . You need

have no fear o f want,no anxiety for the future , and i f

you should need aught that I have not provided go

and speak with Yumoto San,and he w i l l see that the

thing you desire i s done .

M io San replied not a word , but clung to h imweep ing . What was all he had prepared to her ? In

a dim way she realised that the gulf which lay between

them o f race and spirit and mind had bl inded him so

that he could not see that she would have bartered all

these future things, of which he spoke to her, willingly

for one hour of his love that used to be .In his man ’s stupidity he thought that he had atlength sati sfied and convinced her because she said

no more,and so he stooped and with firm but gentle

fingers unclasped her own from him . Then he

stooped sti l l lower,and kissed her once as she swayed

upon her knees .


S ayonara, M io ! S ayonara! and he was gone .Then from the dimly lit room behind the shop

o f Hoshin went up an exceeding bitter cry o f My

lord,my augustly beauti ful one !

So bitter,indeed , that Haru San came running in ,

not stopping to say even S ayonara! to the Englishman who was about to depart .Outstretched upon the spotless matting covering

the floor lay Mio San l ike some gay-plumaged

wounded bird,with a face from which every vestige

o f colour had fled , leaving it an ashen , piti ful grey .

In one hand was clasped unknowingly the bundle

of satsu !paper-money! which Somerville had thrust

there as he loosed her grasp . O f these Haru San tookcharge .

Outs ide in the sunlight Somerville hurried along

w ith Mio San ’s cry,which had pierced the fusuma

though he had closed it behind him,in his ears

,and

the uncomfortable feeling that he had committed a

crime troubling his heart .

Only an hour or two remained ere the M orningCalm would be casting off her moorings and heading

for the open sea .

He found all h is luggage on the hatoba near

Yumoto’

s office,and M cKenz ie , Fo lkard , and Yumoto

h imsel f on guard near it .It is over ? queried the latter, as Somervi lle came

up to the group .


was about to step into the sampanhe cal led Yumototo him .

You wil l not forget to write , he sa id . And i f

you hear that she is unhappy, or is falling into themire—save her, and cable to me .

”

I w i l l not fo rget ,” repl ied Yumoto , w ith a scarcely

concealed smile at what he considered his friend ’s

unnecessary punctil iousness . I shal l not forget .My memory is as good as that of a Chinese money

lender . ”

Anhour later and the huge bulk of the M orningColm throbbed her way at hal f-speed through the nar

row waters between Ogami and Megami Points andthence past the tree-crowned Pappenberg out into theimmensity o f the open grey sea .

Somervi lle stood on deck to see the last of thegreen hi ll s and town ; but he knew nothing of the

eyes o f Mio San , who ,with protesting Haru San ,

had climbed to a turn in the road which led up to

McKenz ie ’

s vi l la to see the great j okisen’

s go ing.

CHAPTER XVIII

OR the first few days after Somerv i lle ’s departure M io San ’s grief was inconsolable .Haru San ’s well-meant efforts to comfort her

were quite unava i l ing , for they consisted chiefly o f

long-w inded exhortations framed to show her sadlittle guest how grate ful she ought to be that her hon

ourab le departed lord had been so kind to her wh i lstshe l ived with him , and so generous when Fate

destined that they should part company . Then Haru

San,finding that in Mio San she had different material

to deal with than that to which she was accustomed ,namely , her nieces , who had without much waste of

sentiment contracted several profitable though transient marriages

,altered her tactics . She commenced

to assure Mio San that i f she were only patient heraugust husband would return from across the sea .

Something at first told M io San that this wouldnever be

,notwithstanding Somervil le ’s own parting

protestations and Haru San ’s sophistries . But shewas a woman

,lonely in her great grief, and she wished

for the comfort that such a belie f would bring her

aching heart . And so it was that at last she began,


almost insens ibly at first, to have faith in the word

of h im who had left her, eventhough she had knownthat love was dead .

Several circumstances, too , ass isted her wi l ling

mind to th is . The first mailboat wh ich arrived fromHong—kong after Somervil le ’s departure brought withit one Hilary Petherton , who had gone home a yearbefore

,leaving behind him the pretty geisha who had

two years previously captivated his senses at one ofthe most popular o f the tea—houses in O Suwa Park ,and had been instal led as his housekeeper . And now ,

although the house above the foreign settlement was

a different one , O Hagi San was again happy in i tw ith her returned lover .This fact soon b ecame noised abroad , and in timereached the ears of Hoshin and his wi fe

,and the latter

went j oyful ly to Mio San , who sat in the gardenthink ing

,as she so often did

, o f him who had gone ,to tel l her the news . “And , she added after she haddone so

,why , O not less beauti ful one , should not

thy husband also return according to his august andcondescending word given you at his departure ? ”

Then there was the coming chi ld—h is child andhers—that the augustly deigning gods had in theirwonderful goodness vouchsafed to her . Till she hadbegun to recognise that Somervi lle ’s love for her hadwaned this had been an unspeakable j oy . And nowin her forsaken heart there grew up day by day an


dece ive her,why should this man , who would not care

whether she were sad or gay , happy or miserable ?

I cannot believe that he will ,” she replied , after a

pause for thought If he had cared , i f I stil l foundfavour either because of my most contemptible body

or face in his eyes,he would not have gone away in

the great j okisen. No ! no ! the j oy i s not given to

me that I should again behold him and feast my eyesupon h is faceLet us walk along

,said Yumoto

,and I will tell

you. You do not understand . His people were call ing

for him ; he had business with the men of h is race .When it i s accomplished he will return again . Have

you then not heard that the lover of O Hagi Sanis with her once more ? And you

— the speaker

paused , almost surprised at his owneloquence in thecause o f consolation which could bring him no advan

tage are more beauti ful than she . Your eyes are

more like the stars which look down upon the whitebrow of Fuj i on a frosty night ; your skin is almost

as wh ite as the women o f his own race , and yourmouth can smile like the red li ly in the sunsh ine . Cannot your heart trust hi s return ? ”

M io San would have been more than a humanwoman had Yumoto ’

s words not caused the bloodto surge beneath her skin and her eyes to regain a

l ittle of their o ld sparkle . What the wise YumotoSan says must be right

,she thought . D id not my

A JAPANE SE R OMAN CE 281

honourable lord once tel l McKenz ie San that YumotoSan had all the wisdom o f the wise men of the East ;and did not McKenz ie say yes , even the w isdom of

the honourable Devi l himsel f ?

In her heart began to grow the belie f that Somer

ville would return as she listened to Yumoto ’

s wordsand drank in the arguments he used . As they walked

along Funadaiku-machi and approached Hoshin’

s

dwell ing she did not even notice that i t was dark,

and that in the open shops and outside them the

owners were l ighting their lamps and lanterns . In

her heart was a glint of the sunshine of hope , and

though she was weary she walked at Yumoto ’

s s ide

without faltering,her lacquered geta ringing sharply

onthe paving o f the street .When they parted at Ho shin’

s door she gave

Yumoto her hand in the English fashion , for she had

long ago discovered that nothing pleased him better.

than a tribute to his European education , and sa id

w ith a simplicity that was strangely winn ing“O Yumoto San , you have caused the sunshine

to come again into my heart,and to -morrow the

flowers wil l b loom again for me,and I shall know that

the birds sing . S ayonara. Perhaps my lord w i ll aftermany moons return . Gokuro sama.

