atmosphere in Japan is too strong for those people who are not
Japanese or are only half Japanese. They fade. Besides life in Japan
is very poor and rough. I do not like it myself."

Somehow Geoffrey could not accept these as being the real reasons. He
had never had a long talk with a Japanese man before; but he felt that
if they were all like that, so formal, so unnatural, so secretive,
then he had better keep out of the range of Asako's relatives.

He wondered what his wife really thought of the Muratas, and during
the return to their hotel, he asked,--

"Well, little girl, do you want to go back again and live at Auteuil?"

She shook her head.

"But it is nice to think you have always got an extra home in Paris,
isn't it?" he went on, fishing for an avowal that home was in his arms
only, a kind of conversation which was the wine of life to him at that
period.

"No," she answered with a little shudder, "I don't call that home."

Geoffrey's conventionality was a little bit shocked at this lack
of affection; he was also disappointed at not getting exactly the
expected answer.

"Why, what was wrong with it?" he asked.

"Oh, it was not pretty or comfortable," she said, "they were so afraid