“And if I drown your fiancee?  I don’t know anything about sailing.”

“I’ll show you.  It’s very easy.  Besides, Yae really knows more about it than I do.”

So Geoffrey after a short lesson in steering, tacking, and the manipulation of the centreboard, piloted his host safely over to British Bay, the exclusive precinct of the temporary Embassy on the opposite shore of the lake.  He then made his way round French Cape past Russia Cove to the wooden landing-stage of the Lakeside Hotel.  There he found Yae, 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.  A rope of imitation pearls was entwined in her dark hair; and her broad sash of deep blue was secured in front with an old Chinese ornament of jade.

“Oh, big captain,” she cried, “I am so glad it is you.  I heard you were coming.”

She stepped into the boat, and took over the tiller and the command.  Geoffrey explained his friend’s absence.

“The bad boy,” she said, “he wants to get away from me in order to think about a lot of music.  But I don’t care!”

Under a steady wind they sheered through the water.  On the right hand was Chuzenji village, a Swiss effect of brown chalets dwarfed to utter insignificance by the huge wooded mountain dome of Nantai San which rose behind it.  On the left the forest was supreme already, except where in small clearings five or six houses, tenanted by foreign diplomats, stood out above the lake.  A little farther on a Buddhist temple slumbered above a flight of broad stone steps.  The sacred buildings were freshly lacquered, and red as a new toy.  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.  Wherever it is to be seen—­and it is to be seen everywhere—­it stands for the entering in of the Way, whether that way be “Shinto” (The Way of the Gods), or “Butsudo” (The Way of the Buddhas), or “Bushido” (The Way of the Warriors).

There was plenty of breeze.  The boat shot down the length of the lake at a delicious speed.  The two voyagers reached at last a little harbour, Sh[=o]bu-ga-Hama—­The Beach of the Lilies—­a muddy shore with slimy rocks, a few brown cottages and a saw-mill.

“Let’s go and see the waterfall,” suggested Yae, “it’s only a few minutes.”

They walked together up a steep winding lane.  The fresh air and the birch trees, the sight of real Alderney cows grazing on patches of real grass, the distant rumble of the cataract brought back to Geoffrey a feeling of strength and well-being to which he had for weeks been a stranger.