”

S ayonara, O Mio San ,” repl ied Yumoto .

And then he watched her enter Hoshin’

s dwel l ingere he turned to make his way to the Restaurant of the

282 A JAPANE S E R OMAN CE

Many Cherry Trees , where he was to dine with

McKenz ie .

“ I am a vastly great l iar , he remarked to h imself,as he hurried along

,

“f or Somervil le wil l not return .

But it was worth many lies to see the flush come again

into Mio San ’s cheeks and the light kindle in those

eyes o f hers . Beauti ful eyes , he continued , which

might make a man forget everything except that he

was a man .

The hope that had been sown in Mio San ’s heart

grew under the fostering care o f Haru San . Some

times the latter,when she remembered the case of

O Hagi San , really began to believe in what she said

relating to the certainty o f the august Somerville re

turning . Her powers of reasoning were not great ,and it seemed natural enough to her that the foreign

wealthy augustnesses should al l behave alike .

Hoshin shook his head,but said nothing

,when he had

heard her and her guest discussing the matter . He

had lived far longer than Haru San,and had seen

many men come and go never to return since the

foreigner had been permitted to dwell in Nagasaki .

The weeks went by , and many times Mio San hadtaken a rigishaw ride round the harbour to a l ittleplateau above the fishermen’

s landing-place and oppo

site the Pappenberg, where she had sat dreaming ofthe day when perhaps one of the great j okisenwhichseemed to climb up out of the distant sea might be


was well,and that he was doing the business for which

he had returned to England . It conveyed little ideato her m ind save that he must be at work painting

some of those marvellous pictures which had been such

an eternal source of wonderment to her . But she

understood the end . Little Mio San , he said , only

Yumoto had embell ished the phraseology with a mar

vellous elaboration o f polite sentiment , you must bepat ient .” Then followed some instructions telling her

that in the event of her requiring money she was to

apply to Yumoto,and that was all .

She must be patient . ” She understood that.What , indeed , had she been during the last four wearymonths but patient ? In all her weariness and d is

tress of mind and body she had been that , hoping for

a very s imple reward .

By the same mail Yumoto h imself received a letter

from Somervil le which made it clear to his O riental

intelligence that Mio San was as truly widowed as

though she were either divorced or Somervi lle dead .

He had never really believed in the fiction o f the latter ’sreturn . Nor did , indeed , hi s desertion o f her strike

him as in the least reprehensible . It was merely thenatural end to a foreigner ’s alliance with a musume

’

.

As he had sat in his office perusing his friend ’s

letter he thought over the whole situation . He liked

Somerville , and he also in a condescending way likedMio San . He was sorry for her in prec isely the way

A JAPANE S E R OMANCE 285

that a man holding his views upon the subj ect of

women would be . He even began to wonder whether

it would not be a wise and politi c course to try tocommunicate with her father, the florist

,at Ureshino .

Mio San,once more with her ownpeople , would prob

ably ih course o f time forget her present grief at the

loss of her foreign husband , and might soon marryagain . He knew her short- l ived marriage with Somer

ville would prove no bar,as she was left with what must

to a man o f the class she might possibly marry appear

a large amount o f money . Besides , he knew Somer

vi lle was not a mean man,and that he had only to sug

gest it to him and Mio San would be provided w itha dowry which would be exceedingly tempting to

many . Had she been divorced for not cooking riceproperly , for i l l-temper, or for one of the other trivialbut possible reasons , i t would have been a differentmatter . At the back of Yumoto

’

s mind , too ,was the

idea that Somervil le would be grateful to him for the

carrying out of any scheme which would tend towardsMio San ’s happiness and oblivion o f the past.So it happened that when writing to a tea-planter

who had some fields near Ureshino he mentioned the

fact o f Mio San having left the house to which shehad gone as maid , her subsequent marriage with aforeigner

,her present residence with Hoshin

,and that

her honourable lord and master when he had left hertreated her very handsomely .


Kan-zan , the tea-planter , delighted to have such

news to impart, hied to Okada , the father of MioSan

,and told him what he had heard from his excel

lent merchant friend O Yumoto San,of the Bund

,

Nagasaki .

A few days pasesd ere Okada decided to go toNagasaki and find his daughter

,for there had been

frosts , and he could not tear himsel f away from his

beloved flowers , which needed al l the attention and

care he could devote to them . But j ust as night

was closing in,about ten days after Mio San had

received the letter from Somerv il le,she heard her

father ’s voice addressing Hoshin in the shop outside

asking if she dwelt with them .

Then,as she listened intently

,she heard Hoshin’

s

reply,and afterwards Haru San explaining how it

was that she was living with them . Then their voices

fell,and she could only catch a word here and there

amid an undertone o f conversat ion which was like

the droning o f bees .She waited and listened intently

,and after a while

she heard the sound o f footsteps on the floor of the

shop,and a moment later the fusama was pushed

aside . and her father entered the room in which

she was .

She would have made the humblest obeisance o f

welcome,but he stepped forward and checked her.

Okada had always been a good father to her ; in


beauti ful garden , of seeing the l ittle brother she hadplayed with and carried on her back

,of being amid

familiar scenes , she forgot that at Ureshino she couldno longer watch for the ships climbing up out of the

southern sea . But had she done so it would havebeen but sadness to her now remaining where she was .Her father had said she was to depart w ith him

, andhi s will could not be ga insaid .

She looked up into his face with the rapture of achild weary by long absence , with a smile such as

Somervi lle had always been able to call into being

by the merest show o f tenderness or kindness . Andthen she said

,Most august parent , I wil l gladly go

with you so that my eyes may look upon my honourable mother ’s face once more . I will be ready at

the hour you appo int .”

Then Haru San and Hoshin came in , for there

would have to be a reckoning with Okada . Haru

San had never told M io San of the amount of the rollo f satsu which she had found clasped in her hand thenight she had swooned after Somervi l le had left . She

was a woman kind of heart , but possessed of a loveof the bright yen and the satsu wh ich made a pleasant

rustling when held in the fingers tightly ; but becauseo f her kind heart the reckoning she presented wasnot so inaccurate as her inbred cupidity would fainhave made it .

When he found how generous her august foreign

A JAPANE S E R OMAN CE 289

husband had been , and what fine garments Mio Sanpossessed , Okada suddenly thought o f his friend , theproprietor o f the inn which stood onthe bank of theriver to whom M io San had been informally betrothedbefore she left the vil lage for Nagasaki . Perhaps

Yoshida would sti l l be willing to marry her when hewas told that she could bring him in her hands nearlyfive hundred dollars

,and many a fine kimono

,which

would add to her attractiveness when attending to thecomfort of his guests . But Okada was a wise man ,and he said nothing o f his thoughts concerning this

other marriage,and in the morning Mio San and he

set out for Ureshino in j inrikishas, for which the

former paid .

