Kimono | Page 3

secretive and aloof.

Sir Ralph Cairns, the famous diplomat, was talking on this subject to
Professor Ironside.
"The Japanese are extraordinarily quick," he was saying, "the most
adaptable people since the ancient Greeks, whom they resemble in
some ways. But they are more superficial. The intellect races on ahead,
but the heart lingers in the Dark Ages."
"Perhaps intermarriage is the solution of the great racial problem,"
suggested the Professor.
"Never," said the old administrator. "Keep the breed pure, be it white,
black, or yellow. Bastard races cannot flourish. They are waste of
Nature."
The Professor glanced towards the bridal pair.
"And these also?" he asked.
"Perhaps," said Sir Ralph, "but in her case her education has been so
entirely European."
Hereupon, Lady Everington approaching, Sir Ralph turned to her and
said,--
"Dear lady, let me congratulate you: this is your masterpiece."
"Sir Ralph," said the hostess, already looking to see which of her guests
she would next pounce upon, "You know the East so well. Give me one
little piece of advice to hand over to the children before they start on
their honeymoon."
Sir Ralph smiled benignly.
"Where are they going?" he asked.
"Everywhere," replied Lady Everington, "they are going to travel."
"Then let them travel all over the world," he answered, "only not to

Japan. That is their Bluebeard's cupboard; and into that they must not
look."
There was more discussion of bridegroom and bride than is usual at
society weddings, which are apt to become mere reunions of
fashionable people, only vaguely conscious of the identity of those in
whose honour they have been gathered together.
"Geoffrey Barrington is such a healthy barbarian," said a pale young
man with a monocle; "if it had been a high-browed child of culture like
you, Reggie, with a taste for exotic sensations, I should hardly have
been surprised."
"And if it had been you, Arthur," replied Reggie Forsyth of the Foreign
Office, who was Barrington's best man, "I should have known at once
that it was the twenty thousand a year which was the supreme
attraction."
There was a certain amount of Anglo-Indian sentiment afloat among
the company, which condemned the marriage entirely as an outrage on
decency.
"What was Brandan dreaming of," snorted General Haslam, "to allow
his son to marry a yellow native?"
"Dreaming of the mortgage on the Brandan property, I expect,
General," answered Lady Rushworth.
"It's scandalous," foamed the General, "a fine young fellow, a fine
officer, too! His career ruined for an undersized geisha!"
"But think of the millions of yens or sens or whatever they are, with
which she is going to re-gild the Brandan coronet!"
"That wouldn't console me for a yellow baby with slit eyes," continued
the General, his voice rising in debate as his custom was at the Senior.
"Hush, General!" said his interlocutor, "we don't discuss such

possibilities."
"But everybody here must be thinking of them, except that unfortunate
young man."
"We never say what we are thinking, General; it would be too
upsetting."
"And we are to have a Japanese Lord Brandan, sitting in the House of
Lords?" the General went on.
"Yes, among the Jews, Turks, and Armenians, who are there already,"
Lady Rushworth answered, "an extra Oriental will never be noticed. It
will only be another instance of the course of Empire taking its way
Eastward."
* * * * *
In the Everington dining-room the wedding presents were displayed. It
looked more like the interior of a Bond Street shop where every kind of
article de luxe, useful and useless, was heaped in plenty.
Perhaps the only gift which had cost less than twenty pounds was Lady
Everington's own offering, a photograph of herself in a plain silver
frame, her customary present when one of her protégées was married
under her immediate auspices.
"My dear," she would say, "I have enriched you by several thousands
of pounds. I have introduced you to the right people for present-giving
at precisely the right moment previous to your wedding, when they
know you neither too little nor too much. By long experience I have
learnt to fix it to a day. But I am not going to compete with this
undistinguished lavishness. I give you my picture to stand in your
drawing-room as an artist puts his signature to a completed masterpiece,
so that when you look around upon the furniture, the silver, the cut
glass, the clocks, the engagement tablets, and the tantalus stands, the
offerings of the rich whose names you have long ago forgotten, then
you will confess to yourself in a burst of thankfulness to your fairy

godmother that all this would never have been yours if it had not been
for her!"
In a corner of the room and apart from the more ostentatious homage,
stood on