Sinclair had not accompanied them on the trip. He had been somewhat surprised at the haste in which it had been undertaken, and had told Cleo that unless he could travel leisurely he did not care to go at all; besides, he never enjoyed traveling with a large party of tourists, preferring to go alone with one congenial companion. However, he urged her to go, saying that he might run down himself and join them in a few days.
After the departure of the party he was left almost entirely to himself. He found time for looking about him. It was a relief for the time being to feel free once more, and to come and go as he chose; whereas, when the Ballards were in the city, he had always felt in duty bound to be with them constantly, and to place himself and his time entirely at their disposal. Sinclair was not looking well. He had grown thin and nervous, and there was a harassed look about his usually sunny face. Sinclair was by no means an extraordinary or brilliant man. He was easy-going in disposition, a trifle stern and harsh to those he disliked, but as a rule genial and easy to get on with. He was a favorite both with men and women. He was too good-natured to be a strong man, perhaps, and was easily swayed by his own likes and dislikes.
His engagement worried him more than he cared to admit. He told himself constantly that he ought to be happy, that nine men out of ten would have envied him Cleo. He recognized that she was good and generous, as well as beautiful; but yet all this seemed rather to paralyze his efforts to love her than otherwise. He knew her beauty and charms too well. When a man admits to himself that he has summed up all a woman's charms, then be sure affection begins to wane; for where there is love the lover is constantly discovering new charms, and, in fact, even those he has known are ever new to him.
Sinclair was weary. The prospect of his marriage appalled him. Even the beauty of the country, in which he had hitherto taken such great delight, ceased to interest him. It was replete with sadness now. The girl's departure was an unconscious respite and relief to him.
After they had left he threw himself into the actual joy of living, which life in Japan always suggests. He succumbed to the dolce far niente of the atmosphere, went out into the country, with his Japanese interpreter and office boy, and even on two or three occasions visited the tea-houses and frivolled away a few dreamy hours with the light-hearted geishas.
Often he and an English traveler named Taylor would find a quiet spot on the Hayama, where they would spend the entire day fishing, a favorite pastime of Sinclair's. Shiku would accompany them, carrying their rods and the Englishman's sketching apparatus, for in a quiet, unobtrusive fashion Taylor was quite a clever artist, though he painted almost entirely for his own pleasure. He would often desert the rod for the brush and leave Sinclair to fish alone, while he tried to reproduce parts of the exquisite, incomparable landscape; for, as some clever Japanese poet has described the scenery in Japan, it consists of "precious jewels in little caskets," and that within the vicinity of Fuji-Yama, from many points of which a distant view of the peerless mountain can be seen, is one of the most beautiful of all the lovely spots in Japan.
Taylor was of an uncommunicative, reticent nature,—strong and staunch. Between the two men an inexplicable friendship had sprung up, one that partook of no confidence betwixt them, but showed itself simply in the pleasure they took in being together.