"Lady Georgie, you are asking me very searching questions to-day. I
don't think I will answer any more."

"Just this one," she pleaded.

He considered his boots again for a moment, and then, raising his face
to hers with that humorous challenging look which he assumes when on
the verge of some indiscretion, he replied,--

"The _Yoshiwara_."

"Yes," said her Ladyship, "I have heard of such a place. It is a kind
of Vanity Fair, isn't it, for all the _cocottes_ Of Tokyo?"

"It's more than that," Laking answered; "it is a market of
human flesh, with nothing to disguise the crude fact except the
picturesqueness of the place. It is a square enclosure as large as a
small town. In this enclosure are shops, and in the shop windows
women are displayed just like goods, or like animals in cages; for the
windows have wooden bars. Some of the girls sit there stolidly like
stuffed images, some of them come to the bars and try to catch hold of
the passers-by, just like monkeys, and joke with them and shout after
them. But I could not understand what they said--fortunately, perhaps.
The girls,--there must be several thousands--are all dressed up in
bright kimonos. It really is a very pretty sight, until one begins to
think. They have their price tickets hung up in the shop windows, one
shilling up to one pound. That is the greatest shock which Japan has
in store for the ordinary tourist."

Lady Everington was silent for a moment; her flippant companion had