"And now," Karsten was laughing across his glass, "I take it that I'm not premature——"  
"But you are." had suddenly flashed upon Kent that he had nothing to celebrate; he had nothing, had been brought no nearer a decision in his relationship with this girl. All this feeling of certainty, this sense of having won her, was self-created, of auto-intoxication based on nothing . He became instantly irritated. "drop this horse-play, Karsten. I don't mind telling you I wish there were something to celebrate; but you spoiled it all, rushing in as you did. If you hadn't, I might now have known——"
 
"Fiddlesticks, there's not a shadow of a doubt. Of course, I realized it the moment I rushed in upon you two, just what was about to pass; and after that, when I was alone with her after you had left, it was plain enough. I used to think I knew something about women; I'm certainly not mistaken now. And, Kent, old man, while I shall be sorry to lose you, I'm glad this has come about. I'm getting to be an old man. I have come to enjoy my sensations in respect to women vicariously, by watching others, men and women whom I like, and you won't mind my telling you that I've had not a little such vicarious pleasure through you, enjoying, at second hand, your experiences, what little you told me and what I might deduce and add thereto, with these Japanese girls; and, old man, I'm honestly glad that you are now finally coming to the end, and that it is not a Japanese girl."
 
[Pg 294]
 
"What!" He had not entirely liked Karsten's , had sensed a trace of that the other should thus have been watching him critically, as if he were some one more or less , detached, performing on a stage for his edification. But he forgot all this in his at this last pronouncement—coming from Karsten of all men. Why not a Japanese girl? "Why," he asked him the question. "Why not a Japanese? I thought you liked the Japanese?"
 
"For myself, yes; for you, no," Karsten laughed, filled his pipe, lit it. "You know there's a tremendous lot of talk and argument on the question of mixed marriages. People say this and they say that, and yet I think the matter resolves itself into the question of what a man seeks in marriage, what he expects in the woman he joins himself with for life. It depends on whether a man loves with his intellect or whether he loves with his senses. You and I furnish good examples. You love essentially with your brain. Of course, you enjoy and color, beauty, charm, and all that; you saw them in these Japanese girls, and they fascinated you, entranced you. And that was what I was a little afraid of, that you might to it, that you might suffer yourself to be overcome by this , ephemeral of the exotic; for it would have been fatal for you; the newness is bound to wear off; and what you look for in marriage, the thing in a woman which can hold you, is intellect. You want beauty, charm, of course, but for you the great essential thing is brains, a woman who can be a companion, a comrade, who can have all your interests in common with you. That's the only kind of a relation that may be in your case.
 
"Now take my own. I love essentially with my[Pg 295] senses. Of course, I want a woman with sense, intelligence; a fool would irritate me immeasurably; I have no patience with fools; but I would be just as intolerant with what we may call the 'trained intellect' in a woman who was my constant companion. I enjoy that, greatly even, when I chance across it in other women; but in the case of my own woman, the one with me always, I want no arguments, no discussions in respect to my own essential intellectual pursuits and interests. Bluntly, I want to supply all the brains for the household. It's intolerant, of course, but that's how I am. What I want is not a woman who'll discuss politics, or Freud, or Relativity with me. I want one whom I may enjoy as I do a picture, music, . Of course, you see that I don't mean physical enjoyment—the man who marries for that is obviously a fool—but what I'm trying to drive at is that I enjoy woman companionship through impressions, through the visions and dreams that her presence, her loveliness, her charm, her womanliness, bring to me, not through ideas or debates. And that's why in my case I felt that I might find happiness best with a Japanese, who might be all of these things to me, playmate, doll, companion, picture—everything but an or text-book on philosophy. And I had it, Kent. I had all that with Jun-san—I have told you. My God, those were years of happiness. But it was too perfect. I thought I had life all solved for me, that I had finally gained , peace; that I was about to accomplish something worth while—and then," he picked up his glass, smashed it into the bowl for pipe litter, "then to have it all smashed, like that—and by my own son!"
 
"Your son," Kent leaned forward, hands gripping chair arms. "Your son! You don't mean Mortimer?"
 
[Pg 296]
 
"He's the only son I have, isn't he?" Karsten had been pacing the floor; now he turned, facing Kent, glaring. "I didn't mean to tell you; but now you know it. Of course, I mean Mortimer."
 
"But it's impossible, it's absurd, it's , Karsten, man; you don't mean to say that you've been your life over such an insane fever fancy as that?"
 
"Fancy, hell! It's good enough in you, Kent, to stick up for the boy, to believe it impossible; but, hang it, man, I saw it with my own eyes."
 
"By the gods, Karsten, you lie." He had jumped up, flung the challenge into his face, eyes flashing, lips parted.
 
"I don't take that from any man, Kent." Karsten's fist flung in swing for attack. Kent faced him, left arm on guard. For a moment they stood facing each other, glaring, then Karsten's fist dropped, he relaxed, flung wide his hands. "Oh, what's the use, Kent. I'm sorry. It is good of you to stick up for the boy; but, I tell you, I know. Let us drop this, old man. Finish. Let us have a drink and say no more about it."
 
"No, hold on." Kent had dropped into his chair and sat there, chin resting in cupped hand, the other stretched towards Karsten in a gesture off interruption. "Karsten, you know I'm not trying to probe into this just out of idle curiosity; but I have an idea. I wonder—— Now I want you to tell me exactly, in every detail, just what you did see, the whole thing."
 
"But what good can it do? Do you think I enjoy this? Oh, very well, then," he his shoulders. "Since you seem so set on it, I'll tell you.
 
"It happened when Mortimer came to Japan to visit[Pg 297] me for a few months when he was through college, before he went to Europe. Of course, I was living with Jun-san then, but he didn't know it. She was living............