“Shin-san, this is the gentleman who’s been very good to me, the best master I have in business now. He is not quite a stranger to you, either. Now, come out and make up with the gentleman for what’s gone before—and thank him much for me!”
There lurked in her tone a trace of a note that was spiteful. The man who was announced as her master was the same Ashizawa, the officer, who was remembered for his deadly fight with the late Tokubey. The impression Shinsuké had carried away from what little was seen of him on that night, was but confirmed now that he was brought face to face with the officer, a man in proper attire of the honoured class, handsome features in lines of refined delicacy, an air of dignity about him that graced his profession and compelled respect of others. “So, this might be the man in the case—” Shinsuké thought instinctively.
“Shinsuké, my greetings and my wish to you that we should consign our memory of that night to the stream of oblivion, and we should be agreeable with one another. You shall be a welcome guest at my country villa of Terashima-mura, and you should accept my invitation when you are so disposed.” And Ashizawa’s thin lips, associable with sharp wits, curled in a slight smile of benevolence. He was seen in a condition scarce better than his escort.
Whilst the flames of jealous anger were consuming him, Shinsuké thought he should hold himself in check and silence, until he should fall upon conclusive proof. Imprudent charge would but give her a chance to make him ridiculous. He was now bent upon catching her red-handed. After continuing his work for one month—secretly tracing her moves every night, gathering gossip from teahouses through bribing young ones serving in Tsuya’s employment, Shinsuké was able to confirm himself that he had not erred greatly in his first surmise. However, all that he had procured so far was naught but indirect information that had taken him little way beyond where he was at the start; he had worked in vain to grasp such a chance as he needed. Tsuya, so sure of her own self and of his docile mind, would never fail, on her return from calls, to carry it off, on each occasion, with superb confidence, glib of tongue and full of the memories of people and places that were conspicuous for their absence. She would freely talk of this master and that guest, comment now on one teahouse and again on another; but her time was really spent only in the company of Ashizawa. As Shinsuké began to see it through the veil she meant to draw over his eyes, exasperating because done with self-confidence that was well-nigh a taunt, Shinsuké found himself yielding to the passions of his outraged heart, until he could bear the situation no longer. In the evening of , though acting on such weak evidence as he had as a result of his investigation, he brought her to confront the shafts of his examination.
“Now that you speak of it, I might as well tell you. I see you are improving, though perhaps you don’t know it;—you haven’t lived all this time with me for nothing—”
Where he had anticipated a downright denial, she flung her retort straight to his face. Her eyes were vivid with stinging scorn, as she went on—
“—It is a fact I have sold myself to Ashizawa, if you would have it that way. But, Shin-san, if you expect to have a geisha for a sweetheart, you ought to be wise to the game, and don’t fool yourself about it. I may be as good—at those things—as many others; but you can’t expect me—or anybody else, for that matter—to manage to put it over for hard cash by only palming off sugar pills to them. If I didn’t tell you everything straight and open, you ought to have seen what’s what, all the same. And if you knew that I was doing all this not for the love of the thing—but for you—your comfort and pleasure in life—you ought to be saying to me something nicer than that. It’s for you to keep your eyes and mouth shut.—Now that we are at it, I may as well open your eyes now as later. There were times when I gave myself not only to Tokubey, but to Seiji, too. If you didn’t know it, that means no credit to you!”
Her taunting abuse thrown to his face, Shinsuké flew into a rage. Had it been but a matter of broken faith, the chastity of her body, he might have forborne and reconciled himself to the truth of it. In none of the words she uttered was seen a trace of truthfulness. Her real intention was, to all appearances, that she should drive him into a passion and, once a wedge was driven in between them through this idea, should turn her back upon him and go her own way.
“It’s no credit to me, and you are right! I never thought for a moment that there should be so much rottenness in your heart. And now take this for deceiving me all this time!”
Swiftly, he took her by her hair at the back of her head, brought her down under his knees. His hand flew to a clothes hanger lying near by; his blows were many and none too sparing.
Even the while he dealt out punishment, he became conscious of a sharp feeling of desolation, as of a child forsaken by its parents, rising to fill his heart. That his examination of this night should come to this—to this dismal abomination, had been quite beyond his ken. Where he had hoped to take her unawares, he found himself confronted by the other even more prepared
