“Of all the Japanese holiday places, Chuzenji is the most select and the most agreeable,” Reggie Forsyth explained; “it is the only place in all Japan where the foreigner is genuinely popular and respected.  He spends his money freely, he does not swear or scold.  The woman-chasing, whisky-swilling type, who has disgraced us in the open ports, is unknown here.  These native mountaineers are rough and uneducated savages, but they are honest and healthy.  We feel on easy terms with them, as we do with our own peasantry.  In the village street of Chuzenji I have seen a young English officer instructing the sons of boatmen and woodcutters in the mysteries of cricket.”

In Chuzenji there are no Japanese visitors except the pilgrims who throng to the lake during the season for climbing the holy mountain of Nantai.  These are country people, all of them, from villages all over Japan, who have drawn lucky lots in the local pilgrimage club.  One can recognize them at once by their dingy white clothes, like grave-clothes—­men and women are garbed alike—­by their straw mushroom hats, by the strip of straw matting strapped across their shoulders, and by the long wooden staves which they carry and which will be stamped with the seal of the mountain-shrine when they have reached the summit.  These pilgrims are lodged free by the temple on the lake-side, in long sheds like cattle-byres.

The endless files of lean pack-horses, laden with bags of rice and other provisions, the ruddy sexless girls who lead them, and the women who have been foraging for wood and come down from the mountain with enormous faggots on their bent shoulders, provide a foreground for the Chuzenji landscape.

* * * * *

Geoffrey was sleeping upstairs in his bedroom.  Yae was sleeping downstairs on the sofa.  He had expected her to return to the hotel after lunch, but her attitude was that of “J’y suis, j’y reste.”

He awoke with a start to find the girl standing beside his bed.  Afterwards he became sure that he had been awakened by the touch of soft fingers on his face.

“Wake up, big captain,” she was saying.  “It is four o’clock, and the Ark’s coming.”

“What Ark?” he yawned.

“Why, the Embassy boat.”

Out of sheer devilry, Miss Smith waited for the arrival of Lady Cynthia.  The great lady paid no more attention to her existence than if she had been a piece of the house.  But she greeted Geoffrey most cordially.

“Come for a walk,” she said in her abrupt way.

As they turned down the village street she announced: 

“The worst has happened—­I suppose you know?”

“About Reggie?”

“Yes; he’s actually engaged to be married to the creature.  Has he told you?”

“In the greatest confidence.”

“Well, he forgot to bind his young lady to secrecy.  She has told everybody.”

“Can’t he be recalled to London?”