o any one or go to the brothels.
Perhaps he was a little mad.

* * * * *

Ito returned to the charge next day. This time Geoffrey had an
inspiration. He said that if he could be granted an interview alone
with Asako, he would discuss with her the divorce project, and would
consent, if she asked him personally. After some demur, the lawyer
agreed.

The last interview between husband and wife took place in Ito's
office, which Geoffrey had visited once before in his search for the
fortune of the Fujinami. The scene of the rendezvous was well chosen
to repress any revival of old emotions. The varnished furniture, the
sham mahogany, the purple plush upholstery, the gilt French clock, the
dirty bust of Abraham Lincoln and the polyglot law library checked the
tender word and the generous impulse. The Japanese have an instinctive
knowledge of the influence of inanimate things, and use this knowledge
with an unscrupulousness, which the crude foreigner only realises--if
ever--after it is too late.

Geoffrey's wife appeared hand in hand with cousin Sadako. There was
nothing English in her looks. She had become completely Japanese
from her black helmet-like _coiffure_ to the little white feet which
shuffled over the dusty carpet. There was no hand-shaking. The
two women sat down stiffly on chairs against the wall remote from
Geoffrey, like two swallows perched uneasily on an unsteady wire.
Asako held a fan. There was complete silence.

"I wish to see my wife alone," said Geoffrey.

He spoke to Ito, who grinned with embarrassment and looked at the two
women. Asako shook her head.

"I made it quite clear to you, Mr. Ito," said Geoffrey angrily, "that
this was my condition. I understand that pressure has been used to
keep my wife away from me. I will apply to my Embassy to get her
restored."

Ito muttered under his breath. That was a contingency which he had
greatly dreaded. He turned to Sadako Fujinami and spoke to her in
voluble Japanese. Sadako whispered in her cousin's ear. Then she rose
and withdrew with Ito.

Geoffrey was left alone with Asako. But was she really the same Asako?
Geoffrey had often seen upper class Japanese ladies at receptions in
the hotel at Tokyo. He had thought how picturesque they were, how well
mannered, how excellent their taste in dress. But they had seemed
to him quite unreal, denizens of a shadow world of bowing, gliding
figures.

He now realised that his fo