earted."

Insensibly the pathetic melody faded away into the _staccato_ beat
of a _geisha's_ song, with more rhythm than tune, which doubled
and redoubled its pace, stumbling and leaping up again over strange
syncopations.

All of a sudden the musician stopped.

"I can't describe your wife, now that I see her," he said. "I don't
know any dignified old Japanese music, something like the _gavottes_
of Couperin only in a setting of Kyoto and gold screens; and then
there must be a dash of something very English which she has acquired
from you--'Home, Sweet Home' or 'Sally in our Alley.'"

"Never mind, old chap!" said Geoffrey; "play 'Father's home again!'"

Reggie shook himself; and then struck up the rolling chorus; but, as
he interpreted it, his mood turned pensive again. The tone was hushed,
the time slower. The vulgar tune expressed itself suddenly in deep
melancholy, It brought back to the two young men more forcibly than
the most inspired _concerto_, the memory of England, the sparkle
of the theatres, the street din of London, and the warmth of good
company--all that had seemed sweet to them in a time which was distant
now.

Reggie ceased playing. The two girls were sitting together now on
the big black cushion in front of the fire. They were looking at a
portfolio of Japanese prints, Reggie's embryo collection.

The young diplomat said to his friend:

"Geoffrey, you've not been in the East long enough to be exasperated
by it. I have. So our ideas will not be in sympathy."

"It's not what I thought it was going to be, I must admit. Everything
is so much of a muchness. If you've seen one temple you've seen the
lot, and the same with everything here."

"That is the first stage, Disappointment. We have heard so much of
the East and its splendours, the gorgeous East and the rest of it. The
reality is small and sordid, and like so much that is ugly in our own
country."

"Yes, they wear shocking bad clothes, don't they, directly they get
out of kimonos; and even the kimonos look dingy and dirty."

"They are." said Reggie. "Yours would be, if you had to keep a wife
and eight children on thirty shillings a month."

Then he added:

"The second stage in the observer's progress is Discovery. Have you
read Lafcadio Hearn's books about Japan?"

"Yes. some of them," answered Geoffrey. "It strikes me that he was a
thorough-paced liar."

"No, he was a poet, a poet; and he jumped over the first stage to
dwell for