It was a hanging garden on the side of a steep hill, parted down the middle by a little stream with its string of waterfalls. Along either bank rose groups of iris, mauve and white, whispering together like long-limbed pre-Raphaelite girls. Round a sunny fountain, the source of the stream, just below the terrace of the Count's mansion, they thronged together more densely, surrounding the music of the water with the steps of a slow sarabande, or pausing at the edge of the pool to admire their own reflection.
Count Saito showed Geoffrey where the roses were coming on, new varieties of which he had brought from England with him.
"Perhaps they will not like to be turned into Japanese," he observed; "the rose is such an English flower."
They passed on to where the azaleas would soon be in fiery bloom. For with the true gardener, the hidden promise of the morrow is more stimulating to the enthusiasm than the assured success of the full flowers.
The Count wore his rustling native dress; but two black cocker spaniels followed at his heels. This combination presented an odd mixture of English squire-archy and the daimyo of feudal Japan.
On the crest of the hill above him rose the house, a tall Italianate mansion of grey stucco, softened by creepers, jessamine and climbing roses. Alongside ran the low irregular roofs of the Japanese portion of the residence. Almost all rich Japanese have a double house, half foreign and half native, to meet the needs of their amphibious existence. This grotesque juxtaposition is to be seen all over Tokyo, like a tall boastful foreigner tethered to a timid Japanese wife.
Geoffrey inquired in which wing of this unequal bivalve his host actually lived.
"When I returned from England," said Count Saito, "I tried to live again in the Japanese style. But we could not, neither my wife nor I. We took cold and rheumatism sleeping on the floor, and the food made us ill; so we had to give it up. But I was sorry. For I think it is better for a country to keep its own ways. There is a danger nowadays, when all the world is becoming cosmopolitan. A kind of international type is springing up. His language is esperanto, his writing is shorthand, he has no country, he fights for whoever will pay him most, like the Swiss of the Middle Ages. He is the mercenary of commerce, the ideal commercial traveler. I am much afraid of him, because I am a Japanese and not a world citizen. I want my country to be great and respected. Above all, I want it to be always Japanese. I think that loss in national character means loss of national strength."
Asako was being introduced by her hostess to the celebrated collection of dwarf trees, which had made the social fame of the Count's sojourn as Ambassador in Grosvenor Square.
Countess Saito, like her husband, spoke excellent English; and her manner in greeting Asako was of London rather than of Tokyo. She took both her hands and shook them warmly.