Reggie looked across at his friend for confirmation or denial.  The queer smile had vanished.  Good Form decreed that the man must lie for the woman’s sake, if necessary till his soul were damned.  But, with Geoffrey, Good Form had long since been thrown to the winds, like International Law in war time.  Besides, the woman was no better than a cocotte; and Reggie’s friendship was at stake.

“No,” he said huskily; “that is not true.  I was quietly sleeping here and she came up to me.  She is man-mad.”

The tangled heap at Reggie’s feet leaped up, her green eyes blazing.

“Liar!” she cried.  “Reggie, do you believe him?  The hypocrite, the goody-goody, the white slave man, the pimp!”

“What does she mean?” said Geoffrey.  Thank God, the woman was clearly mad.

“Fujinami!  Fujinami!” she yelled.  “The great girl king!  The Yoshiwara daimyo!  Every scrap of money which his fool wife spends on sham curios was made in the Yoshiwara, made by women, made out of filth, made by prostitutes!”

The last word brought Geoffrey to his feet.  In his real agony he had quite forgotten his sham sin.

“Reggie, for God’s sake, tell me, is this true?”

“Yes,” said Reggie quietly, “it is quite true.”

“Then why did no one tell me?”

“Husbands,” said the young man, “and prospective husbands are always the last to learn.  Yae, go back to the hotel.  You have done enough harm for to-day.”

“Not unless you forgive me, Reggie,” the girl pleaded.  “I will never go unless you forgive.”

“I can’t forgive,” he said, “but I can probably forget.”

The wrath of these two men fascinated her.  She would have waited if she could, listening at the door.  Reggie knew this.

“If you don’t clear out, Yae, I will have to call T[=o] to take you,” he threatened.

To his great relief she went quietly.

* * * * *

Reggie returned to the bare bedroom, where Geoffrey with bowed head was staring at the floor.  In Reggie’s short kimono the big man looked decidedly ridiculous.

“Good,” thought Reggie.  “Thank God for the comic spirit.  It will be easier to get through with this now.”

His first action was to wash his hands.  He had an unconscious instinct for symbolism.  Then he sat down opposite his friend.

The action of sitting reduces tragedy to comedy at once,—­this was one of Napoleon’s maxims.

Then he opened his cigarette case and offered it to Geoffrey.  This, too, was symbolic.  Geoffrey took a cigarette mechanically, and sucked it between his lips, unlighted.

“Geoffrey,” said his friend very quietly, “let us try to put these women and all their rottenness out of our heads.  We will try to talk this over decently.”

Geoffrey was so stunned by the shock of what he had just learned that he had thought of nothing else.  Now, all of a sudden he remembered that he owed serious explanations to his friend.