Kimono Part 38

He wrote to Asako a long letter with much about the lake and Yae Smith, promising to return within forty-eight hours.

At daybreak next morning Yae was hammering at Geoffrey's door.

"Wake up, old sleepy captain," she cried.

Geoffrey got the boat ready; and Yae prepared a picnic breakfast to be eaten on the way. Poor Reggie, of course, had work at the Emba.s.sy; he could not come.

It was an ideal excursion. They reached Senju, the wood-cutter's village at the end of the lake. They ascended the forest path as far as the upper lake, a mere pond of reeds and sedges, which the bears are supposed to haunt.

Geoffrey and Yae, however, saw nothing more alarming than the village curs.

"Returned in safety from the land of danger!" cried the girl, as she sprang ash.o.r.e at the steps of the villa.

The air and exercise had wearied Geoffrey. After lunch he changed into a kimono of Reggie's. Then he lay down on his bed and was soon fast asleep.

How long he slept he could not say; but he awoke slowly out of confusing dreams. Somebody was in his room. Somebody was near his bed.

Was it Asako? Was it a dream?

No, it was his comrade of the morning's voyage. It was Yae Smith. She was sitting on the bed beside him. She was gazing into his face with her soft, still, cat-like eyes. What was she doing that for? She was stroking his arm. Her touch was soft. He did not stop her.

Her hair was let down to below her waist, long black hair, more silky in texture and more wavy than that of a pure j.a.panese woman. Her kimono was wide open at the throat. A sweet fragrance exhaled from her body.

"Big captain, may I?" she pleaded.

"What?" said Geoffrey, still half asleep.

"Just lie by your side--just once,--just for the last time," she cooed.

Geoffrey was for going to sleep again, well pleased with his dream.

But Yae slipped an arm across his chest, and caught his shoulder in her hand. She nestled closer to him.

"Geoffrey," she murmured, "I love you so much. You are so strong and so big, Geoffrey. I want to stay like this always, always, holding on to you till I make you love me. Love me just a little, Geoffrey.

n.o.body will ever know. Geoffrey, it must be nice to have me near you.

Geoffrey, you must, you must want to love me."

She was hugging his body now in an embrace astonishingly powerful for so small a creature. It was this pressure which finally awoke Geoffrey. Gently he disengaged her arms and sat up in the bed.

She was clinging to his neck now, wild-eyed like a Maenad. He felt pitifully ridiculous. The role of Joseph is so thankless and humiliating. A month ago he would have ordered her sternly to get out of the room and behave herself. But the hot month in Tokyo had relaxed his firmness of mind; and familiarity with Reggie's bohemian morality has sapped his fortress of Good Form.

"Don't be so naughty, Yae," he said feebly. "Reggie may be coming. For G.o.d's sake, control yourself."

Her voice was terrible now.

Geoffrey had lost the first moment when he might have been stern with her. Clumsily he tried to loosen her embrace. But for the first time in his life he was in the grip of an elemental natural force, a thing foreign to his experience of women in marriage or out of it.

"Yae, don't," he gasped, pushing the girl away. "I can't; I'm married."

"Married!" she screamed. "Does marriage hurt like this? Love me, love me, Geoffrey. You must love me, you will!"

"The rhapsody is ended!"

A voice which n.o.body would have recognized as Reggie's put a sudden end to this frantic a.s.sault.

He was standing in the doorway smiling queerly. He had watched the two from the garden, whence indeed all Chuzenji could have seen them in the open bedroom. He had slipped off his shoes and had stolen up quietly in order to listen to them. Now he judged it time to intervene.

Yae started up from the bed. For a moment she hovered on the edge, uncertain of her tactics. Geoffrey stared, one hand to his forehead.

Then the girl darted across the room, fell at Reggie's feet, clasped his knees, and sobbed convulsively.

"Reggie, Reggie, forgive me!" she cried. "It's not my fault. He's been asking me and asking me to do this--ever since Kamakura--and all the time here. This is what he came to stay here for. Reggie, forgive me.

I will never be naughty again."

Reggie looked across at his friend for confirmation or denial. The queer smile had vanished. Good Form decreed that the man must lie for the woman's sake, if necessary till his soul were d.a.m.ned. But, with Geoffrey, Good Form had long since been thrown to the winds, like International Law in war time. Besides, the woman was no better than a _cocotte_; and Reggie's friendship was at stake.

"No," he said huskily; "that is not true. I was quietly sleeping here and she came up to me. She is man-mad."

The tangled heap at Reggie's feet leaped up, her green eyes blazing.

"Liar!" she cried. "Reggie, do you believe him? The hypocrite, the goody-goody, the white slave man, the pimp!"

"What does she mean?" said Geoffrey. Thank G.o.d, the woman was clearly mad.

"Fujinami! Fujinami!" she yelled. "The great girl king! The Yoshiwara _daimyo_! Every sc.r.a.p of money which his fool wife spends on sham curios was made in the Yoshiwara, made by women, made out of filth, made by prost.i.tutes!"

The last word brought Geoffrey to his feet. In his real agony he had quite forgotten his sham sin.

"Reggie, for G.o.d's sake, tell me, is this true?"

"Yes," said Reggie quietly, "it is quite true."

"Then why did no one tell me?"

"Husbands," said the young man, "and prospective husbands are always the last to learn. Yae, go back to the hotel. You have done enough harm for to-day."

"Not unless you forgive me, Reggie," the girl pleaded. "I will never go unless you forgive."

"I can't forgive," he said, "but I can probably forget."

The wrath of these two men fascinated her. She would have waited if she could, listening at the door. Reggie knew this.

"If you don't clear out, Yae, I will have to call T[=o] to take you," he threatened.

To his great relief she went quietly.

Reggie returned to the bare bedroom, where Geoffrey with bowed head was staring at the floor. In Reggie's short kimono the big man looked decidedly ridiculous.