The place looked poor and dilapidated enough to be open to any offer of payment though in any case I might have trusted to the hospitality of the country Japanese.
I knocked at the rough door wondering that anyone could exist in such a tumble-down place and a young girl came to the door, faintly seen in dim lamplight. She stared at me in astonishment and bowing low, called softly:
“Madam, mistress,—what shall I do? A gentleman.”
A young voice answered:
“Tell him to come in if he will do us such an honour,” and a graceful little figure appeared in the opening of a lattice door, her face unseen because the light fell behind her. I obeyed. Poor as the house was that room was enchanting. Very simple, but the draperies were good, the cushions beautiful in colour, the hibachi was full of charcoal and above and round all bathing it in charm was the delicate perfume of a woman’s presence. She rose from her profound Japanese salutation and looked me in the face.
“Hay sama!” she faltered, paling to the lips. And I knew—I knew!
Six months before in the crowded city of Tokyo I had gone to a dinner at a restaurant near Shimbashi. I remembered the garden outside with clumps of gorgeous chrysanthemums, lamps of splendid colour before the dusk drowned them and the moon washed them with silver. Geisha attended us, girls with every nerve braced and strung for their profession of charming the wary and unwary alike. And I was charmed by the sad mirth that looked out from one pair of dark and lovely eyes. I drew her aside before the evening ended and asked her to follow me to the machiai—a house of meeting, and escaping from the noisy party I waited in the cold handsomely furnished room that never spoke of love, until she came.
That meeting led to many things—some merry, some sad, but when I left Tokyo to see her no more I knew that the part I had played was to set my heel on her little head and drive her deeper into the mire. Still, it was ended and need trouble me no more. One could forget.
And now I sat by her side in this land of bitter memories.
She drew a cushion beside mine and leaning her little black head against my shoulder looked up in my face, welcoming me with the sweet courtesy mingled with fear that I remembered so well.