perimental chemist, who mixes discordant
elements together in order to watch the results, chilling them in ice
or heating them over the fire, until the lives burst in fragments or
the colour slowly fades out of them. She has been called an artist in
_mesalliances_, a mismatch-maker of dangerous cunning, a dangler of
picturesque beggar-maids before romantic-eyed Cophetuas, a daring
promoter of ambitious American girls and a champion of musical comedy
peeresses. Her house has been named the Junior Bachelors Club. The
charming young men who seem to be bound to its hospitable board by
invisible chains are the material for her dashing improvisations and
the _dramatis personae_ of the scores of little domestic comedies
which she likes to keep floating around her in different stages of
development.

Geoffrey Barrington had been the secretary of this club, and a
favourite with the divinity who presided over it. We had all supposed
that he would remain a bachelor; and the advent of Asako Fujinami into
London society gave us at first no reason to change our opinion. But
she was certainly attractive.

* * * * *

She ought to have been married in a kimono. There was no doubt about
it now, when there was more liberty to inspect her, as she stood there
shaking hands with hundreds of guests and murmuring her "Thank you
very much" to the reiterated congratulations.

The white gown was perfectly cut and of a shade to give its full
value to her complexion, a waxen complexion like old ivory or like
a magnolia petal, in which the Mongolian yellow was ever so faintly
discernible. It was a sweet little face, oval and smooth; but it might
have been called expressionless if it had not been for a dimple which
peeped and vanished around a corner of the small compressed mouth, and
for the great deep brown eyes, like the eyes of deer or like pools of
forest water, eyes full of warmth and affection. This was the feature
which struck most of us as we took the opportunity to watch her in
European dress with the glamour of her kimono stripped from her. They
were the eyes of the Oriental girl, a creature closer to the animals
than we are, lit by instinct more often than by reason, and hiding
a soul in its infancy, a repressed, timorous, uncertain thing,
spasmodically violent and habitually secretive and aloof.

Sir Ralph Cairns, the famous diplomat, was talking on this subject to
Professor Ironside.

"The Japanese