d of the girls of the hotel, she arrayed herself in
the garments of a Japanese lady of position with her hair dressed
in the shiny black helmet-shape, and her waist encased in the broad,
tight _obi_ or sash, which after all was no more uncomfortable than
a corset. Thus attired she came down to dinner one evening, trotting
behind her husband as a well-trained Japanese wife should do. In
foreign dress she appeared _petite_ and exotic, but one would have
hesitated to name the land of her birth. It was a shock to Geoffrey
to see her again in her native costume. In Europe, it had been a
distinction, but here, in Japan, it was like a sudden fading into the
landscape. He had never realised quite how entirely his wife was one
of these people. The short stature and the shuffling gait, the tiny
delicate hands, the grooved slit of the eyelids, and the oval of the
face were pure Japanese. The only incongruous elements were the white
ivory skin which, however, is a beauty not unknown among home-reared
Japanese women also, and, above all, the expression which looked out
of the dancing eyes and the red mouth ripe for kisses, an expression
of freedom, happiness, and natural high spirits, which is not to be
seen in a land where the women are hardly free, never natural, and
seldom happy. The Japanese woman's face develops a compressed look
which leaves the features a mere mask, and acquires very often a
furtive glance, as of a sharp-fanged animal half-tamed by fear,
something weasel-like or vixenish.

Flaunting her native costume, Asako came down to dinner at the Miyako
Hotel, laughing, chattering, and imitating the mincing steps of her
country-women and their exaggerated politeness. Geoffrey tried to play
his part in the little comedy; but his good spirits were forced
and gradually silence fell between them, the silence which falls on
masqueraders in fancy dress, who have tried to play up to the spirit
of their costume, but whose imagination flags. Had Geoffrey been
able to think a little more deeply he would have realized that this
play-acting was a very visible sign of the gulf which yawned between
his wife and the yellow women of Japan. She was acting as a white
woman might have done, certain of the impossibility of confusion. But
Geoffrey for the first time felt his wife's exoticism, not from the
romantic and charming side, but from the ugly, sinister, and--horrible
word--inferior side of it. Had he married a coloured woman? Was he