static moment
when the sense of time is lost--and then the return to earth on lazy
languorous wings like a sea-gull floating motionless on a shoreward
breeze. Such was Yae's ideal of Love and of Life too. It is not for
us to condemn Yae, but rather should we censure the blasphemy of mixed
marriages which has brought into existence these thistledown children
of a realm which has no kings or priests or laws or Parliaments or
duty or tradition or hope for the future, which has not even an acre
of dry ground for its heritage or any concrete symbol of its soul--the
Cimmerian land of Eurasia.

Reggie Forsyth understood the pathos of the girl's position; and being
a rebel and an anarchist at heart, he readily condoned the faults
which she confided to him frankly. Gradually Pity, most dangerous
of all counsellors, revealed her to him as a girl romantically
unfortunate, who never had a fair chance in life, who had been
the sport of bad men and fools, who needed only a measure of true
friendship and affection for the natural sunshine of her disposition
to scatter the rank vapours of her soul's night. What Reggie grasped
only in that one enlightened moment when he had christened her Lamia,
was the tragic fact that she had no soul.

CHAPTER XVI

THE GREAT BUDDHA

_Tsuki-yo yoshi
Tachitsu itsu netsu
Mitsu-no-hama._

The sea-shore of Mitsu!
Standing, sitting or lying
down,
How lovely is the moonlight
night!

Before the iris had quite faded, and before the azaleas of Hibiya were
set ablaze--in Japan they count the months by the blossoming of the
flowers--Reggie Forsyth had deserted Tokyo for the joys of sea bathing
at Kamakura. He attended at the Embassy for office hours during
the morning, but returned to the seaside directly after lunch. This
departure disarranged Geoffrey's scheme for his friend's salvation;
for he was not prepared to go the length of sacrificing his daily game
of tennis.

"What do you want to leave us for?" he remonstrated.

"The bathing," said Reggie, "is heavenly. Besides, next month I have
to go into _villegiatura_ with my chief. I must prepare myself for the
strain with prayer and fasting. But why don't you come down and join
us?"

"Is there any tennis?" asked Geoffrey.

"There is a court, a grass court with holes in it; but I've never seen
anybody playing."

"Then what is there to do?"

"Oh, bathing and sleeping and digging in the sand and looking at
temples and