She drew from a fold of her dress a pitch-pipe contrived of six little
bamboo tubes bound together by means of a copper wire, and tuned all the
thirteen strings. Then she played for quite a long time, characteristic
melodies of the Orient that floated vaguely and hauntingly between the
major and the minor. I was able to get a fairly clear idea of the scale
she used before I decided upon the nature of the records I wished to
make of it. I moved a table over to the phonograph, and, by resting the
koto on small boxes that I found on the bureau, I contrived to place it
almost against the horn of the phonograph. Then I had her play, first
the scale of the open strings, followed by those two or three of the
melodies that had particularly interested me.
It had grown dark some time before this, and she had lighted a lamp.
Now, feeling on the whole well satisfied with the ten records I had
made, I looked at my watch, and was astonished to learn that it was
half-past eight in the evening. I at once set about packing up my
apparatus.
She stood close to me, watching the process. Occasionally she put out
her small hand and stroked my hair. When I had done, she came still
closer and, with momentary hesitation, placed her arms about my neck.
“You go 'way?” she whispered.
“Yes,” said I, “I must go now.”
“You doan' lig me?”
“Why, yes, certainly,” I replied, “I like you very much. And you have
sung and played very prettily for me.”
“Oh,” said she, looking somewhat puzzled, “you lig that?”
I nodded. My hands had dropped naturally upon her shoulders. But I was
conscious then--and indeed, am to-night, as I write it down--of some
confusion of thought.
Then she raised her face--by stretching up on tiptoe and pulling with
tight little arms about my neck. I did not know what to do. To draw
my lips away from hers would be something more than absurd. There is
a limit even to what I suppose I must sooner or later admit as my own
unmanliness. So I kissed her, white man fashion. And, to my complete
surprise, she clung to me with what seemed, for the moment, to be
genuine emotion.
I will not attempt to explain either my nature in general or my actions
at this particular time. What would be the use? I am writing this
journal for my own eyes alone; and, God knows, hours enough of my life
have been wasted in the pale avenues of introspection. I am not a wholly
bloodless being. And I know well enough that the average man buys women
now and then, here and there, whatever obligation he may think himself
under to conceal the fact and thereby contribute his support to the
immense foundation lie on which our Anglo-Saxon structure of virtue and
morality rests.
I do not know why I found myself unable to stay. Perhaps in another
place and at another time 't would have been different. Perhaps the
beauty and charm of the house and the pleasant attractiveness of the
little person herself had raised me too high above the ordinary sordid
plane of this transaction, and emphasized the ugliness of it.
Perhaps, too, the fact (extraordinary in my lonely experience) that she
had given up smiling at me, and now plainly wanted me to stay, was among
the curious psychological forces that drove me away. As to _why_ she
wanted me, I can not say. I have puzzled over that part of it all
the evening (it is now a quarter to midnight) without arriving at any
conclusion. It may be that by unconsciously permitting her, through my
deep interest in her music, to show something of her own enthusiasms and
of the emotions that stirred them, I had flattered her more subtly than
I knew. Who can say?
I turned right back to my boxes. She called a boy to carry them, and I
went away. My last glimpse, as I closed her door, was of a quaint little
slant-eyed person, whose hair had become disarranged and was tumbling
about her ears, whose lips were parted in a breathless smile.
One thing is sure: I shall never let Crocker know that I came away like
that. If he believed me at all, which I doubt, he would certainly think
me weaker than I am. I may be a complicated, finicky person; but I do
not believe I am as weak as he would think me if he knew.
As I was walking along the corridor I heard other footsteps, and looking
across the dim, flower-scented court, just managed to distinguish a
rather ponderous figure proceeding slowly among the shadows on the other
side. We met at the top of the stairs. It was Sir Robert.
I felt myself coloring furiously; and he wore a shamefaced expression.
For such is the curious hypocrisy of man when caught in his more or less
constant relationship with the one completely universal and unchangeable
of his institutions.
“Well,” said he, rather awkwardly, “it is a very pleasant place, the way
they keep it up.”
“Very,” I replied.
“And what is all this?” He was looking at my boxes, in the arms of the
boy at my elbow. “Purchases? Here?”
“That is my phonograph,” I explained, quite unnecessarily.
“Your _what?_” He said this much as Crocker had said it.
“My phonograph,” I repeated.
He stood looking at me, with knit brows. Then, “Ah, ha!” he said,
musing. “So _that_ was it! I could n't explain that music--hours of
it--and the repetitions. I begin to see. You are the authority on
Oriental music.”