As they passed over the crest o f the hill on theUreshino road M io San threw one last , l ingering look

at the town and the little house onthe hil lside , oncehers

,which now appeared in the distance amid the

trees,environing it l ike a tiny chalet , and then her

eyes travelled out over the harbour to the gap betweenthe hills through which the j okisenwould come . Then

a moment or two later it was gone , and she hid her facein the wide sleeves o f her kimono

,whilst her l ittle body

shook with the anguish o f her sobs .

CHAPTER XIX

T was a raw December day when Somervillereached London , and the dreary squalor o f themetropoli s chi lled him to the bone . On the

voyage home he had had time for thought—time tothink out his future plans and to come to many con

e lusions .

Once or twice a disgust with himsel f had well-nighoverwhelmed him for a time

,and he had almost de

termined to have got o ff the M orning Calm at Aden ,and have awaited the next boat bound East . But

the image of Mio San , which so troubled him at first,became fainter and fainter

,and that of Violet Des

borough more clear . He even began to tel l himsel fwhat his friends Yumoto and McKenz ie and other

men out there would have undoubtedly done—that hismistake had been to marry . He had given to MioSan what in his truer moments he called “ rights

,

”

which she did not expect,and which every one in

the foreign settlement would have considered a

qu ixotic gi ft on his part .The woman he loved was of his own race ; the


the modern improvements which cute speculators and

up-to -date architects saw fit to embody were to b e

found in Velasquez Mansions , and rents were pro

portionately high .

Jefferson ’s flat was s ituated on the fourth floor,

because of the additional l ight and the fact that thestudio , by an ingenious arrangement of the architect,was placed on the top of a portion of the back outbui ldings . With a l i ft going from s ix til l twelve

thirty , as Jefferson often explained , height didn’t much

matter .

The two men had been fellow art students in Paris ,entering Co lorossi’s as nouveaux the same month

and although Rodney Jefferson,after a three years

residence in the Quartier had returned to London ,whilst Somervi l le had remained behind

,they had kept

up a more regular correspondence afterwards thanmost fellow-students do .

Jefferson had a factotum in the shape o f an ArmyReserve man

,who opened the door to Somerville ; but

his master was close at his heels as his visitor enteredthe l ittle cream-toned lobby of the flat .My dear old chap ,

” said Jefferson,shaking hands

warmly , I ’m real glad to see you . When I got your

wire I thought how good it was of you to take me atmy word when the opportunity served . Come in .

Aston , take Mr . Somerville’s traps into the spare room

,

and see there ’s everything he’ll want .


The man saluted , and w ith I understand , s ir,disappeared out of the door towards the l i ft .And now

,

” exclaimed Jefferson , as he and Somerv i l le entered the studio

,why are you here in London ?

I thought you were in Japan . By the way , only a

week or ten days ago I made the acquaintance of a

friend o f yours at a dance Mrs . Odlum Mo schelles

gave—a girl who went out on the same steamer asyou

,at least so she said . She told me she had seen

you as they called at Nagasaki on their way home , andI little expected to find you turning up in London .

”

Somerville seated himsel f in one o f the two deepeasy-chairs which stood one on either side of the

open hearth and stretched out his l imbs to the blaze .Before replying he gazed for a moment or two at the

blue , red , and green flames that played hide and seekamongst the logs o f ship ’s timbers which Jefferson

always used because they burned w ith these Samebeauti fully coloured flames .At last he sa id slowly , I was in Japan

,o ld fellow,

two months or so ago . And now I am here .”“ Precisely ,

” exclaimed Jefferson,with a laugh ;

but what has so suddenly brought you back fromthe land o f the chrysanthemum

,the geisha, and the

musume’

? I thought you wrote me from Nagasakisoon after you arrived and spoke o f spending a yearat least out there . ”

So I d id,” adm itted Somervi lle

,with a trace of


embarrassment , but c ircumstances have occurred

which have altered my plans .”

Which being interpreted,remarked his l istener,

means a woman .

”

Somerville smiled and said , I see , Jefferson , thatyour belie f in woman as the first cause of most in

expl icable things is sti l l unshaken .

It i s made yet more firm,

” replied the other ,laughing, since it has been my fate to pa int so many

of them .

”

Well,you ’re right

,rej oined Somerville . And

then he told something o f those past months in Nagasaki and o f Mio San .

The two men sat over the fire,the one l i stening and

the other tell ing a story which caused the listener everynow and again to nod his head as though some pet

idea o f his own was receiving confirmation or he

could have foreseen the end o f things .When Somerville got to a point in his story where

the gul f first began to widen between him and Mio

San,Jefferson ej aculated

,Poor l ittle woman ! poor

l ittle woman ! ” once or twice , but otherwise he madeno audible comment til l his friend had finished .

Then he said slowly,I understand . And

,Somer

ville , much as I pity the poor little woman , you wereright to come away . Perhaps the unco ’ good might

dissent from this Opinion o f mine . What matters ?

But you had run up against one of God Almighty ’s

296 A JAPANE S E ROMANCE

ism . I had an idea, he went on after a sl ight pause ,“ that you could divorce a Japanese woman prettyeasi ly. Is that so ?

”

Somerville smiled rather grimly, and replied , For

almost anything. She has only got to talk too much ,to estrange her husband ’s friends by her j ealousy or

backbiting, or —and he laughed harshly not to

cook properly. But Mio San did none of these things ,and in add ition there i s no doubt that ours was a legalmarriage . At least, I don

’t think there i s any. And

nowHe paused . And Jefferson struck in

,The chains

have commenced to gall . Poor old chap ! We must

think it out. But once more , who is she ?”

Somervi l le did not answer immediately . He was

thinking i f it were worth while to introduce Violet

Desb orough’

s name into the affai r, at least as yet.However

,he decided to tel l Jefferson . It was a

poor compliment to him as an old chum not to beperfectly frank .

It i s Miss Desborough,he said quietly

,but w ith

a shade deeper colour in hi s cheeks .Miss Desborough ! The girl I met the other n ight.

I am not altogether surprised .

”

Why ? ”

Because , my friend , I thought she showed an uncommon amount of interest in you and your doings .That is all .”


Somervi l le looked embarrassed .

But, continued Jefferson thoughtfully, I don ’tthink she ’s the sort o f girl I should attempt to approachunti l some o f this tangle with the woman out in

Nagasaki is unravelled . I may be mistaken , but Idon ’t think it .”

“ But i f there is no way out ?” asked Somerv il le

bitterly .

“ Then,was the reply , there are two things to

do . Forget her and return orno t to the other womanas you may decide , or make a c lean breast of it toMiss Desborough and take your chance . There wassomething about her face and eyes

,the speaker went

on, which I fancy indicates that she would probably

understand the tangle you are in and sympathise w ith

you. But I do not think she would l isten to you unti l

by some effectual and right means this Gordian knotis unloosed .

”

Somerville knew that his friend ’s estimate of Violet

Desb orough’

s character was a right one . Once before

she had refused to listen to him because she thoughthe did not really love her ; now he felt she would

refuse because o f the claims o f the other woman .

“ Does M io San believe you will go back ?” Je f

fersonasked suddenly , after a longish si lence , broken

only by the noise o f cinders falling on to the ti led

hearth .

