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Updated: June 8, 2025
"And you have found it right enough," said Geoffrey, inspecting a photograph of a Japanese girl in her dark silk kimono with a dainty flower pattern round the skirts and at the fall of the long sleeves. She was not unlike Asako; only there was a fraction of an inch more of bridge to her nose, and in that fraction lay the secret of her birth. "That is my latest inspiration," said Reggie. "Listen!"
"There's nothing very valuable there," said Reggie, "but they are very effective, I think, even the cheap ones." Asako was holding up a pied engraving of a sinuous Japanese woman, an Utamaro from an old block recut, in dazzling raiment, with her sash tied in front of her and her head bristling with amber pins like a porcupine. "Geoffrey, will you please take me to see the Yoshiwara?" she asked.
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.
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 the room for the chanoyu, the tea-ceremony," said her cousin. Inside, the walls were daubed with earth; and a round window barred with bamboo sticks gave a view into what was apparently forest depths. "Why, it is just like a doll's house," cried Asako, delighted. "Can we go in?" "Oh, yes," said the Japanese.
"No, I do not," answered the Japanese, "but the servants light the lamp every evening; and we believe it makes the house lucky. We Japanese are very superstitious. Besides, it looks pretty in the garden." "I don't like the foxes' faces," said Asako, "they look bad creatures." "They are bad creatures," was the reply, "nobody likes to see a fox; they fool people."
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.
"Japanese style looks nicer," said Asako, thinking how big and vulgar a bedstead would appear in that clean emptiness and how awkwardly its iron legs would trample on the straw matting; "but isn't it draughty and uncomfortable?" "I like the foreign beds best," said Sadako; "my brother has let me try his. It is very soft."
Conscious of the shortcomings of her figure as compared with those of the lissom mermaids who surrounded her, Asako returned to kimonos, much to her husband's surprise; and the mermaids had to confess themselves beaten. She listened to their talk and learned a hundred things, but another hundred at least remained hidden from her.
He saw that this plan for a Japanese house meant a further separation of husband and wife, a further step towards recovery of his errant child. For he was beginning to regard Asako with parental sentiment, and to pity her condition as the wife of this coarse stranger. Miss Sadako was under no such altruistic delusions. She envied her cousin.
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