They had their drink. Karsten went to the adjoining room where he slept. Kent started downstairs to his room. At the head of the stairway he noticed something dark, bulky in the half-light, moving a little; his ear caught a sharp indrawn breath. It was Jun-san. A wave of intense pity swept over him. He wanted to say something to her, to comfort her, but what could he say. Undoubtedly she wished to be undisturbed by such crude, stupid consolation as he might contrive. He descended slowly and went to bed. But he could not sleep. He lay tossing, it seemed for hours. What, after all, did love of women, relations with women, ever bring but regret; swift, passionate, heart-swelling joy for the moment, even for days or years, but in the end weariness, sorrow, pangs of tragedy, irreparable, regretful remorse?
In the stillness of the night he could hear the shrill twitter of the cicadas in the garden, and faintly, softly, the sobbing, interminable, unconsolable, of Jun-san.
CHAPTER IX
It was a dull season for news. From San Francisco they had cabled him to "hold down." A nation-wide strike in America and one of these futile European reparations conferences were filling the papers at home, leaving scant space for Oriental matters. Anyway, nothing was happening. His idleness irked him. Everything seemed to have slipped into a dull, wearisome routine. He rebelled at it—anything for a bit of excitement of some kind, any kind. The thought came to him, kept recurring insistently, that now was time to look about a little, to experiment with Karsten's advice. After all, why not? Was he not missing something, an interesting and pleasing phase of life in the Orient, one that they all unanimously described as delectable, from Pierre Loti on. Even the warning contained in the episode between Karsten and Jun-san was losing its significance. At home matters had slipped back into the old, daily routine, as if nothing had happened. Through the day she was always in the main house, watching with solicitous care to meet Karsten's wants, retiring only when he had retired, to her own house, the bower which Karsten had had built for her when their love was young. As he looked back at it, it seemed to him that probably the whole thing had been just a little melodramatic; they had been overwrought, excited. Karsten had always been super-sensitive, too nervously susceptible to his own emotions; the dramatic instinct, no doubt. And then Jun-san. Well, they were not all like her. These international adventures were often, generally indeed, colored by humor rather than by tragedy.
He recalled the predicament, a few weeks ago, of Carruthers, who had amused his group of friends with his agitated alarm at his grotesque predicament. A geisha had unexpectedly, much to his pleased surprise, sent a note to him. She had summoned him, and he had answered, quickly enough, in a spirit of curiosity. Later it had developed that she thought he looked like Douglas Fairbanks, her favorite motion-picture hero. Prosaic Carruthers, solemnly horse-faced, the practical machinery salesman from Pittsburgh—they had all been highly amused at the absurdity. The later developments had given them still more and even greater delight.
Carruthers had taken a house in one of the suburbs in preparation for the arrival of his wife and drove of children. But he had thought that he might as well make use of the opportunity, his last fling of freedom. So he had invited her there, and she had come, and she had stayed, and when the wife was due in but a few days, she had still stayed, had refused to leave. Carruthers had been frantic. It had delighted them. Five days more—and she held the fort. Three days only. He had rushed from one to the other to help him out, give him advice, take the girl away, steal her from him, anything. "For God's sake, fellows, this is no joke. Take her off my hands, somebody." It had tickled them. "But how, Carruthers? Be sensible. We don't look like Douglas Fairbanks." It had been entrancingly amusing. Despairingly he had given the details. "The day after to-morrow, and she won't get out. I've told her my wife is coming, my wife. And she says she loves me. She don't care. If my wife comes, she will stay as my mekake, my concubine. Imagine me introducing: Mrs. Carruthers, my concubine—just like that! No, by Cæsar, it's gone beyond a joke. You've got to help me out." By Jove, it had been a scream, till the very last. But on the last day of grace they had rid him of the lady. It had not been so easy, either. It had taken all the powers of the accomplished Nishimura to move her. He was useful, as he claimed. And Carruthers had had to pay her geisha license for a month. He looked upon it as a joke now; rather enjoyed telling the story. And the girl, she had taken no hurt, either. Nishimura said that she had spread the glad tidings all over Shimbashi. There was only fun, amusement, in an episode like that, at least if one were single, and then a little excitement. Life was becoming unbearably humdrum.
He was gradually becoming better acquainted with his geisha neighbor. Toshi-san she said her name was, and he was introduced to the duenna, her "mother" she called her, and to her maid, and to her doll, Mitsuko-san. In the morning, at about ten o'clock, when she opened the shoji to look at the weather, they often chatted. She was a pretty, vivacious little thing, wholly adorable, and they knew how to look after themselves, these geisha. So why not?