He read it to her, pleased, with a feeling that her interest was drawing them together, that in some way, as yet undefinable, they were being brought into that intimacy which he craved.
She listened intently, a tiny furrow between the black crescent brows, thinking. "Kent-san," she said suddenly, as if she had arrived at a decision after careful deliberation. "You can add that the Premier does not believe the explanation of the General Staff; that he has told them so. It isn't fear of the fall of the Cabinet only that keeps him from making deeper investigation. The secret of it all is a question of the old clans, the Satsuma and the Choshu. The Premier is Satsuma, General Matsu is Choshu. The General threatened that if he were not backed up he would make it a clan fight, Choshu against Satsuma, and he would, too. They stop at nothing, these militarists. And Viscount Kikuchi had to straighten it out, to show them that if the governing classes fought among themselves at this time, it would give the people, the masses, he calls them, a chance. These old rulers know they must stick together, the old, the iron-hard men, the feudalists, against the people, against young Japan. Oh, it's so bitter, Kent-san, not only class against class, but generation against generation, even among the aristocracy; father against son, even. Some time you should talk to young Kikuchi, if he'll agree to talk to you about it. That, Kent-san, that's the real story."
In an indefinite way he had suspected that something like that was the case. That enmity existed among the various departments of the Government was an open secret, but this version, the clan fight, gave a picturesque, human-interest angle to the story that he rather liked.
"Yes, that's interesting; but you know I can't send stuff like that unless I'm sure it's correct. How do you know? I must know that the source is reliable."
The car stopped; they had reached the post-office. He jumped out; then he leaned forward into the car. "Adachi-san, how can I know that it is true?"
She stooped towards him. He was looking straight into these lustrous eyes, brilliant, close. "I am telling you, Kent-san."
There was no time for debate; the cable office would close in a few minutes. As he copied his message on to the printed blank, his thoughts were racing, occupied with the girl's story. Should he take a chance? He hesitated for a moment. "Persons in position to know"—his pencil framed the words half mechanically. He felt an odd conviction that she was right. The clerk reached over for the message; he was in a hurry to get his work done and get away. Well, let it go.
He found her standing in the street beside the car. "Step in, Adachi-san, I'll take you home."
"No, there is no need for the car now. I shall walk."
Again that peculiar prejudice against what she ingenuously deemed the luxuries of the privileged classes. What a potpourri of quaint ideas stirred in that brain behind those delicately curved brows, those wonderful eyes, and yet she appeared extraneously so like all those Japanese girls whom one saw casually, everywhere, thinking idly that they harbored only thoughts of flower arrangement, tea ceremonial, or the ordinary dreams and aspirations of girlhood. She had given him but casual glimpses at her mind, evanescent, baffling flickers, stimulating curiosity, tempting him to learn, to find out, to intimacy. So far the day had given no opportunity for confidential talk; mischievous mischance seemed to have been ever bent, vexatiously, on intervening. Now the walk might afford better chance.