"Only a mistake," he said, "which honorable sir make."
CHAPTER XXIV
A MAN NAMED WARE
The three-storied front of the Cherry-Moon Tea-House, when Daunt's party arrived, was glowing with tiers of large round lanterns of oiled-paper bearing a conventionalized moon and cherry-blossoms. At the door sat rows of little velvet-lined sandals. Here shoes were discarded, and servants drew on the guests' feet loose slippers of cotton cloth, soft and yielding. One other guest was awaiting the party at the entrance. This was Captain Viscount Sakai, of the General Staff, spruce, fine-featured and in immaculate European evening dress. He had a clear, olive complexion, and, save for the narrow, Japanese eye, might have been a Spaniard.
The small second-story shokudo in which they dined was floored in soft tatamé edged with black and laid in close-fitting geometrical pattern. Save for a plain alcove at one end, holding a dwarf pine and a single nanten branch with clusters of bright red berries, it was empty. There was no drapery. The walls were sliding screens of gold-leaf on which were finely drawn etchings of pine-trees covered with snow, the effect suggested rather than finished. It was brilliant with electric light.
Tiny square tables of black lacquer were disposed along three sides of the room, one for each guest. They were but four inches high and on the floor behind each lay a thin, flat zabuton or cushion of brocade. The bowing geisha in wonderful rainbow kimono who awaited them might have stepped from the temple stage at Mukojima. These pointed to the tables with inviting smiles:
"Plee shee down!" they said in unison.
"I never could 'shee down' gracefully when any one is looking!" complained Patricia, as she tucked her small feet under her on the kneeling-cushion.
"Banzai!" commented Voynich, setting his monocle. "You have practised before a mirror!" He collapsed beside her with a groan. "I shall be reincarnated an accordion!"