ting wildly like savage devotees calling upon their gods. The sea
sparkled like silver round their tawny skin. Their torsos were well
formed and hardy; their dwarfed and ill-shaped legs were hidden by the
waves. Certainly they presented an artistic contrast with the sodden
blue of the foreigners' bathing suits. But Asako, brought up to the
strict ideals of convent modesty, said:

"I think it's disgusting; the police ought to stop those people
bathing with no clothes on."

The dust and sun of the motor ride, the constant anxiety lest they
might run over some doddering old woman or some heedless child, had
given her a headache. As soon as Geoffrey returned from his dip, she
announced that she would go back to her room.

As the headache continued, she abandoned the idea of dancing. She
would go to bed, and listen to the music in the distance. Geoffrey
wished to stay with her, but she would not hear of it. She knew that
her husband was fond of dancing; she thought that the change and the
brightness would be good for him.

"Don't flirt with Yae Smith," she smiled, as he gave her the last
kiss, "or Reggie will be jealous."

At first Geoffrey was bored. He did not know many of the dancers,
business people from Yokohama, most of them, or strangers stopping at
the hotel. Their appearance depressed him. The women had hard faces,
the lustre was gone from their hair, they wore ill-fitting dresses
without style or charm. The men were gross, heavy-limbed and
plethoric. The music was appalling. It was produced out of a piano,
a cello, and a violin driven by three Japanese who cared nothing for
time or tune. Each dance, evidently, was timed to last ten minutes.
At the end of the ten minutes the music stopped without finishing the
phrase or even the bar; and the movement of the dancers was jerked
into stability.

Reggie entered the room with Yae Smith. His manner was unusually
excited and elate.

"Hello, Geoffrey, enjoying yourself?"

"No," said Geoffrey, "my wife has got a headache; and that music is
simply awful."

"Come and have a drink," proposed Reggie.

He took them aside into the bar and ordered champagne.

"This is to drink our own healths," he announced, "and many years
of happiness to all of us. It is also, Geoffrey, to drive away your
English spleen, and to make you into an agreeable grass-widower into
whose hands I may commend this young lady, because you can dance and I
cannot. My evening is complete. This is