It was easy. A step, and he had crossed, felt her arms about him solicitously, as she anxiously sought to drag him to safety. She indicated the zabuton on which she had been sitting, pale-green with a great crimson flower design. "Please, sit down."
"Oh, no, you must sit there. Ladies first; that's foreign style, you know."
She laughed delightedly. "Oh, how funny. I had heard that foreigners did like that to their women; but it is so queer, to have it happen to me, to oneself. Still, you must sit there. You are an o-kyaku-san, a guest, you know."
"Chigaimasen. It makes no difference." He forced her gently down on the cushions. "Anyway, I am not just a kyaku-san, just like the others down there. I have come to you out of the night, dropped from the moon."
She laughed again, that same clear silver tone; he sensed a musical enjoyment from it. "It is just like a cinema picture, isn't it, your coming to me, like that. I am glad it happened to me; you are so adventurous, you foreigners, so different. I know how you do, from the cinema, but I always wanted to know for myself. Yes, I am glad you are not just a guest."
"Naze? Why?"
"Naze-demo," the equivalent to the white woman's "because." "I won't tell you now; maybe some day, by-and-by," she smiled mischievously. "Now tell me about your women. I see them on the Ginza sometimes, big, strong, beautiful. Tell me, when you can have them, why do foreigners sometimes love us little, kitanai Japanese girls?"
That absurd "kitanai" again! It was so inapposite, irritated him. He hastened to explain, to refute, trying to seek the terms which he thought might best appeal to this slight, fairy-like dream-picture, whose mode of thought, fashion of reasoning, was unknown, mysterious, to him. He felt his way, amused at the intricate, curious task.
"You know, a mountain is beautiful, but so is a flower. You may find your pleasure in the great, majestic beauty of Fuji-san, and then, again," he seized her hand, "you may delight in the flower, in this little hand, delicate, warm, soft," he smoothed the slender fingers, "embodying in its delightful smallness the entire sum of infinite perfection."