e been
mad to think of me like that. Besides," he added sheepishly, "nothing
actually happened."

"I'm sure I don't care what actually happened or did not happen. Damn
actual facts. They distort the truth. They are at the bottom of every
injustice. What actually happened never matters. It is the picture
which sticks in one's brain. True or false, it sticks just the same;
and suddenly or slowly it alters every thing. But I can wipe up my
own mess, I think. It is much more serious with you than with me,
Geoffrey. She has bruised my heel, but she has broken your head. No,
don't protest, for Heaven's sake! I am not interested."

"Then what she says is absolutely true?" said Geoffrey, lighting his
cigarette at last, and throwing the match aside as if it were Hope.
"For a whole year I have been living on prostitutes' earnings. I am
no better than those awful _ponces_ in Leicester Square, who can be
flogged if they are caught, and serve them right too. And all that
filthy Yoshiwara, it belongs to Asako, to my sweet innocent little
girl, just as Brandan belongs to my father; and with all this
filthy money we have been buying comforts and clothes and curios and
rubbish."

Reggie was pouring out whiskies and sodas, two strong ones. Geoffrey
gulped down his drink, and then proceeded with his lamentation:

"I understand it all now. Everybody knew. The secrecy and the mystery.
Even at my wedding they were saying, 'Don't go to Japan, don't go.'
They must have all known even then. And then those damned Fujinami,
so anxious to be civil for the beastly money's sake, and yet hiding
everything and lying all the time. And you knew, and the Ambassador,
and Count Saito, and the servants too--always whispering and laughing
behind our backs. But you, Reggie, you were my friend, you ought to
have told me."

"I asked Sir Ralph," said Reggie candidly, "whether you ought to be
told. He is a very wise man. He said, 'No.' He said, 'It would be
cruel and it would be useless. They will go back to England soon and
then they will never know.' Where ignorance is bliss, you understand?"

"It was unfair," groaned Geoffrey; "you were all deceiving me."

"I said to Sir Ralph that it seemed to me unfair and dangerous. But he
has more experience than I."

"But what am I to do now?" said the big man helplessly. "This money
must be given up, yes, and everything we have. But whom to? Not to
those filthy Fujinami?"

"Go slow," advised Reggie. "Go back