Reggie must have heard them coming, for he changed the dreamy melody which he was playing into the chorus of a popular song which had been rife in London a year ago. Geoffrey laughed. "Father's home again! Father's home again!" he hummed, fitting the words to the tune, as he waited for the door to open.
They were greeted in the passage by Reggie. He was dressed in all respects like a Japanese gentleman, in black silk haori (cloak), brown wadded kimono and fluted hakama (skirt). He wore white tabi (socks) and straw zori (slippers). It is a becoming and sensible dress for any man.
"I thought it must be you," he laughed, "so I played the watchword. Fancy you're being so homesick already. Please come in, Mrs. Harrington. I have often longed to see you in Japan, but I never thought you would come; and let me take your coat off. You will find it quite warm indoors."
It was warm indeed. There was the heat of a green-house in Reggie's artistically ordered room. It was larger too than on the occasion of Geoffrey's visit; for the folding doors which led into a further apartment were thrown open. Two big fires were blazing; and old gold screens, glittering like Midas's treasury, warded off the draught from the windows. The air was heavy with fumes of incense still rising from a huge brass brazier, full of glowing charcoal and grey sand, placed in the middle of the floor. In one corner stood the Buddha table twinkling in the firelight. The miniature trees were disposed along the inner wall. There was no other furniture except an enormous black cushion lying between the brazier and the fireplace; and in the middle of the cushion—a little Japanese girl.
She was squatting on her white-gloved toes in native fashion. Her kimono was sapphire blue, and it was fastened by a huge silver sash with a blue and green peacock embroidered on the fold of the bow, which looked like great wings and was almost as big as the rest of the little person put together. Her back was turned to the guests; and she was gazing into the flames in an attitude of reverie. She seemed unconscious of everything, as though still listening to the echo of the silent music. Reggie in his haste to greet his visitors had not noticed the hurried solicitude to arrange the set of the kimono to a nicety in order to indicate exactly the right pose.
She looked like a jeweled butterfly on a great black leaf.
"Yaé—Miss Smith," said Reggie, "these are my old friends whom I was telling you about."
The small creature rose slowly with a dreamy grace, and stepped off her cushion as a fairy might alight from her walnut-shell carriage.
"I am very pleased to meet you," she purred.
It was the stock American phrase which has crossed the Pacific westwards; but the citizen's brusqueness was replaced by the condescension of a queen.