The English guests were escorted to two seats at the extreme end of the room, where two tables were laid in isolated glory. They were to sit there like king and queen, with two rows of their subjects in long aisles to the right and to the left of them.
The seats were cushions merely; but those placed for Geoffrey and Asako were raised on low hassocks. After them the files of the Fujinami streamed in and took up their appointed positions along the sides of the room. They were followed by the geisha, each girl carrying a little white china bottle shaped like a vegetable marrow, and a tiny cup like the bath which hygienic old maids provide for their canary birds.
"Japanese saké" said Sadako to her cousin, "you do not like?"
"Oh, yes, I do," replied Asako, who was intent on enjoying everything. But on this occasion she had chosen the wrong answer; for real ladies in Japan are not supposed to drink the warm rice wine.
The geisha certainly looked most charming as they slowly advanced in a kind of ritualistic procession. Their feet like little white mice, the dragging skirts of their spotless kimonos, their exaggerated care and precision, and their stiff conventional attitudes presented a picture from a Satsuma vase. Their dresses were of all shades, black, blue, purple, grey and mauve. The corner of the skirt folded back above the instep revealed a glimpse of gaudy underwear provoking to men's eyes, and displayed the intricate stenciled flower patterns, which in the case of the younger women seemed to be catching hold of the long sleeves and straying upwards. Little dancing girls, thirteen and fourteen years old—the so-called hangyoku or half jewels—accompanied their elder sisters of the profession. They wore very bright dresses just like the dolls; and their massive coiffure was bedizened with silver spangles and elaborately artificial flowers.
"Oh!" gasped the admiring Asako, "I must get one of those geisha girls to show me how to wear my kimonos properly; they do look smart."
"I do not think," answered Sadako. "These are vulgar women, bad style;
I will teach you the noble way."
But all the geisha had a grave and dignified look, quite different from the sprightly butterflies of musical comedy from whom Geoffrey had accepted his knowledge of Japan.
They knelt down before the guests and poured a little of the saké into the shallow saucer held out for their ministrations. Then they folded their hands in their laps and appeared to slumber.
A sucking sound ran round the room as the first cup was drained. Then a complete silence fell, broken only by the shuffle of the girls' feet on the matting as they went to fetch more bottles.