I don ’t know,replied Somervi lle . I th inknot.


You see,he went on , the native girls are used to

temporary alliances with foreign settlers which last a

few months ,—a year or two at most , —and no one butmysel f

,

” he said bitterly,thought the marriage before

the Consul at all necessary . It seemed to me the

straight thing to do , and I did it . I needn’t go into

my reasons . But for one thing,at that time I did not

care in that way for Miss Desborough . I even hada vague idea that I might settle out there for years .There was so much to paint . Ah ! o ld chap

,you can

have no idea how much . You,with your swell s itters

duchesses and nobodies who want to be immortal isedin paint and canvas— know nothing of the fascinating,exquis ite beauty of scene and atmosphere

,flower and

l i fe , out there . And then,

” as he paused a fraction ofa minute ere going on, I did not real ise the gulf that

lay between Mio San and me in thought,mind

,and

speech . There was not even the camaraderie of

bohemia possible between us to make up for the loss

of other things . Perhaps you ’ l l think me a brute , butin three months I had become indifferent to her otherthan as some beauti ful obj ect that I l iked to use inmy pictures . And she knew it ; and then the barriergrew fast and higher

,notwithstanding her poor ,

piteous efforts to pull it down . I have been hurt byit . But somehow I am not the temperament to make

the best of a bad business,and I am back . O ther

men nearer home than Japan,he continued , as


Mio San was alive,or at least so long as h is marr iage

held good,Violet Desborough was placed out of hi s

reach by the sentiment which was sure to possess her .Then his thoughts travelled away across the sea to

Mio San,and he wondered how it was that he could

regard her with such indifference without the feel ingbeing in the least tinged with active di sl ike . He even

pited her with sincerity, for he bel ieved that she sti l lloved him , whatever change his own feeling towards

her had undergone . Yumoto had told him over and

Over again that she would forget,that she would even

after a l ittle while marry some one o f her own race .

T ime would prove—time that would hang heavily uponhis hands ; but he thought Mio San

’s love was unhappily of a more enduring sort than Yumoto argued .

Then the thought o f the child came suddenly intohis mind

,and he wondered vaguely i f he would hear

of its birth,and whether it would be yet another link

in the chain of circumstances which would perhaps

for ever separate him from the woman he loved .

Then a vision of Violet Desborough presented itsel fto his mind as he had seen her leaning over the sideof the mailboat waving him adieux as his sampanmade

for the shore,and he set his teeth at the thought that

his marriage with Mio San should have placed so im

passable a barrier between them . He knew that hadhe asked her again to marry him as they stood uponthe deck of the Empress of China in Nagasaki harbour


her answer would have been Yes . Now that hehad travelled hal f across the world to be near herhis lips were sealed . Even i f he met her i t would bebut to chafe the more at the chains which bound him .

He real ised to the full now that he was to pay theprice—which so often had to be paid—for an act o fi l l-considered quixoticism,

and there grew in him a

silent rage against Fate .Jefferson did hi s best during the evening to enl iven

his guest,but succeeded il l

,for at the back Of al l the

talk about art and Jefferson ’s work lay for Somerv i lle

the gnawing pain of regret and disil lusionment .

At length he said wearily,

“ I ’m not much com

pany , Old chap , to-night , and I think , i f you don’t mind ,

I ’ l l turn in . It wil l be a treat to have a shore bed

again—the first real bed I ’ve slept in for more thantwelve months . Good-night . ”

Good-night , replied Jefferson,shaking hands .

I f there ’s anything more you want ring the bel l andAston will come . He ’s a capital chap

,and never

minds what time he gets routed out. Sleep well .

Perhaps the tangle won ’t turn out so bad , after all .Have another c igar ? There ’s no one to Obj ect tosmoking al l over the place here

,though I generally

try to get the scent o f tobacco out o f the studio a bitwhen any one i s giving me a sitting .

When Somerville had gone Rodney Jefferson satdown , and , drawing his chair close to the fire

,started


thinking. To him it seemed a hard thing that thismarriage of his friend to a native woman should standin the way of his wooing the woman he loved and thewoman who it was evident loved him .

Poor old chap ! ” he ej aculated,

“ I know him of

Old . He did it for the best as it appeared to him for

the moment, and now he has got to pay . Somewomen ,

” he mused , might take him as he i s , native

wi fe and all ; but Miss Desborough , i f I know anythingo f her type , i s not built that way . And so Well

,

there is no way out that I can see .


grandmotherly care , spread for her, could not standin the place o f him who had gone . Once or twicethere came a strange stirring in her heart, and she

took little Flower of the Spring in her arms and trudged

along the path towards the hill that gave her a clearview for some distance along the road leading back to

Nagasaki—why she scarcely knew ! But hope diedhard now that it had been born aga in .

So passed the months unti l the cherry-trees in the ir

turn had in the soft ai r of nights spread a pink carpeton the earth

,and Okada had begun to think in the

back of h is mind that soon it would be t ime to see

whether Yoshida of the tea-house by the s inging river

would not be prepared to wed Mio San . In Okada’

s

mind the marriage with the foreigner was as noth ing,and he knew that Yoshida was wishful to add to the

tea-house he owned , and Mio San had yet many yenle ft of the sum she had brought with her from

Nagasak i .So it happened that Yoshida used to come in the

intervals of business along the road to the garden,and

made it clear that he was will ing to marry Mio San

because o f the yen belonging to her . Okada had toldhis w i fe what he wished , and it never entered her m indthat his desires could be gainsaid .

It was ona beauti ful June evening that Mio Sanfirst fully real ised what was expected of her. Okada,who always treated her with more kindness thanfalls


to the lot of most girls at the hands of thei r fathers ,sa id to her

,when Yoshida had gone back to his tea

house,Yoshida is an excellent and prosperous man

,

his tea-house is known far and near . Even geisha

from Nagasaki wil l come to it for him,and he i s mak

ing much money , my daughter . And he even deigns

to w ish to marry you .

Mio San turned very pale . In her folly of hope

and in her love for her baby there had been never athought of Yoshida’

s meaning or o f the possible reason

of his many vis its . How could there be when she wassti l l her lord ’s ?But Mio San had been taught the precepts o f Onna

Daigaku,

” and she could not openly venture to disobeyher father

,so she said

, O my august father , let there

be yet a l ittl e while before you ask me to l i sten toYoshida , who so honourably deigns to desire me ashis w ife . Perhaps my foreign husband may return,and he is rich

,and he would be greatly angered were

he to find me living as the wife o f another . And then ,”

cont inued M io San , knowing her father’s love o f

money, though he was neither a hard nor graspingman , my child would be poor instead of wealthy, for

my Somerville San had more money than a Chinaman could count in many hours

,and the fingers and

minds of Chinamen are quick and clever at count ingmoney .

”

Okada paused when Mio San had done speak


ing. There was something of common sense inwhat she said , and !for he did not know how long the

j okisentook crossing the sea! there had been scarcelytime for “ the august foreigner with whom his

daughter had lived to yet return . At last he said,

Very good,my daughter ; we will wait a moon or

two and see whether O Somerville San will return

to you . If he be as rich as you say,and as Hoshin

San told me,he would be welcome .

