lamour of the torrent, the heavy splashing
of raindrops delayed among the leaves, and the distant thunder of
waterfalls.

What a relief to breath again, and what a pleasure to escape from the
tortuous streets and the toy houses, from the twisted prettiness of
the Tokyo gardens and the tiresome delicacy of the rice-field mosaic,
into a wild and rugged nature, a land of forests and mountains
reminiscent of Switzerland and Scotland, where the occasional croak of
a pheasant fell like music upon Geoffrey's ear!

The two hours' climb ended abruptly in a level sandy road running
among birch trees. At a wayside tea-house a man was sitting on a low
table. He wore white trousers, a coat of cornflower shade and a Panama
hat--all very spick and span. It was Reggie Forsyth.

"Hello," he cried, "my dear old Geoffrey! I'm awfully glad you've
come. But you ought to have brought Mrs. Harrington too. You seem
quite incomplete without her."

"Yes, it's a peculiar sensation, and I don't like it. But the heat,
you know, at Tokyo, it made me feel rotten. I simply had to come away.
And Asako is so busy now with her new cousins and her Japanese house
and all the rest of it."

For the first time Reggie thought that he detected a tone in his
friend's voice which he had been expecting to hear sooner or later, a
kind of "flagging" tone--he found the word afterwards in working out
a musical sketch called _Love's Disharmony_. Geoffrey looked white
and tired, he thought. It was indeed high time that he came up to the
mountains.

They were approaching the lake, which already showed through the
tree-trunks. A path led away to the left across a rustic bridge.

"That's the way to the hotel. Yae is there. Farther along are the
Russian, French and British Embassies. That's about half an hour from
here."

Reggie's little villa stood at a few minutes' distance in the opposite
direction, past two high Japanese hotels which looked like skeleton
houses with the walls taken out of them, past sheds where furs were on
sale, and picture post-cards, and dry biscuits.

The garden of the villa jutted out over the lake on an embankment of
stones. The house was discreetly hidden by a high hedge of evergreens.

"William Tell's chapel," explained Reggie, "a week in lovely Lucerne!"

It was a Japanese house, another skeleton. From the wicket gate,
Geoffrey could see its simple scheme open to the four winds, its
scanty furniture unblushingly displayed; downsta