"He's the only son I have, isn't he?" Karsten had been pacing the floor; now he turned, facing Kent, glaring. "I didn't mean to tell you; but now you know it. Of course, I mean Mortimer."
"But it's impossible, it's absurd, it's preposterous, Karsten, man; you don't mean to say that you've been wrecking your life over such an insane fever fancy as that?"
"Fancy, hell! It's good enough in you, Kent, to stick up for the boy, to believe it impossible; but, hang it, man, I saw it with my own eyes."
"By the gods, Karsten, you lie." He had jumped up, flung the challenge into his face, eyes flashing, lips parted.
"I don't take that from any man, Kent." Karsten's fist flung backwards in swing for attack. Kent faced him, left arm on guard. For a moment they stood facing each other, glaring, then Karsten's fist dropped, he relaxed, flung wide his hands. "Oh, what's the use, Kent. I'm sorry. It is good of you to stick up for the boy; but, I tell you, I know. Let us drop this, old man. Finish. Let us have a drink and say no more about it."
"No, hold on." Kent had dropped into his chair and sat there, chin resting in cupped hand, the other stretched towards Karsten in a gesture warding off interruption. "Karsten, you know I'm not trying to probe into this just out of idle curiosity; but I have an idea. I wonder—— Now I want you to tell me exactly, in every detail, just what you did see, the whole thing."
"But what good can it do? Do you think I enjoy this? Oh, very well, then," he shrugged his shoulders. "Since you seem so curiously set on it, I'll tell you.
"It happened when Mortimer came to Japan to visit me for a few months when he was through college, before he went to Europe. Of course, I was living with Jun-san then, but he didn't know it. She was living in her cottage, just as she is now. I'm sure he suspected nothing. Of course, I couldn't have him suspect. It was easy enough. Then one night I came home late, and sat in the garden for a while, and then I saw it. They were both in her cottage. I could see their shadows against the paper of the shoji, sharply cut, silhouetted as in a shadow play; there was no room for doubt; and then I saw him advance and place his arm about her neck, and the two heads melted into one. My God, wasn't that enough! Do you think I would want to wait and see more, to stand passively and contemplate a love scene between her, my woman, who was as much wife to me as if we had gone through a thousand ceremonials, and my son, my own son? No, I ran out there into the temple grounds. I sat down and I thought; and I walked up and down, and thoughts, and ideas, and every sort of inspiration of madness passed in and out of my mind. One moment I wanted to rush in and confront them, tear them apart, throw them out, humiliate them, kill her. I learned that night what it was to be mad, crazy, insane. I wanted to do a thousand things, and at the same time I felt utterly helpless, that there was nothing I could do. In my imagination I could see them, Jun-san and Mortimer, my love and my son, in each other's arms, kissing, embracing. But what could I do? Surely I couldn't rush in and say, 'Here, Mortimer, that's my woman you have stolen.' The whole thing was impossible, a sardonically grotesque masque contrived for my utter humiliation by some demoniacal, superbly malicious fate. I even worked myself up to believing, or at least half believing, that this was a sort of retribution, punishment for my irregularities, for my fool play with women in the past, just as our Puritan forefathers might have done. Yes, I was on the verge of being crazy, actually, pathologically insane, that night. But I came finally to a conclusion, the only logical conclusion—there was nothing for me to say or do; it simply marked the end with me for women in my life. So in the early morning I sneaked to my room; and a few weeks later Mortimer sailed for San Francisco; and I never said a word to him, or to Jun-san. So there you are. You see how it is. As our Japanese friends say, shikataganai; it can't be helped."
"And that was all you ever saw?" Kent's voice had become calmly cold, inquisitorial. "So that was all?"
"My God, wasn't that enough!" Karsten flung it at him irritatedly. "What more could you want? Did you expect me to play the rôle of spy on my son and my——? Honestly, now, you seem to have become absurdly dense."