"But what are you talking about, Sadako-san? I shall see you again often, as usual." He took her hand, but she was looking away from him, over her shoulder. She pulled her hand away quickly. He followed her gaze. In the shadow of the buildings on the other side of the street he detected a slinking figure, indefinite, sinister in its stealthy movement.
She turned to him. "So you can see yourself now, Hugh-san. It was just as I thought. That man over there, he has been following me before. I knew this must come sooner or later. No, come on, walk quietly. It can't be helped." They reached the bridge. She took his hand, held it between her slim fingers, gripping it tightly. "Good-by, Hugh-san. You have been too good to me. How I wish—— I shall never forget how good you have been. And don't forget me, Hugh-san—dear."
She pressed his hand again, turned, and disappeared in the shadows on the other side of the bridge. From the other sidewalk the dark form of the spy was watching. The swine! What filthy curs they were, these masters of armies and battleships, to pester and harry a slight, frail thing like this girl! He started for home and turned down a side street. Suddenly he wheeled about. Yes, the fellow was following him, inexpertly, but doggedly. Well, he would show the brute that shadowing a man, a foreigner, was not such an easy game as badgering a girl. Abruptly he stepped into the dark shadow of a narrow alley, waited, fist clenched. What if he were a policeman; of course, trouble might follow, but he would at least give him the drubbing of his life, the swine! He waited, bent forward for assault, strangely elated, expectant. But the minutes passed; he peered out. The fellow was not in sight. Kent stepped out from the alley. No, he had disappeared. He had smelt a rat, the damned coward!
Whew, what a day, and what a night! What a grotesque bedlam this was becoming to be, this Japan in transition that he had begun to pry into, this monstrous anamorphosis where the rare quaintness and daintiness of feudal richness of thought and beauty were anachronistically intermingled with the crass, clamorous ugliness of riotous, strident cry, uneasy, hectic pulsing of dissatisfaction, hating mob thought. And then this girl; she was like a flower ground in the relentless wheels of some gigantic, pitiless machine—and he couldn't drag her out. What a price Japan was paying for her modernism, with the fair, sweet souls of girlhood tattered and wasted as a part of the sacrifice. This, then, was the end of this relationship that he had hoped so much from. The premonition was uncanny, overwhelming; he could not ward it off. This, then, was the end.
CHAPTER XVI
A few days later he went to Viscount Kikuchi's office. A young fellow occupied the seat at the head of the stairway. "You are new here, aren't you?" Kent ventured. Yes, he had come here only yesterday. Kent tried a few more discreet questions, but the lad was uncommunicative. Still his manner indicated clearly enough that he regarded himself as a permanency. Kent was glad to learn that the Viscount was absent; he would have hated to face those piercing old eyes. It was impossible to tell just how much he might know.
For days he kept up the search, made occasion to linger about Kanda-bashi, visited the places where they had been together. He even had Ishii make inquiries, but beyond ascertaining that she had left her lodgings at Kanda, he could learn nothing. Again he went for council to Karsten. He laughed a little.
"By the gods, but you are the damndest man for losing ladies, for futile amours. However," he added more seriously, "it's probably as well that things have turned out as they have. The fact is that you have not the light, care-free touch to make a successful philanderer. You're a 'one woman' man. You take your affairs of the heart seriously, and for that reason it's the more essential that you make no mistake. As I say, you're a born monogamist. It's an enviable condition; you'll be happy, serene, content with just one woman, provided you find the right one. These affairs you have had recently count for nothing. You've been lonesome, in a susceptible mood. Let it pass. Some day you'll run into the right one and your problem will be solved for good. And, one thing more, you're not the sort of a fellow who is cut out for a Japanese woman. Run along, go to the dances, play with Kimiko-san and the rest, but don't get involved, for their sake, for they take such matters seriously and you have no right to cause them heartache; and for your own sake as well, for you, too, take such matters seriously. Go to work and forget serious thoughts about women, Sadako-san and the rest. Heavens knows, there ought to be enough going on in Japan just now to keep a newspaperman occupied."