Geoffrey's conscience was disturbed. His face was lined and worried with thought, such as had left him untroubled since the effervescences of his early youth. Like many young men of his caste, he had soon submitted all the baffling riddles of conduct to the thumb rule of Good Form. This Yoshiwara question was to him something more than a moral conundrum. It was a subtle attack by the wife of his bosom, aided and abetted by his old friend Reggie Forsyth and by the mysterious forces of this unfamiliar land as typified by Yaé Smith, against the citadel of Good Form, against the stronghold of his principles.
Geoffrey himself wished to see the Yoshiwara. His project had been that one evening, when Asako had been invited to dinner by friends, he and Reggie would go and look at the place. This much was sanctioned by Good Form.
For him to take his wife there, and for people to know that he had done so, would be the worst of Bad Form, the conduct of a rank outsider. Unfortunately, it was also Bad Form for him to discuss the matter with Asako.
A terrible dilemma.
Was it possible that the laws of Good and Bad Form were only locally binding, and that here in Japan they were no longer valid?
Reggie was different. He was so awfully clever. He could extemporize on Good Form as he could extemporize on the piano. Besides, he was a victim to the artistic temperament, which cannot control itself. But Reggie had not been improved by his sojourn in this queer country, or he would never have so far forgotten himself as to speak in such a way in the presence of ladies.
Geoffrey would give him a good beating at tennis; and then, having reduced him to a fit state of humility, he would have it out with him. For Barrington was not a man to nurse displeasure against his friends.
The tennis courts at Tokyo—which stand in a magnificent central position one day to be occupied by the Japanese Houses of Parliament—are every afternoon the meeting place for youth in exile with a sprinkling of Japanese, some of whom have acquired great skill at the game. Towards tea-time the ladies arrive to watch the evening efforts of their husbands and admirers, and to escort them home when the light begins to fail. So the tennis courts have become a little social oasis in the vast desert of oriental life. Brilliant it is not. Sparkle there is none. But there is a certain chirpiness, the forced gaiety of caged birds.
The day was warm and bright. The snow had vanished as though by supernatural command. Geoffrey enjoyed his game thoroughly, although he was beaten, being out of practice and unused to gravel courts. But the exercise made him, in his own language, "sweat like a pig," and he felt better. He thought he would shelve the unpleasant subject for the time being; but it was Reggie himself who revived it.
"About the Yoshiwara," he said, seating himself on one of the benches placed round the courts. "They are having a special show down there to-morrow. It will probably be worth seeing."