”

After this Yoshida came far less frequently to

Okada’

s, and Mio San dreamed her dream o f hope .

Away in Nagasaki Yumoto sometimes wondered

what had become of her , and whether she had fulfil led his prophecy that she would forget Somervil leand perhaps marry again . Hoshin had given him the

address of her father in Ureshino when he called toinquire for her shortly after she had been taken awayby Okada , but Yumoto had neither the curiosity nor

the incl ination to write or make further inquiries—atleast not unless it was in furtherance of Somervi l le ’sw i shes .About the end of June he received another com

munication from. the latter , tel l ing him that he hadsettled in London for a time with a friend

,after paying

a flying v isit to Paris,but saying nothing of Miss Des

borough , at which Yumoto smiled . He at oncej umped to the conclusonthat Somerville was about tomarry her, but did not wish the fact known lest any

308 A JAPANE S E R OMANCE

McKenz ie did not reply . He was wonderingvaguely what he would do i f ever he were wealthyenough to quit the Porcelain Works and return

home .

Whi lst she was speaking an idea was resolvingitself in Katakuri San ’s mind . To—morrow she wouldsee whether her enemy were entirely beyond her reach.

She did not in the least care whether McKenz ie thoughtYumoto right or wrong . She was only glad that hehad told her Yumoto ’

s news .

Next morning, when M cKenz ie had le ft home forthe Works

,Katakuri San sat down to write . In her

,

mean little heart was a glow o f intense satis factionas she took out her bronze yafaie, which happened

to have been a parting gi ft when Somervi lle le ft them,

and after grinding up some ink took her finely po inted

brush in hand and commenced to trace the charactersupon the paper . Writing was a somewhat laborioustask

,as a rule

,to her , but to -day she was fi l led with

gratitude that , neglected as her education had been ,she had at al l events learned to write .When she had finished she folded the letterlengthwise and placed it in a rose—coloured envelopeand addressed it , then placing it in the sleeve—pocketof her kimono she selected a paper umbrella from

several standing in the corner o f the room and setoff through the garden down into the town . She

would not trust San-to with the posting of the pre


cious letter, whom , to tel l the truth , she suspected o f

being in nowise amiably disposed towards hersel f,

though willing to serve her for the good wages

McKenz ie paid her . It was very hot , and as Kata

kuri San was not fond o f walking, San- to , whowatched her disappear down the garden path and out

into the road,decided that her mistress was not bound

upon any good work .

When she had posted her missive Katakur i San

cl imbed the hi ll aga in and spent the rest o f the morn

ing ere M cKenz ie returned for tiffin imagining the

effect of the blow she had dealt poor little Mio San ,her only regret being that she was unable

,owing to

the d istance Ureshino was from Nagasaki,to go over

in a day or two to enj oy the sight of the wound sheknew she would have infl icted .

In the afternoon o f the next day,as Mio San was

s itting on the verandah o f the house playing with

Flower of the Spring, her father came up from the

lower part Of the garden with a letter in his hand .

“For you

,my daughter

,i t has arrived ,

” he ex

claimed,handing it to her with curiosi ty written large

upon his face . Perhaps from your august foreign

husband it is ? ” he added interrogatively .

But Mio San,who had examined the post-mark ,

only shook her head sorrowfully . No , my honourable father

,she replied

,

“ from some one in Nagasaki it i s .”


And then when he had gone away back to his workin the garden she Opened the envelope .Katakuri San ’s writing was none o f the best, andat first Mio San was unable to read it clearly. Atlast , however, she read out slowly , whilst her chi ld

rolled on the matting in the sunshine at her feet,the

words which her enemy had so exultingly penned .

They were not many.

NAGASAK I , June, 19O M io San , most miserable o f women ,

”\

[ it began!no more , as I told thee , ever wise one, on the

engawa of thy house now deserted and empty o f you

and him,will O Somerville San

,thy august husband ,

who,ti ring of your despicable self le ft you , rej oice

your eyes . He departed across the wide sea to obtain

hi s desire of the white woman who used to write him

loving letters . And now he l ives with her, and gives to

her the caresses which you,fool ish one , thought would

be always yours . This I have heard from Yumoto

San , to whom your foreign husband has written .

Farewell , O deluded girl . He was in truth never

yours or he would have returned .

”

As Mio San read the cruel words a mist gatheredbefore her eyes . A l l the hope

,which since the birth

o f her chi ld had gradually revived in her heart that

Somerville would return,died suddenly . The letter


She only told her mother that she had had news

which compelled her to go onthe morrow to Naga

saki to see 0 Yumoto San .

Perhaps your honourab le fore ign husband mayhave sent you more money ?

” queried Kusatsu San .

Perhaps , O honourable parent, he may,”was Mio

San ’s vague response .Early next morning a j inrikisha came to the gate of

Okada’

s garden with two sturdy kurumaya todraw it,and M io San departed for Nagasaki .Through the heat of a long day they toiled over the

dust-clad road which stretched like a dun-coloured

ribbon past rice-fields and scattered houses . And as

the t i red runners reached the crest of the hill above

the town,ere descend ing through the woods by the

steep zigzag road,the sun was sinking, rapidly bathing

the exquisite harbour in a flood of softened golden

light and turning the summits of the higher hill s on the

eastern side o f i t a ruddy yellow . As her j inrikisha

descended the hillside , and by narrow streets and byways reached the w ider thoroughfares and at last cameout upon the Bund

,Mio San was seized by a flood of

tender and sad memories , which was succeeded by aterrible anxiety .

A l l day along the dusty road and past fields inwhich the rice was being planted only one thought

seemed to possess her What should she hear

from Yumoto San ? What would she learn of


her departed lord ? ” And now as the kurumaya attheir j ourney ’s end quickened the pace

,which had

lagged somewhat during the last few miles,she was

seized with a terrible apprehension , and would have for

a moment or two turned back had such a thing been

poss ible .Yumoto was about to leave his ofli ce for the day

when the j inrikisha drew up outside and Mio San,assisted by one of the kurumaya, alighted .

As she entered the office her l imbs , cramped by long

s i tt ing, felt as though they would give way beneath

her , but she pushed open the door and went in .

Yumoto was giving some last instructions to h is

Chinese clerk,and for a moment he did not glance up .

When he did so a look of utter aston ishment overspreadhis face .

O Mio San ! ” he ej aculated .

You are right,most august friend

,repl ied Mio

San .

“ I have come far to see you and speak with

you . I fear I find you honourably engaged with your

business . Is it so ? ”

Yumoto,who had not taken his eyes off the tired ,

travel—stained little figure,felt a great pity creep into

his heart whilst speculating why she had come .

Whispering a few words to the clerk at his side , he

said,Mio San

,you have come to speak with me .

P lease come into my inconvenient Ofli ce . I hope noth

ing is i l l with your honourable health ?”


He stepped to the door leading upstairs to his office

overlooking the harbour,and Mio San followed him .

