“If only I could practise by myself!” said Asako, “but at the hotel it would be impossible.”

Then they both laughed together at the incongruity of rehearsing those dainty rites of old Japan in the over-furnished sitting-room at the Imperial Hotel, with Geoffrey sitting back in his arm-chair and puffing at his cigar.

“If only I had a little house like this,” said Asako.

“Why don’t you hire one?” suggested her cousin.

Why not?  The idea was an inspiration.  So Asako thought; and she broached the matter to Geoffrey that very evening.

“Wouldn’t it be sweet to have a ducky little Japanese house all our very own?” she urged.

“Oh yes,” her husband agreed, wearily, “that would be great sport.”

Mr. Fujinami Gentaro was delighted at the success of his daughter’s diplomacy.  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.  She envied her money, her freedom, and her frank happiness.  She had often pondered about the ways of Japanese husbands and wives; and the more she thought over the subject, the more she envied Asako her happy married life.  She envied her with a woman’s envy, which seeks to hurt and spoil.  She was smarting from her own disappointment; and by making her cousin suffer, she thought that she could assuage her own grief.  Besides, the intrigue in itself interested her, and provided employment for her idolent existence and her restless mind.  Of affection for Asako she had none at all, but then she had no affection for anybody.  She was typical of a modern Japanese womanhood, which is the result of long repression, loveless marriages and sudden intellectual licence.

Asako thought her charming, because she had not yet learned to discern.  She confided to her all her ideas about the new house; and together the two girls explored Tokyo in the motor-car which Ito provided for them, inspecting properties.

Asako had already decided that her home was to be on the bank of the river, where she could see the boats passing, something like the house in which her father and mother had lived.  The desired abode was found at last on the river-bank at Mukojima just on the fringe of the city? where the cherry-trees are so bright in Springtime, where she could see the broad Sumida river washing her garden steps, the fussy little river boats puffing by, the portly junks, the crews of students training for their regattas, and, away on the opposite bank, the trees of Asakusa, the garish river restaurants so noisy at nightfall, the tall peaceful pagoda, the grey roofs and the red plinths of the temple of the Goddess of Mercy.

Just when the new home was ready for occupation, just when Asako’s enthusiasm was at its height and the purchases of silken bedding and dainty trays were almost complete, Geoffrey suddenly announced his intention of leaving Japan.