"Yes," said Asako.
Then she thought she heard her husband's step away down the corridor.
Hurriedly she thrust obi and photograph into a drawer.
Now, why did she do that? wondered Tanaka.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DWARF TREES
Iwa-yado ni
Tateru maisu no ki,
Na wo mireba,
Mukashi no hito wo
Ai-miru gotashi.
O pine-tree standing
At the (side of) the stone house,
When I look at you,
It is like seeing face to face
The men of old time.
For the first time during the journey of their married lives, Geoffrey and Asako were pursuing different paths. It is the normal thing, no doubt, for the man to go out to his work and to his play, while the wife attends to her social and domestic duties. The evening brings reunion with new impressions and new interests to discuss. Such a life with its brief restorative separations prevents love growing stale, and soothes the irritation of nerves which, by the strain of petty repetitions, are exasperated sometimes into blasphemy of the heart's true creed. But the Barrington ménage was an unusual one. By adopting a life of travel, they had devoted themselves to a protracted honeymoon, a relentless tête-à-tête. So long as they were continually on the move, constantly refreshed by new scenes, they did not feel the difficulty of their self-imposed task. But directly their stay in Tokyo seemed likely to become permanent, their ways separated as naturally as two branches, which have been tightly bound together, spread apart with the loosening of the string.
This separation was so inevitable that they were neither of them conscious of it. Geoffrey had all his life been devoted to exercise and games of all kinds. They were as necessary as food for his big body. At Tokyo he had found, most unexpectedly, excellent tennis-courts and first-class players.
They still spent the mornings together, driving round the city, and inspecting curios. So what could be more reasonable than that Asako should prefer to spend her afternoons with her cousin, who was so anxious to please her and to initiate her into that intimate Japanese life, which of course must appeal to her more strongly than to her husband?