When they were seated in the twilight of the room ,

the garish posters on the walls o f which looked less in

sistent than any one could have supposed possible who

had ever seen them in sunlight, he looked fixedly at

his visitor for a moment or two ,and then he said ,

Now , most honourable lady, what it is your j ourney

has made you come to say to me ?

Mio San gazed at him as he sat in h is office armchair slightly away from the fading light which came

in through the window,and then she said slowly,

“ Yesterday , j ust before sunset , a letter came to me

from O Katakuri San which told me that my honour

able lord , who had gone from me across the sea , had

forgotten me , and that a woman of his own race loved

him ,and it i s she to whom he speaks sweet words ,

and who now lives in the j oy of his sight , and

whose heart throbs at his caresses . It i s from you ,O Yumoto San

,that O Katakuri San told me in her

letter the news had come .

”

She paused a moment to stifle her anguish , and toattempt to control the heavy beating o f her anxious

heart , whose pulsations sti rred the folds of her kimonoacross her breast .

Yumoto allowed his eyes to fall upon a letter which

lay upon the table in front of him,and tried to think

over the situation rapidly ere replying.


all the same—they cried a l ittle about the lover goneti l l the lover come dried thei r tears for them , and

then they forgot . At least,so Yumoto thought as he

sat oppos ite Mio San and watched her anxious littleface , down which tears fel l that sparkled as the fading

l ight from the window caught them . It was very

easy for h im,then

, to make up his mind that he was

doing a k ind act to Somerville,and was not inj uring

Mio San . O f course , the former would never return,he reasoned

,whether she remained faithful to his

memory or not . Therefore , it would be better for her

to marry Yosh ida .

At last he broke the s i lence , which seemed to Mio

San,wait ing for h is reply, to envelop and almost to

crush her.Alas ! he began

,Katakuri San does not l ie . It

i s true,that O Somervil le San

’s business across the

w ide sea does not permit of his return,as he thought .

And He paused a moment,hal f-hesitant to strike

the piteous little figure before him the final blow . But

Yumoto dealt in tea and not sentiment,so he cleared

his throat and went on, And O Somerville San has

found that he must marry a woman of his own race .”

In the silence of the dingy offi ce,which seemed so

l ittle in keeping with tragedy,there rang out a great

wa i l ing cry , and Mio San rose , with her arms—fromoff which the sleeves of her kimono sl ipped back

,leav

ing them bare and almost phantom-l ike in the gloom


stretched out in front of her as though she wereblind .

O my beloved august one , she cried , that I amno more forever to let my eyes feast upon thy

face

Yumoto caught her, think ing she was about to fall ,but she almost pushed him aside . Then her weariness ,which was now almost l ike that o f death , overcame

her , and she leaned upon him .

“ To Hoshin’

s . Take me to O Haru San, shemurmured There i s no light . I cannot see . Take

me to Hoshin’

s.

”

When Yumoto left her, after he had told Haru San

something of what had happened , he wondered

whether after al l he had done right . But he remem

bered that Somerville ’s embarrassment would begreatly mitigated i f he could but hear that M io Sanhad remarried . And Yumoto was an imaginativebe ing, and there fore only saw clearly ahead that MioSan and Yoshida would ere long become man andwi fe . Then , as he took out his case and lit a cheroot ,he remembered that onthe day he cabled Somervi llenews of her wedding to the proprietor of the chaya

five hundred excellent cigars would be as good as hi s .Somerville was a generous fellow

,and would surelv

not forget his promise .

These thoughts enabled Yumoto to eat an excellent

meal at Hanaz ono Restaurant untroubled by pricks of

318 A JAPANE S E R OMANCE l

conscience ; for, after all , he had reasoned, He had onlyanticipated Somerville ’s marriage to Miss Desborough.

Perhaps he might have even got r id of his too punctilious ideas , and have married her already.

As he drank hissake and watched thegeishadancing,the memory of the recent scene w ith Mio San in hisoffice was pleasantly obliterated . Women , he thought,were wonderfully fascinating so long as one did nottake them too seriously.


futonat her s ide,with a pass ionate grasp . In this

frail form for the moment was re incarnated the father

who would never return . Then into her mind camethe complete idea of her escape from the bondage ofmarriage with Yoshida , and thinking of it she fel lasleep j ust as the dawn was breaking over the distanthills .

In the room which had been allotted to her in consequence Of the money she had brought and the augustposition she had held as the wife o f Somerville wasthe tiny shrine which had stood in her bedchamber inher home onthe Nagasaki hillside . Into this shrineat noon on the day following she placed two ihai

!memorial tablets ! with their kaimyo in letters of

red and gold . This was the outward sign that she haddeterm ined to rema in faithful to the memory of him

who,so far as she was concerned , might well have been

dead and laid to rest in the cemetery near the temple,beneath the spreading pines and cryptomerias , amid the

grey,l ichen-stained memorials o f forgotten dead .

Then,as the afternoon sun streamed in through the

opened shoj i, and whilst her baby slumbered peacefully upon the futon in the corner of the room ,

she

knelt before the shrine and prayed .

In the garden outside,the flowers of which bloomed,

refreshed by the ra in of the night before—for it wasthe dew month of the seasonof rice planting—thecicadae kept up their ins istent no ise , and from a dis


tance came the water-mus ic of the r iver swollen byrain . But Mio San , kneeling before the batsuma, in

which stood the ihai o f the lost one and herself ,heard neither . In her heart was the overwhelmingsense o f desolation , desertion , and despai r .

At last the prayers,which she murmured so softly

over and over again that her whispering voice sounded

l ike that of the gentle autumn breeze amid the higher

branches o f the pines , ceased . Beside her onthe matting lay a shining Obj ect whose blades every now and

again caught the sunbeams which fell upon them when

the lingering wistaria blossom hanging in long pen

dants from the eaves of the verandah were swung aside

by the wind . At last one more cry was sent up from

Mio San ’s grief- stricken heart to the impass ive figure

of the Buddha within the shrine .Then she slowly

,and with hands that trembled with

p iteous hal f-reluctance,removed the pins

,many o f

which had been Somerville ’s gi fts,from her beauti fully

arranged hair,which soon fel l in dark

,blue-black

masses about her shoulders,almost to her waist . It

was this that she would have laid with scarcely a

regret , although i t was her glory , upon Somervi lle’s

knees in the coffi n had he died ; but to make this rich

offering o f her undying love for him in that way had

been denied her . Now there was no such sacrifice possible save to the memory o f him .

M io San paused for a moment when about to take


up the scissors off the floor bes ide her,and

,taking a

long coil of the glossy tresses in her hands,she drew

it across her shoulders and covered it with k isses . That

one silent act was the only sign of regret she per

mitted hersel f . Then , taking the keen-edged scissors

in her hand , she cut each tress from her head unti l thelast was severed

,and the whole of her beauti ful hair

lay on the white matting in a heap . As the last coi l

fel l under the shears a deep,heartrending sob broke

from her and her eyes fil led with tears .The baby on the futon, awakened by the no ise ,regarded her with blue

,wonder-filled eyes , but Mio

San heeded it not . She gathered the hair up and

plaited it roughly unti l it formed one thick , short rope ,and then she rose to her feet and laid the whole glossy

offering,emblem of her youth and beauty

,within the

butsudanround the base of Somerville ’s ihai.Once more she knelt again in prayer , and it was

thus—shorn of her beautiful hair,which she would

never permit to grow again—that her mother foundher.

