e; you can't whistle it," said
Geoffrey, who exaggerated his Philistinism to throw Reggie's artistic
nature into stronger relief. "But what has that got to do with the
lady?"

"Her name is Smith," said Reggie. "I know it is almost impossible and
terribly sad; but her other name is Yae. Rather wild and savage--isn't
it? Like the cry of a bird in the night-time, or of a cannibal tribe
on the warpath."

"And is this your oriental version of Veronique?" asked his friend.

"No," said Reggie, "it is a different chapter of experience
altogether. Perhaps old Hardwick was right. I still have much to
learn, thank God. Veronique was personal; Yae is symbolic. She is my
model, just like a painter's model, only more platonic. She is the
East to me; for I cannot understand the East pure and undiluted. She
is a country-woman of mine on her father's side, and therefore easier
to understand. Impersonality and fatalism, the Eastern Proteus, in
the grip of self-insistence and idealism, the British Hercules. A
butterfly body with this cosmic war shaking it incessantly. Poor
child! no wonder she seems always tired."

"She is a half-caste?" asked Geoffrey.

"Bad word, bad word. She isn't half-anything; and caste suggests India
and suttees. She is a Eurasian, a denizen of a dream country which has
a melodious name and no geographical existence. Have you ever
heard anybody ask where Eurasia was? I have. A traveling Member of
Parliament's wife at the Embassy here only a few months ago. I said
that it was a large undiscovered country lying between the Equator and
Tierra del Fuego. She seemed quite satisfied, and wondered whether
it was very hot there; she remembered having heard a missionary once
complain that the Eurasians wore so very few clothes! But to return
to Yae, you must meet her. This evening? No? To-morrow then. You will
like her because, she looks something like Asako; and she will adore
you because you are utterly unlike me. She comes here to inspire me
once or twice a week. She says she likes me because everything in
my house smells so sweet. That is the beginning of love, I sometimes
think. Love enters the soul through the nostrils. If you doubt me,
observe the animals. But foreign houses in Japan are haunted by a
smell of dust and mildew. You cannot love in them. She likes to lie
on my sofa, and smoke cigarettes, and do nothing, and listen to my
playing tunes about her."

"You are very impressionable," said his friend. "I