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Updated: August 28, 2024
"Yaé Miss Smith," said Reggie, "these are my old friends whom I was telling you about." The small creature rose slowly with a dreamy grace, and stepped off her cushion as a fairy might alight from her walnut-shell carriage. "I am very pleased to meet you," she purred.
In front, on the slope of golden sand, its base bathed by the tiny waves, stood the torii, the wooden archway which is Japan's universal religious symbol. Its message is that of the Wicket Gate in the Pilgrim's Progress. There was plenty of breeze. The boat shot down the length of the lake at a delicious speed. "Let's go and see the waterfall," suggested Yaé, "it's only a few minutes."
"But we are not married yet," said the girl, "we are only engaged." "But you will be married sometime, I suppose?" "This year, next year, sometime, never!" laughed Yaé. "It is nice to be engaged, and it is such a protection. When I am not engaged, all the old cats, Lady Cynthia and the rest, say that I flirt. Now when I am engaged, my fiancé is here to shield me.
It's because our men work so hard that other folk get it aff their labor. Do they live a better life than your man or mine? They waste mair in yae day, whiles, than wad keep your family or mine for a whole year. Is it because they are honester than us? No. You ken fine your man or yoursel' wadna' hae the name o' stealin'. But they steal every day o' their lives, only they ca' it business.
If onything, he's a thocht dafter in his ongaein's, mair silent-like. But ye'll hae heard tell o' him afore?" I owned ignorance. "Tut," said he, "ye ken nocht. But Yeddie had aye a queer crakin' for waters. He never gangs on the road. Wi' him it's juist up yae glen and doon anither and aye keepin' by the burn-side.
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, Yaé," he said feebly. "Reggie may be coming. For God'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.
There he found Yaé, sitting on a bench and throwing pebbles at the geese. She wore the blue and white cotton kimono, which is the summer dress of Japanese women. It is a cheap garment, but most effective so clean and cool in the hot weather. Silk kimonos soon become stale-looking; but this cotton dress always seems to be fresh from the laundry.
"Oor minister's fine at the castin' doon o' the strongholds o' Satan," said the one; "it minds me o' what the beasts got i' the temple." "It's mebbe no' Solomon's exact words, but it's gey like them: 'A time to pit on the goon an' a time to tak' aff the coat' an' it's the yae kin' o' proheebeetion that's ony guid forbye," said the other.
On the third, she was struck with admiration and awe by a South American diplomat with the green ribbon of a Bolivian order tied across his false shirt front. Don Quebrado d'Acunha was a practiced hand at seduction and Yaé became one of his victims soon after her seventeenth birthday, and just ten days before her admirer sailed away to rejoin his legitimate spouse in Guayaquil.
Now, all of a sudden he remembered that he owed serious explanations to his friend. "Reggie," he said dully, "I'm most awfully sorry. I had never dreamed of this. I was good pals with Yaé because of you. I never dreamed of making love to her. You know how I love my wife. She must have been mad to think of me like that. Besides," he added sheepishly, "nothing actually happened."
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