With an exclamation of horror and aston ishmentKusatsu San ran to her daughter ’s side .

“What hast thou done , O most miserable girl ?

she cried . What is it I see ? You with no longer

hair upon your head . Speak ; what is the meaningof it ? ”

M io San turned round,and

,facing the speaker,


Mio San did not reply for a few moments to hermother’s upbraiding words . She knew that though

her mother loved her there was no comprehension

possible to her narrow mind of love for the memory of

Somervi lle San such as she felt . Kusatsu San ’s creed

had ever been obedience to her husband and to her

eldest son . She had learned most of the teach ingcontained in the pages o f Onna Daigaku,

” and had

known no other education . She could scarcely write ,and only read with difficulty . She was o f the last

generation,whilst M io San was of the more en

l ightened present .

O august mother , who deigns thus to speak with

me,your unworthy and miserable daughter ,

” M io San

said at length,

“ the hair which I have cut Off i s meant

for a sign of my perpetual widowhood . The few poor

hairs which remain wi ll not meet with favour in the

eyes of O Yoshida San . Surely he will now turn h is

august glance towards the face of Yusuri San , who is

b eauti ful and young .

To Mio San ’s mind her mother ’s suggestion thatYoshida would , now that her beauti ful hair had beencut off , no longer desire her for his wi fe had brought

the only gleam o f comfort which had come to her formany davs . I f only she might be permitted to dwell

with her august parents , tending her baby until the

gods should see fit to summon her to the Land of

Shadows !


Though Okada loved her with a somewhat unusualaffection

,seeing that she was but a daughter

,he could

scarcely control his anger when he learned and saw

what she had done . That night he went to Yoshida ,and whilst they sat onthe verandah of his house told

him what Mio San had done,and asked him i f he sti l l

had any desire for her as his wi fe .Yoshida saw that Okada was hoping that he would

st i ll be prepared to marry her,and so he said

,She i s

less to be desired now than before !but even shorn

of her beauti ful hair he knew that she was prettier o f

form and face than Yusuri San,both o f whose eyes did

not look at one at the same time ! ,“ but you say ,

Okada San,that she has many yen which the English

man who had her to wi fe in Nagasaki left her as consolation ? Okada nodded his head , and Yoshida

continued,And it may be that you would for the sake

of thy daughter ’s marriage with me be willing to give

some yen

Okada looked thoughtful,but he knew Yoshida o f

o ld , and the po ssibi l ity o f his making such a suggestion

had been foreseen . However,he did not speak for a

moment or two , but sat looking out across the river to

where he could see the house o f Yusuri San’s father

and the musume’

hersel f walking onthe little balconyerected partly over the river ’s brink . Yo shida

’

s eyesalso travelled in that direction

,and Okada , noticing

the fact,made his decision .


My unworthy daughter,O Yoshida San , he re

marked , has o f her ownmany yen , but i f your evessti l l look upon her with favour a few more yen

!though I am not a rich man ! shall be added to them .

What is it you say ?Yoshida

’

s heart was made glad,for he des ired Mio

San and the yen that she possessed . And as for her

hair, he thought she could for a time wear false locks

l ike some of the geisha he had seen on his visits to

Nagasaki . So he repl ied , I will wed your honour

able daughter , O Okada San , but see that she goes not

out so that our neighbours and the other women come

to know that she has cut Off her hair and declared that

she will marry no man . But I am Old i f she is

young, and I can wait not much longer for her . Is

she to be mine at the new moon ?

And after a pause Okada replied , She shall beyours .Then Yoshida clapped his hands together loudly and

a pretty musume’

brought the two men some of thebest whisky sake, and they drank together onthe bar

gain . When they had finished Okada took leave of

Yoshida,and crossing the bridge over the river , walked

back along the road to his garden with a feel ing ofsatis faction pervading his whole being. For the

whisky sake had been very good , and Yoshida hadbeen less exigent than he had feared concerning hismarriage with Mio San .


At length,as she grew calmer and could think, an

idea began to formulate itsel f, which long ago had

once or tw ice presented itsel f to her mind when sheand Somerville had commenced to dri ft apart aftersome unintentional

,but none the less bitter, in

stance o f his neglect . Now,as she thought of him ,

the same idea returned,and she was seized with a ter

rible j oy . Surely in the Land of Shadows , where thebeloved ghosts dwelt

,there would be peace for her ,

and i f at times she too returned as they , could she not

go to him and,unseen perhaps

,look upon his face

once more ? Those beloved ghosts could cross riversand mounta ins

,she had heard many times , and could

not the sea wh ich d iv ided him and her be over

passed ?

Til l long after noon she remained in her room lostin thought

,possessed with thi s one idea which had

presented itsel f to her sorrowing, despairing mind .

Kusatsu San came and gazed upon her , and evenspoke to her . But she made no reply beyond an al

most inarticulate plea to be le ft undisturbed .

Towards the afternoon her mother brought Flowerof the Spring and laid her upon the futonin the cornerof the room , but by some strange process of the working of Mio San ’s mind she scarcely noticed her child

,

who soon fell asleep , ti red out with the air and sunshine o f the garden .

At last she rose and went across to it, and knelt


down Over it ti l l her throbbing brow touched its small ,cool face . At the contact Flower o f the Spring openedher blue eyes drowsily for a brie f moment

,and then

closed them again . And Mio San felt that the eyeso f Somerville had looked at her once more .Like one in a dream she rose

,and set off , as she had

done many times before since she had come back to

Ureshino both with her babe and without her, alongthe road towards the river for the bath which so many

other women would be taking at that hour .

When she crossed the bridge spanning the rushing

river the voice of the water seemed to be call ing the

name o f him she loved .

As she entered the long wooden shed which enclosed

the hot springs she heard a woman say,Look ! that

i s Mio San whom her foreign husband left . She is to

marry O Yoshida San at the new moon .

”

At the name of Yoshida M io San , who saw no one

clearly , and in whose ears was stil l the sound o f the

name whispered by the water as it rushed over therocks beneath the bridge

,shivered and passed along

into the bath with a face so colourless that even themen noticed it .

An hour later a woman hurried along the sunlitroad to Okada’

s garden as swi ftly as her geta would

permit . Her face was white and terrified,and it was

evident she had come from the baths in haste , for her


attire was in disarray as though she had scarcely

stopped to dress .Okada was tending his flowers at the far end of thegarden he loved so well . The iri s-beds were now infull bloom

,and as the woman approached he was con

templating their mauve and yellow loveliness .As she came along the sunlit path , onthe flat stones

o f wh ich her geta rang sharply , he looked up and

called out in astonishment at her frightened face ,What is wrong ? ” without the usual polite preliminaries , O Ume San , what i s wrong ?Ume San paused a moment as she reached h is side ,and then she said slowly and tearfully , for she was one

o f Mio San ’s old schoolfel lows,A las ! O Okada

San , weep , for thy daughter Mio San is dead . She

came to the baths to cleanse hersel f but an hour or so

ago , and now she lies dead . The waters swallowed

her up , and Yoshida i s robbed by them of his intended

w i fe .”

