He had stayed late at the Foreign Office, one afternoon, talking with young Kikuchi. They decided to dine together, but Kikuchi had an engagement and left early. Kent did not feel like going home. A gorgeously brilliant full moon, supernaturally large, was rising ponderously over the Shiba park trees. It brought out Tokyo to best advantage. In the shimmering half-light the crude modernisms, the telephone poles, wires, irritating newfangled architecture, receded faded away, and one might let the eye see only typical Japan, the opaquely lighted shoji, curved rooftrees. He had had a few cocktails, felt titillating with effervescent life, adventurous under the glamor of the moon, anticipatingly ready and eager for something out of the ordinary, some adventure. It might lurk anywhere, inside shoji, in dark gateways. He strolled through the geisha quarter, hoping that from some miniature garden, glimpsed through ornate gate, might stretch towards him white hands, might come some soft seductive voice. He knew that it was utterly unlikely, that, did he desire adventure, he must take the initiative. But he did not wish to do that. It would spoil just that element of chance, casual hazard of fortune, that was essential. He felt that somehow it was hovering close at hand, would come to-night, out of the silver-blue. His vagrant, erratic mood, the moon, the whispering mystery of coyly self-effacive Tokyo, gave him an odd feeling as if the entire great city were a slily demure courtesan, enigmatically but encouragingly smiling upon him.
But it seemed all to be a great, fantastic mockery. Desire, mood, setting, romantic, inviting adventure, were all there, but as he passed along, expectantly turning this corner, then the next, ever anticipatory, hopeful that now it would come—nothing came. The alleys were almost deserted. A geisha passed him, tripping along with evident set destination, followed by her little maid clasping long-necked silk-wrapped samisen, but she was answering the call of some one else, some male waiting on the zabuton somewhere. Fate was concerned with others, was busy elsewhere. His walk became disappointing, tedious. Now he was near his office. He had run out of tobacco. He went upstairs. It was the first time he had been there at night. His glance strayed across to Toshi-san's window. It was dark. Where might she be; entertaining some one, possibly that damned commissioner.
The moonlight was glorious. He remembered that Nishimura had said that the flat roof of the house was a fine place for tsuki-mi, viewing the moon, the favorite Japanese pastime which even the most prosaic seemed to appreciate. Why not take a look; the night was still young. He climbed up the narrow ladder-like staircase, pushed a sliding cover and climbed out on the roof. Loose planks had been placed to form a crude flooring. He squatted on them, and looked about, over the picturesque tiled roofs, the small platforms built on them for clothes drying and, more romantically, tsuki-mi.
On the platform just opposite something moved, took shape of a woman. He bent forward to see more closely.
"Good-evening, Kent-san. Do you like the moon view?"
It was Toshi-san, the adventure at last. He would not let it slip from him. She was entrancing in the moonlight, ethereal as some fantastic fairy-land picture. From where he sat the moon was almost directly behind her. An inspiration came to him and he moved a little, bringing the great, yellow orb directly in line behind her, so that her head was silhouetted against it, high helmet-like coiffure standing out black, sharply contoured, the glowing disk against her profile like a luminous halo—a preposterous image, a geisha with a halo. Surely this was a night of witchery!
The opportunity had come. He jumped to his feet, the loose boards rattling under him. It gave him an idea; he picked up one of them and placed it as a bridge over the space between the two platforms. She had risen also, stood looking over to him, hands grasping the low railing. What on earth was this mad foreigner about to do now?
He tested the plank with his foot. "O-Toshi-san. I am coming over to you."
"You mustn't. Abunai. Take care." But as she spoke she held out her hands towards him, to assist him, receive him. Romance at last. What would his prosaic San Francisco friends say, could they see him here, under the full moon, flitting about among the Tokyo housetops, into the arms of this flower-like Japanese girl, just a few feet away. He glanced down into the narrow chasm of the alley below, its darkness riven here and there by shafts of light from the windows. They would not know, these people down there, no one would know, of this secret meeting, his and O-Toshi-san's. This was the thing he had sought, unpremeditated, a casual stroke of good fortune, with the pleasant sense of venturing into the unknown.