Asako no longer felt like a Japanese. The sight of her countrymen in their drab monotonous thousands sickened her. The hiss and cackle of their incomprehensible tongue beat upon her brain with a deadly incessant sound, like raindrops to one who is impatiently awaiting the return of fine weather. Here at Ikégami, the distant view of the sea and the Yokohama shipping invited Asako to escape. But where could she escape to? To England. She was an Englishwoman no longer. She had cast her husband off for insufficient reasons. She had been cold, loveless, narrow-minded and silly. She had acted, as she now recognised, largely on the suggestion of others. Like a fool she had believed what had been told. She had not trusted her love for her husband. As usual, her thoughts returned to Geoffrey, and to the constant danger which threatened him. Lately, she had started to write a letter to him several times, but had never got further than "Dearest Geoffrey." She was glad when the irritating day was over, when the rosy sunset clouds showed through the trunks of the cryptomerias, when the night fell and the great stars like lamps hung in the branches. But the night brought no silence. Paper lanterns were lighted round the temple; and rough acetylene flares lit up the tawdry fairings. The chattering, the bargaining, the clatter of the _geta_ became more terrifying even than in daytime. It was like being in the darkness in a cage of wild beasts, heard, felt, but unseen. The evening breeze was cold. In spite of the big wooden fireboxes strewn over their stall, the Fujinami were shivering. "Let us go for a walk," suggested cousin Sadako. The two girls strolled along the ridge of the hill as far as the five-storied pagoda. They passed the tea-house, so famous for its plum-blossoms in early March. It was brightly lighted. The paper rectangles of the _shoji_ were aglow like an illuminated honeycomb. The wooden walls resounded with the jangle of the _samisen_, the high screaming _geisha_ voices, and the rough laughter of the guests. From one room the _shoji_ were pushed open; and drunken men could be seen with kimonos thrown back from their shoulders showing a body reddened with _saké_. They had taken the _geishas_' instruments from them, and were performing an impromptu song and dance, while the girls clapped their hands and writhed with laughter. Beyond the tea-house, the din of the festival was hushed. Only from the distance came the echo of the song, the rasp of the forced merriment, the clatter of the _geta_, and the hum of the crowd. Starlight revealed the landscape. The moon was rising through a cloud's liquescence. Soon the hundreds of rice-plots would catch her full reflection. The outline of the coast of Tokyo Bay was visible as far as Yokohama; so were the broad pool of Ikégami and the lumpy masses of the hills inland.