that if Geoffrey had been a wicked seducer, a bold Don Juan, he would
have excused him and would have felt more sympathy for him. He would
have thoroughly enjoyed sitting down with him to a discussion of Yae's
psychology. But what did an oaf like Geoffrey understand about
that bundle of nerves and instincts, partly primitive and partly
artificial, bred out of an abnormal cross between East and West, and
doomed from conception to a life astray between light and darkness?
He had been disillusioned about his old friend, and he wished never to
see him again.

"What frauds these noble natures are!" he said to himself, "these Old
Honests, these sterling souls! And as an excuse he tells me, 'Nothing
actually happened!' Disgusting!"

'To play with light loves in the portal,
To kiss and embrace and refrain!'

"The virtue of our days is mostly impotence! Lust and passion and love
and marriage! Why do our dull insular minds mix up these four entirely
separate notions? And how can we jump with such goat-like agility from
one circle of thought into another without ever noticing the change in
the landscape?"

He strolled over to the piano to put these ideas into music.

Lady Cynthia had decided that it would be bad for him to stop in
Chuzenji. Mountain scenery is demoralising for a nature so Byronic.
He was forthwith despatched to Tokyo to represent his Embassy at a
Requiem Mass to be celebrated for the souls of an Austrian Archduke
and his wife, who had recently been assassinated by a Serbian fanatic
somewhere in Bosnia. Reggie was furious at having to undertake this
mission. For the mountains were soothing to him, and he was not yet
ready for encounters. When he arrived in Tokyo, he was in a very bad
temper.

* * * * *

Asako had heard from Tanaka that Reggie Forsyth was expected at the
Embassy. That useful intelligence-officer had been posted by the
Fujinami to keep watch on the Embassy compound, and to report any
movements of importance; for the conspirators were not entirely at
ease as to the legality of abducting the wife of a British subject,
and keeping her against her husband's demands.

Asako had received that day a pathetic letter from Geoffrey, giving
detail for detail his account of his dealings with Yae Smith, begging
her to understand and believe him, and to forgive him for the crime
which he had never committed.

In spite of her cousin's incredulity, Asako's resolution