"And have you no more intimate experience?" asked Lady Everington.
"Really, Aubrey, you have not been living up to your reputation."
"Well, Lady Georgie," the young man proceeded, gazing at his polished boots with a well-assumed air of embarrassment, "since I know that you are one of the enlightened ones, I will confess to you that I did keep a little establishment à la Pierre Loti. My Japanese teacher thought it would be a good way of improving my knowledge of the local idiom; and this knowledge meant an extra hundred pounds to me for interpreter's allowance, as it is called. I thought, too, that it would be a relief after diplomatic dinner parties to be able to swear for an hour or so, big round oaths in the company of a dear beloved one who would not understand me. So my teacher undertook to provide me with a suitable female companion. He did. In fact, he introduced me to his sister; and the suitability was based on the fact that she held the same position under my predecessor, a man whom I dislike exceedingly. But this I only found out later on. She was dull, deadly dull. I couldn't even make her jealous. She was as dull as my Japanese grammar; and when I had passed my examination and burnt my books, I dismissed her."
"Aubrey, what a very wicked story!"
"No, Lady Georgie, it was not even wicked. She was not real enough to sin with. The affair had not even the excitement of badness to keep it going."
"Do you know the Japanese well?" Lady Everington returned to the highroad of her inquiry.
"No, nobody does; they are a most secretive people."
"Do you think that, if the Barringtons go to Japan, there is any danger of Asako being drawn back into the bosom of her family?"
"No, I shouldn't think so," Laking replied, "Japanese life is so very uncomfortable, you know, even to the Japs themselves, when once they have got used to living in Europe or America. They sleep on the floor, their clothes are inconvenient, and their food is nasty, even in the houses of the rich ones."
"Yes, it must be a peculiar country. What do you think is the greatest shock for the average traveller who goes there?"
"Lady Georgie, you are asking me very searching questions to-day. I don't think I will answer any more."