Daunt withdrew his gaze. "Take his advice, Phil," he said. "The East isn't doing you any good. You're doing nothing but dissipate. And—it doesn't pay."
Phil gave a short, sneering laugh. "Why shouldn't I stay abroad if I can have more fun here than I can at home?" he returned. "If I had my way, I'd never want to see the United States again! This country suits me at present. When I get tired, I'll leave—if I can raise enough to get out of town."
A flush had risen to Daunt's forehead, but he turned away without reply. At the stair, however, he spoke again:
"Look here, Phil," he said, coming slowly back. "Why not come up to Tokyo for a while? It's—quieter, and it will be a change. I have a little Japanese house in Aoyama that I leased as a place to work on my Glider models, but I don't use it now, and it's fairly well furnished. The caretaker is an excellent cook, too." He took a key from its ring and laid it on the table. "Let me leave this anyway—the address is on the label—and do as you like about it."
Phil looked at him an instant with narrowing eyes, then laughed. "Tokyo as a gentle sedative, eh? And pastoral visitations every other day!"
"You needn't be afraid of that," replied Daunt. "I'll not come to lecture you. I haven't set foot in the place for a month, and probably shan't for a month to come. Go up and try it, anyway. Drop the Bund and the races for a little while and get a grip on things!"
Phil looked away. A sudden memory came to him of a face he had seen in Tokyo—at one of the matsuri or ward-festivals—a girl's face, oval and pensive and with a smile like a flash of sunlight. Her kimono had been all of holiday colors, and he had tried desperately to pick acquaintance, with poor success. A second time he had seen her, on the beach at Kamakura. Then she had worn a kimono of rich brown, soft and clinging, and an obi stamped with yellow maple leaves and fastened with a little silver clasp in the shape of a firefly. She was with a party of girls bent on frolic; they had discarded the white cleft tabi and clog and were splashing through the surf bare-kneed. He could see yet the foam on the perfect naked feet, and below the lifted kimono and red petticoat, the gleam of the white skin that is the dream of Japanese women. A flush crept over Phil's face as he remembered. He had had better success that time. She had dropped her swinging clog and he had rescued it, and won a word of thanks and a smile from her dark eyes. She herself had unbent little, but the girls with her were full of frolic and the handsome foreigner was an adventure. He had discovered that she spoke English and lived in Tokyo, in the ward of the matsuri. But though he had strolled through that district a score of times since, he had not seen her again.
"You're not a bad sort, Daunt," he said. "I don't know but I—will."
"Good," said Daunt. "I'll send a chit to my caretaker the first thing in the morning, and I'll put your name on the visitors' list at the Tokyo Club. Well, I must be off."