It was a dull season for news. From San Francisco they had cabled him to "hold down." A nation-wide strike in America and one of these European reparations conferences were filling the papers at home, leaving space for Oriental matters. Anyway, nothing was happening. His idleness irked him. Everything seemed to have slipped into a dull, wearisome routine. He rebelled at it—anything for a bit of excitement of some kind, any kind. The thought came to him, kept , that now was time to look about a little, to experiment with Karsten's advice. After all, why not? Was he not missing something, an interesting and pleasing phase of life in the Orient, one that they all unanimously described as , from Pierre Loti on. Even the warning contained in the episode between Karsten and Jun-san was losing its significance. At home matters had slipped back into the old, daily routine, as if nothing had happened. Through the day she was always in the main house, watching with care to meet Karsten's wants, retiring only when he had , to her own house, the which Karsten had had built for her when their love was young. As he looked back at it, it seemed to him that probably the whole thing had been just a little melodramatic; they had been overwrought, excited. Karsten had always been super-sensitive, too to his own emotions; the dramatic instinct, no doubt. And then Jun-san. Well, they were not all like her. These international adventures were often, generally indeed, colored by humor rather than by tragedy.
He recalled the predicament, a few weeks ago, of Carruthers, who had amused his group of friends with his alarm at his predicament. A geisha had unexpectedly, much to his pleased surprise, sent a note to him. She had summoned him, and he had answered, quickly enough, in a spirit of curiosity. Later it had developed that she thought he looked like Douglas Fairbanks, her favorite motion-picture hero. Carruthers, solemnly horse-faced, the practical salesman from Pittsburgh—they had all been highly amused at the . The later developments had given them still more and even greater delight.
Carruthers had taken a house in one of the suburbs in preparation for the arrival of his wife and drove of children. But he had thought that he might as well make use of the opportunity, his last fling of freedom. So he had invited her there, and she had come, and she had stayed, and when the wife was due in but a few days, she had still stayed, had refused to leave. Carruthers had been . It had delighted them. Five days more—and she held the fort. Three days only. He had rushed from one to the other to help him out, give him advice, take the girl away, steal her from him, anything. "For God's sake, fellows, this is no joke. Take her off my hands, somebody." It had them. "But how, Carruthers? Be sensible. We don't look like Douglas Fairbanks." It had been entrancingly amusing. Despairingly he had given the details. "The day after to-morrow, and she won't get out. I've told her my wife is coming, my wife. And she says she loves me. She don't care. If my wife comes, she will stay as my mekake, my concubine. Imagine me introducing: Mrs. Carruthers, my concubine—just like that! No, by Cæsar, it's gone beyond a joke. You've got to help me out." By Jove, it had[Pg 112] been a scream, till the very last. But on the last day of grace they had rid him of the lady. It had not been so easy, either. It had taken all the powers of the Nishimura to move her. He was useful, as he claimed. And Carruthers had had to pay her geisha for a month. He looked upon it as a joke now; rather enjoyed telling the story. And the girl, she had taken no hurt, either. Nishimura said that she had spread the glad tidings all over Shimbashi. There was only fun, amusement, in an episode like that, at least if one were single, and then a little excitement. Life was becoming .
He was gradually becoming better acquainted with his geisha neighbor. Toshi-san she said her name was, and he was introduced to the duenna, her "mother" she called her, and to her maid, and to her doll, Mitsuko-san. In the morning, at about ten o'clock, when she opened the shoji to look at the weather, they often chatted. She was a pretty, little thing, wholly adorable, and they knew how to look after themselves, these geisha. So why not?
Sometimes, in the afternoon, before she began her caterwauling samisen practice, she would play for him a few phonograph pieces, "Rigoletto," the Dvořák "Humoresque," the things which it seemed all Tokyo was fond of. He did not understand much about music, still it seemed to him a pity if this country, these people, who had until now acquired fair taste through the fortunate absence of trashy, ephemeral rubbish, should now fall victims to the various "" and "Bells" of fox-trot .
She evidently enjoyed the music; that was not pose. Her face beamed when she would announce the acquisition of a new record. "I have got 'Ave Malia.' It goes like that." She tried a high note, amusingly , in her typical geisha falsetto. "You should[Pg 113] see my phonograph. It is high, like that," she held her hand to the height of her .
It seemed a chance. "All right, let me see it. I'd like to. When?"
But she was . No, certainly not. Of course, he could not come to her house. The obstacle made him .
"All right, then. I'll go to the waiting-house over there and send for you. Then you'll have to come, won't you?"
"Yes, maybe; but if I come I'll bring my Mother." She her tongue at him, just an infinitesimal tip, pink between white teeth, laughed, and was gone.
