notes with her mother."

Upstairs in her bedroom, Asako had unrolled the precious _obi_. An
unmounted photograph came fluttering out of the parcel. It was a
portrait of her father alone taken a short time before his death. At
the back of the photograph was some Japanese writing.

"Is Tanaka there?" Asako asked her maid Titine.

Yes, of course, Tanaka was there, in the next room with his ear near
the door.

"Tanaka, what does this mean?"

"Japanese poem," he said, "meaning very difficult: very many meanings:
I think perhaps it means, having travelled all over the world, he
feels very sad."

"Yes, but word for word, Tanaka, what does it mean?"

"This writing means, World is really not the same it says: all the
world very many tell lies."

"And this?"

"This means, Travelling everywhere."

"And this at the end?"

"It means, Eveything always the same thing. Very bad translation I
make. Very sad poem."

"And this writing here?"

"That is Japanese name--Fujinami Katsundo--and the date, twenty-fifth
year of Meiji, twelfth month."

Tanaka had turned over the photograph and was looking attentively at
the portrait.

"The honoured father of Ladyship, I think," he said.

"Yes," said Asako.

Then she thought she heard her husband's step away down the corridor.
Hurriedly she thrust _obi_ and photograph into a drawer.

Now, why did she do that? wondered Tanaka.

CHAPTER XIV

THE DWARF TREES

_Iwa-yado ni
Tateru maisu no ki,
Na wo mireba,
Mukashi no hito wo
Ai-miru gotashi._

O pine-tree standing
At the (side of) the stone house,
When I look at you,
It is like seeing face to face
The men of old time.

For the first time during the journey of their married lives, Geoffrey
and Asako were pursuing different paths. It is the normal thing, no
doubt, for the man to go out to his work and to his play, while the
wife attends to her social and domestic duties. The evening brings
reunion with new impressions and new interests to discuss. Such a life
with its brief restorative separations prevents love growing stale,
and soothes the irritation of nerves which, by the strain of petty
repetitions, are exasperated sometimes into blasphemy of the heart's
true creed. But the Barrington _menage_ was an unusual one. By
adopting a life of travel, they had devoted themselves to a
protracted honeymoon, a relentless _tete-a-tete_. So long as they were
continually on the move, constantly refr