Okada stood in the middle of the path near the irispond , in which the frogs were croaking monotonously,as one stunned . For a moment or two the idea o f what

Ume San had told him failed to penetrate h is dazed

mind . But at last he spoke .You do not speak the truth

,Ume San

,he said .

'

Mio San cannot be dead . She was here well and

beauti ful but a short hour or so gone. You aremistaken .

CHAPTER XXII

T was more than a week ere Yumoto heard of thefinal scene of the little tragedy which had commenced within h is own ken in the house upon the

Nagasaki hil lside .

The tea-planter ofUresh ino, to whom he had writtenearly in the year when getting into communication with

Mio San ’s people , happened to have business inNa

gasaki, and called onhim . And then,in conversation ,

the whole sad story was told to Yumoto . No one

seemed to know in Ureshino—so at least said KanZ an, the tea-planter—how the affair had happened ;and for several days after the occurrence the village

was divided into two parties—those who said that M ioSan ’s death was an accident and those who said she

had compassed her owndeath .

When Kan-Z anhad gone Yumoto leaned back in hi s

chair and thought deeply . One fact remained clear,Mio San was dead and would no longer prove asource of embarrassment to his honourable friendSomervi lle . The excellent cigars , the smoking of

which he had often anticipated with pleasure,seemed

very near now .Whilst Kan-Z anhad been telling him the story he


had felt a pass ing sense of keen regret, but the effect of

this had soon worn off . R educed to its elements

and Yumoto was fond o f this process o f logic—thesituation amounted to l ittle more than the death by

her ownhand , or otherwise , o f a gardener’s daughter

at Ureshino , which only gained any importance in his

mind by reason o f the fact that by it an esteemed

friend ’s embarrassment was largely alleviated . Then

he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to ask

Kan-Z ananything concerning the child . But after

all,

” he said musingly,whilst his eyes looked away out

of the window absently at the throng on the sunl it

hatoba, it i s j ust as well I was not curious enough to

do so . I need not trouble my august friend Somer

vi lle with the matter . ”

Then Yumoto rose and went out along the Bund

to the telegraph office , and cabled to Somervi lle inLondon .

Rodney Jefferson and Somerville were j ust finishing thei r breakfast ona brill iantly fine June morning,and congratulating themselves that the day on the

river they had planned for a week past would prove a

pleasant break after several weeks o f hard work,when

Aston entered and handed Somervi lle Yumoto’

s

cablegram .

Jefferson glanced up as his friend turned the envelope over , as though seeking to discover the sender


and contents without opening it . At last,when Aston

had left the room , he tore i t open .

The message was very b rief,for Yumoto was a

business man , and had learned to economise words

when they cost him nearly two dollars each .

Not bad news,I hope ? ” Jefferson queried slowly

,

as he saw Somerville ’s face blanch .

Yes ,” replied the latter huskily

,push ing the

fl imsy slip o f paper across the table R ead

Jefferson took it and read the message She died

with her people at Ureshino ten days ago .—YU M OTO.

That was all .

The sender had hesitated at first whilst he was writing out the message in the busy ofl‘

ice whether the last

few words were necessary,but had decided to cable

them out of consideration for Somerville ’s feelings ,thinking that i t would be a sati sfaction to him to know

that the woman he had abandoned had not d ied awayfrom the solace of her ownpeople .Through Somerville ’s mind rushed a flood of vain

and vague regrets . And then , although he would have

had it otherwise,came the overmastering thought and

the j oy of it that he was free—free to see the womanhe desired with such overpowering longing. Not yet

awhile perhaps,but soon . Sooner than he had dared

to hope the cords which bound him had be en severed ,and he was free .

No thought of the manner of Mio San’s death j ust

336 A JAPANE S E I s s amtp E

But all the time there was a note of j oy in his heartwhich no memory of the past days in the O rient couldsilence . When he had retired to his own studio , a

room which he had rented on the floor above Jefferson ’s flat , whose other rooms he had arranged to share ,he sat down to think .

His sense of common propriety revolted from the

idea o f approaching Violet Desborough with a viewo f again asking her to marry him unti l a decent intervalshould separate such a proceeding from Mio San ’s

death . But at the same time he recognised that his

departure without a word for Paris,where he would

remain unti l the autumn at work and endeavouring tofind a tenant for his o ld studio , would possibly vex herand even be misunderstood .

He had met her several times since h is return,and

and he knew that she loved him as she had done even

when re fusing him upon the Orient Queen. The voice

of his desire urged that he should delay no longer

should assure hi s own happiness now that it once more

seemed within reach . But as this voice spoke the visiono f the little woman who in her own way had loved

him so well , and between whom and h im racial di fferences had placed a gul f that he was incapable of

bridging , seemed to plead sorrowfully for some slightdelay prompted by regret .

Next day Violet Desborough rece ived a brief notefrom Somervi lle which told of his almost immediate


departure for Paris and hi s deep regret that he would

not see her again ere he left. But between the linesshe could read the happiness he said he would ex

perience onhis return .

I shall call onyou i f you are in town , he said in

ending,within a few hours of my return . There is

something I wish to ask of you which more than a

year ago you refused to grant me .”

As Violet Desborough folded the letter and put it

away w ith a few others she had received from him ,

there was a look o f contentment upon her face that

was full of promise for the man who had written it .

Somerv il le had been in Paris nearly two months ereYumoto

’

s letter reached him . In the penning of it

his friend had been as discreet as hi s wont . Why

trouble my friend ? ” he had said to himsel f,as he sat

down to write it, with the autumn rain rattling like

buckshot onthe roof above his head and blotting out

most o f the length o f the hatoba with a watery veil ;why trouble him with painful details or a mention of

the child who bore in her eyes and face the image of

her white father ? ” And so beyond the fact that MioSan had been drowned whilst bathing in the publicbaths at Ureshino Somerville learned nothing .

During his two months ’ stay in Paris the regret andthe small measure of sel f-condemnation from which he

had suffered for the first few days after the receipt o fYumoto

’

s cablegram had gradually faded,and he was


too honest to seek to delude himsel f by s imulatedsorrow. He had succeeded in disposing of the re

mainder of his term of the studio in the Rue de Madame , and there was nothing to keep him much longer

away from London and the woman he loved .

The day after he received Yumoto ’

s letter he wroteto Rodney Jefferson , to advise him of h is return w ith ina fortnight.The September w inds were str ipp ing the trees of the

Boulevards of their leaves and whirling them aroundthe street corners to the embarrassment of pedestrainswhen Somerville left Paris for London . A lthough itwas the autumn of Dame Nature

,in his heart was the

spring of immortal hope .Rodney Jefferson welcomed him gai ly, for in the

eyes of h is return ing friend the light of unaffected

happ iness gleamed .

There was no reference to the past , for Somerville

had buried that under the thin earth of the present as

only such a temperament as his could .

You w i l l see her ? ” queried Jeffersonas they sat

down to dinner.“Yes, was the reply, to-n ight.

THE END.

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