Broken Butterflies

by Henry W. Kinney

"I have not seen you here before, Adachi-san."

"No, I have been here only a few weeks."

As he sipped his tea, he employed all his wit to maintain the conversation, enjoying the clear, soft sound of her voice, its musical contralto tone reminiscent of the subdued resonance of a great brass temple bell from a distance. But he wanted principally to build up ground for more intimate acquaintance, to become established as at least some one just a little more personal than the ordinary caller. She was smilingly responsive, gracious. He managed to remain a half hour, with commonplaces. The weather led to talk of the countryside, places she had seen, his own stay in Japan, and on to his impressions of the country, to mutual tastes.

He came away with a pleasant feeling of success that he had not been disappointed. Prosaic as their conversation had been, there had been a subtle, warm undercurrent of understanding, mutual sympathy, which was leading swiftly, surely, towards friendship. It was one of Karsten's theories that the feeling of attraction between men and women was intrinsically governed by an as yet little understood, undefined element of something like telepathy—that such attraction as was produced by merely physical features, such as beauty, for instance, was, if not unessential, at least only an outward, largely crude feature of the play of the relation between sexes. It could be explained most closely, said Karsten, in terms of physics, the response which is established between instruments similarly attuned, an intangible, invisible condition, which draws humans irresistibly, apparently irrationally, together in one case, while in another, where outward circumstances would seem to be more conducive thereto, they remain untouched, cold. Of course, there was something in it. Kent felt that some sort of sympathy like that existed between this girl and himself. Oddly, he was certain that he was not in love with her, and yet he craved intensely for intimate companionship with her.

A few days later he called again on the Viscount. He should have liked to have arranged it again so he would see the girl alone; still, it was time to get to work, to try somehow to establish a beginning point whence he might evolve his information. The beginning of the interview moved smoothly as he had planned, almost too smoothly. They arrived at the crucial point, the Bywater article, so easily that Kent had an uneasy sense that this smoothness, this facility, was deceptive, that the Viscount by some trick of intuition knew what he was after and was leading him on. The feeling disturbed him; he had to strive to overcome a sense of diffidence, a suspicion that he was but being played with by this uncannily clever diplomat, the master mind of the Japanese Empire, who had for decades gained experience at this game in bouts with the best trained brains of Europe and America.

"To come to the point, Mr. Kent, the fact is that it is believed, or at least suspected, that Japan, while living up to the letter of the Washington Conference agreement, is, in fact, violating the spirit thereof; that while she is keeping her battle fleet strictly within the ratio of six to America's and England's ten, as she agreed to do, she is trying to make up for the difference in ratio by building up a great fleet of powerful submarines. I am glad that we may take up this matter together, for it is important that this misunderstanding be set right. The fact is, as naval statistics which have already been made public will show you, that we are merely trying to make our auxiliary fleet forces catch up to the proper proportion they should bear to the battle fleet. As you know, Japan is a poor country. In the past the naval authorities decided to build a great fleet of vessels of the first class, but to do so they had to give up building the number of auxiliary craft which is generally considered by the naval experts of all countries to be the minimum necessary to keep up the proportion between battleships and auxiliaries. In other words, as we did not have enough money to have both first-class ships and auxiliaries, we decided to build the big ships, even though we knew that we should be short of the smaller ones. Now that the Conference has made it unnecessary to spend the great sums set aside for battleship construction, we are using the chance to build smaller craft to the number necessary to make proper proportion. That's the reason you hear that we are building some submarines; but remember there's nothing sinister about that. We are merely rounding out our construction program along the lines recognized as being proper by all naval authorities. Of course, the mere fact that we are building is being made use of by the anti-Japanese propagandists, who seize anything whatever to make out a case against Japan. It's partly because Japan's liberal diplomacy of recent years had cut very short the crop of material that may be used as propaganda against us. We have always kept our word in both letter and spirit. We gave the Chinese liberal terms in the Shantung settlement, and we have withdrawn our troops from Shantung. We were liberal in respect to Yap. We have withdrawn our troops from Siberia. We showed the world at the Washington Conference that we have no militaristic ambitions. Our action in all these cases has deprived the anti-Japanese propagandists of their old weapons, so now they must invent stuff for calumny. All we want is fair play. I know that you, Mr. Kent, are as interested as I am in maintaining the friendly spirit now existing between America and Japan; that you are glad to help combat the mischief-makers. Of course, you know that I must never be quoted—but I give you my word that there is not the slightest basis in fact for the belief that Japan is violating either the letter or the spirit of the Washington agreement, and the talk about her building an unduly large submarine fleet is pure buncombe."

The Viscount spoke earnestly, with a tone which made for conviction even though Kent had believed that he would talk on just about these lines. He had been impressed, had leaned forward intent to follow every word of the old statesman. Now he relaxed a little, leaned back in his chair, let his eye wander. Suddenly he felt as if some one had called sharply for his attention; involuntarily, mechanically, he looked past the screen. She was peering intently into the room, frankly eavesdropping, and her eyes were fixed on his as if she wished by mere force of will to compel him to look at her. Apparently that was it, for immediately the appearance of concentration vanished. She rose, gathered some envelopes and descended the stairs noiselessly in her soft zori.

There had been something indefinably impressive about these quite ordinary actions. Of course, she would probably ordinarily have called from the hall below one of the innumerable office boys to mail her letters. That she had chosen to go herself might have some slight significance; but, even beyond that, the conviction came upon him as clearly as if she had shouted it to him that she wished to speak to him. Could it be that she really wanted to see him? The interview was over. He must go, anyway. He would soon know.

He thanked the Viscount, feeling the while that, impressed as he had been while under the direct sway of the old man's magnetism, the interview would become cold, worth little, when examined in the somber light of appraisement of its worth as copy. Had he been able to quote Viscount Kikuchi, it might have had some value. But as it was, he had gained nothing, not even the slightest clew. They shook hands and he left.

Once on the street, he glanced eagerly up and down for the nearest post-box. Yes, there she was, half hidden by the red, stunted column. He went up to her eagerly. She made no pretense that she was not waiting for him. As he came close, he could see that she was excited, almost breathless.