"Pardon me. I was angry. It was bad news. My wife in America is seeking divorce." He caught himself. It was stupid to plump it out to an utter stranger; but the idea had filled his mind, had dominated him so entirely that the words had slipped without thinking.
"O kinodoku sama, I am so sorry." The smiling face became a mask of polite regret. "Do you love her?"
The amazing frankness of the Orient in intimately personal matters in contrast to its reticence where the West is frank!
"No, I don't care a bit." As he spoke he felt with surprised satisfaction that he really did not care, that his resentment was fading. Evidently it did him good to get this thing out of his system, to speak out about it, even to this new-found geisha friend. It was not so incongruous, after all. Was she not supposed to be an expert in matters of the heart.
Her serious expression vanished instantly. She laughed. They did really laugh like "tinkling silver bells," some of these Japanese girls. "Then you will find another woman. Ah, but here in Japan, what will you do? Here we have only the kitanai Japanese girls."
"Kitanai," literally "unclean," used in the sense of "unworthy" as the Japanese always speaks, perfunctorily, of what is his own. The unjustness of the phrase bewildered him for the moment, as he thought for words to express indignant refutation, protest that the Japanese girl was, of course, the very opposite of "kitanai."
He started to answer. The murmur of a voice came to him from the unseen background of the girl's room. The face of an old woman appeared behind her.
"I was just calling at the shaved-ice man," said the girl, over her shoulder. "But he didn't hear me. He has gone." Evidently the elder woman, probably a sort of duenna, had asked her what she was doing. He admired her instant wit. She smiled at him hurriedly, surreptitiously. He caught the odd charm of the wink of her long almond eye. Then the shoji closed.
Well! A bizarre episode. But a charming one. He was in a happy frame of mind. It was a good augury. Evidently he was not so badly hurt, when a pretty face could so easily dispel his resentment. Divorce; it was only proper that his marriage be ended, an unsatisfactory chapter. Let the thing take its course.
He decided to place the letter in a drawer where he kept things which he wished to remain unseen by the unknown one who periodically ransacked his desk. He had left it open purposely, and at the top he had placed a layer of old papers, which must have been seen often by the intruder, and which could no longer tempt his curiosity. Below the papers he kept the other things, his wife's letters mainly, and then Kimiko-san's slippers. He had been surprised to receive them in the mail, a few days after their first dance in Tsurumi. It had amused him that she had taken him thus literally. It was dangerous to be jocose with Japanese girls; they were likely to take things to the letter. But he had been pleased at the possession, at having this dainty, unique souvenir of a delightful incident of his life in Japan.