doors. Perhaps it is because their own houses
are so draughty and uncomfortable.

This day they were out in their thousands, men and women, drifting
aimlessly along the pavements, as is their wont, wrapped in grey
ulsters, their necks protected by ragged furs, pathetic spoils of
domestic tabbies, and their heads sheltered under those wide oil-paper
umbrellas, which have become a symbol of Japan in foreign eyes, the
gigantic sunflowers of rainy weather, huge blooms of dark blue or
black or orange, inscribed with the name and address of the owner in
cursive Japanese script.

Most of these people are wearing _ashida_, high wooden clogs perilous
to the balance, which raise them as on stilts above the street level
and add to the fantastical appearance of these silent shuffling
multitudes.

The snow falls, covering the city's meannesses, its vulgar apings of
Americanisms, its crude advertisements. On the other hand, the
true native architecture asserts itself, and becomes more than ever
attractive. The white purity seems to gather all this miniature
perfection, these irregular roofs, these chalet balconies, these broad
walls and studies in rock and tree under a close-fitting cape, its
natural winter garment.

* * * * *

The first chill of the rough weather kept Geoffrey and Asako by their
fireside. But the indoor amenities of Japanese hotel life are few.
There is a staleness in the public rooms and an angular discord in the
private sitting-rooms, which condemn the idea of a comfortable day
of reading, or of writing to friends at home about the Spirit of the
East. So at the end of the first half of a desolate afternoon, a visit
to the Embassy suggested itself.

They left the hotel, ushered on their way by bowing _boy sans_; and
in a few minutes an unsteady motor-car, careless of obstacles and
side-slips, had whirled them through the slushy streets into
the British compound, which only wanted a robin to look like the
conventional Christmas card.

It was a pleasant shock, after long traveling through countries
modernized in a hurry, to be received by an English butler against a
background of thick Turkey carpet, mahogany hall table and Buhl clock.
It was like a bar of music long-forgotten to see the fall of snowy
white cards accumulating in their silver bowl.

Lady Cynthia Cairns's drawing-room was not an artistic apartment; it
was too comfortable for that. There were too many chairs and