ils."

"You mean," said Asako, gulping out the words, "that Miss Smith was
not actually Geoffrey's--mistress; they did not--sin together."

Asako did not know how intimate were the relations between Reggie and
Yae. She did not understand therefore how cruelly her words lanced
him. But, more than the shafts of memory it was the imbecility of the
whole scene which almost made the young man scream.

"Exactly," he answered. "In the words of the Bible, she lay with him,
but he knew her not."

"Then, do you think I ought to forgive Geoffrey?"

This was too much. Reggie leaped to his feet.

"My dear lady, that is really a question for yourself and yourself
alone. Personally, I do not at present feel like forgiving anybody.
Least of all, can I forgive fools. Geoffrey Harrington is a fool. He
was a fool to marry, a fool to marry you, a fool to come to Japan when
everybody warned him not to, a fool to talk to Yae when everybody
told him that she was a dangerous woman. No, personally, at present I
cannot forgive Geoffrey Barrington. But it is very late and I am very
tired, and I'm sure you are, too. I would advise you to go home to
your erring husband; and to-morrow morning we shall all be thinking
more clearly. As the French say, _L'oreiller raccommode tout_."

Asako still made no movement.

"Well, dear lady, if you wish to wait longer, you will excuse me,
if, instead of talking rot, I play to you. It is more soothing to the
nerves."

He sat down at the piano, and struck up the _Merry Widow_ chorus,--

"I'll go off to Maxim's: I've done with lovers' dreams;
The girls will laugh and greet me, they will not trick
and cheat me;
Lolo, Dodo, Joujou,
Cloclo, Margot, Frou-frou,
I'm going off to Maxim's, and you may go to--"

The pianist swung around on his stool: his visitor had gone.

* * * * *

"Thank God," he sighed; and within a quarter of an hour he was asleep.

He awoke in the small hours with that sick restless feeling on his
chest, which he described as a conviction of sin.

"Good God!" he said aloud; "what a cad I've been!"

He realised that an unspoiled and gentle creature had paid him
the greatest of all compliments by coming to him for advice in
the extremity of her soul's misery. He had received her with silly
_badinage_ and cheap cynicism.

At breakfast he learned that things were much more serious than he had
imagined, that Asako had actually left her husba