Lady Martinworth threw herself back in her chair, stuck her feet out before her, and made rings with the cigarette smoke.
"Pretty place, this Tokyo. Been here long?" at length she ejaculated.
"I have lived here rather more than three years," replied Pearl quietly. "Have you come to see me for the purpose of obtaining some information about the place or the people?"
"Nothing further from my thoughts, I assure you. You like it better than London, I suppose? Uncommonly dull place to live in, though, I should think. But no accounting for tastes. I didn't know you were here, you know, or of course I shouldn't have been such a brute as to have come to Japan and disturbed your peace of mind."
Pearl slightly lifted her eyebrows, and looked her companion straight in the face.
"And may I enquire," she asked suavely, "in what possible way you would be likely to do that?"
Lady Martinworth tossed her cigarette into the grate, and rising from her armchair, went and perched herself on the music stool.
"In bringing Martinworth here attached to my apron strings, of course. Hard luck on you both, I call it. Not very pleasant for me, either, you know. Why, he'll detest me more than ever now, which is saying a good deal."
Pearl seated herself in a chair near the music-stool on which her visitor was twirling herself round and round, accompanied by that teeth-edging squeak with which music-stools seem chronically to be affected. She laid her hand on the stool to try to stop the movement.
"Lady Martinworth," she said, "do you not think it would be wiser for us both to keep Lord Martinworth's name out of this conversation? He and I are old friends. We meet again after some years, and we----"