It seemed absurd. The girl was a geisha; it was her business to entertain guests, dance and sing for them at least, even if she must reserve the favors of affection for that police , whose presence one sensed, obscure in the background, through the phonograph, the ever multiplying new records, new , all evidently offerings from him.
"I don't quite get it all. Surely she doesn't drag that stage property mother of hers about wherever she has guests. Can you explain?" he asked Karsten.
"Well, first of all, of course, you can't visit a geisha in her own house; at least, old man, it is not , it isn't done. You must meet them in the waiting-houses. If they didn't the waiting-houses would lose their commissions and would the geisha. And the geisha would cause trouble. It is with that as with everything else in Japan, as in business where there must always be a half dozen middlemen between producer and consumer. Of course, you might take her on a picnic, if she consents, but I wouldn't, if I were you. Japan is changing. We are getting away from the days of Loti. Be , anyway. And then it's expensive. You have to pay a tremendous fee[Pg 114] even for just the pleasure of her pick flowers, or sea shells, or whatever it might be, and she will have you buy a cartload of souvenirs for herself, and the mother, and the maid, and her friends, and the cat, for all I know. Anyway, remember the police commissioner. She would probably not dare."
So the matter did not progress. They chatted almost every day, across the , but she smiled at his invitations, enjoyed teasing him. It seemed an .
He had stayed late at the Foreign Office, one afternoon, talking with young Kikuchi. They to dine together, but Kikuchi had an engagement and left early. Kent did not feel like going home. A gorgeously brilliant full moon, supernaturally large, was rising over the Shiba park trees. It brought out Tokyo to best advantage. In the half-light the crude modernisms, the telephone poles, wires, irritating newfangled architecture, faded away, and one might let the eye see only typical Japan, the lighted shoji, curved rooftrees. He had had a few , felt with effervescent life, under the of the moon, anticipatingly ready and eager for something out of the ordinary, some adventure. It might anywhere, inside shoji, in dark . He strolled through the geisha quarter, hoping that from some miniature garden, glimpsed through ornate gate, might stretch towards him white hands, might come some soft seductive voice. He knew that it was unlikely, that, did he desire adventure, he must take the initiative. But he did not wish to do that. It would spoil just that element of chance, casual hazard of fortune, that was essential. He felt that somehow it was close at hand, would come to-night, out of the silver-blue. His , mood, the[Pg 115] moon, the whispering mystery of coyly self-effacive Tokyo, gave him an odd feeling as if the entire great city were a slily courtesan, enigmatically but encouragingly smiling upon him.
But it seemed all to be a great, fantastic mockery. Desire, mood, setting, romantic, adventure, were all there, but as he passed along, expectantly turning this corner, then the next, ever , hopeful that now it would come—nothing came. The were almost . A geisha passed him, tripping along with evident set destination, followed by her little maid clasping long-necked silk-wrapped samisen, but she was answering the call of some one else, some male waiting on the zabuton somewhere. Fate was concerned with others, was busy elsewhere. His walk became disappointing, tedious. Now he was near his office. He had run out of tobacco. He went upstairs. It was the first time he had been there at night. His glance strayed across to Toshi-san's window. It was dark. Where might she be; entertaining some one, possibly that damned commissioner.
The moonlight was glorious. He remembered that Nishimura had said that the flat roof of the house was a fine place for tsuki-mi, viewing the moon, the favorite Japanese pastime which even the most prosaic seemed to appreciate. Why not take a look; the night was still young. He climbed up the narrow ladder-like staircase, pushed a sliding cover and climbed out on the roof. Loose had been placed to form a crude flooring. He on them, and looked about, over the tiled roofs, the small platforms built on them for clothes drying and, more romantically, tsuki-mi.
On the platform just opposite something moved, took shape of a woman. He forward to see more closely.
"Good-evening, Kent-san. Do you like the moon view?"
It was Toshi-san, the adventure at last. He would not let it slip from him. She was entrancing in the moonlight, ethereal as some fantastic fairy-land picture. From where he sat the moon was almost directly behind her. An inspiration came to him and he moved a little, bringing the great, yellow directly in line behind her, so that her head was against it, high helmet-like coiffure out black, sharply contoured, the glowing disk against her profile like a halo—a image, a geisha with a halo. Surely this was a night of witchery!
The opportunity had come. He jumped to his feet, the loose boards under him. It gave him an idea; he picked up one of them and placed it as a bridge over the space between the two platforms. She had risen also, stood looking over to him, hands grasping the low railing. What on earth was this mad foreigner about to do now?
He tested the with his foot. "O-Toshi-san. I am coming over to you."
"You mustn't. Abunai. Take care." But as she she held out her hands towar............