In an indefinite way he had suspected that something like that was the case. That enmity existed among the various departments of the Government was an open secret, but this version, the clan fight, gave a picturesque, human-interest angle to the story that he rather liked.
"Yes, that's interesting; but you know I can't send stuff like that unless I'm sure it's correct. How do you know? I must know that the source is reliable."
The car stopped; they had reached the post-office. He jumped out; then he leaned forward into the car. "Adachi-san, how can I know that it is true?"
She stooped towards him. He was looking straight into these lustrous eyes, brilliant, close. "I am telling you, Kent-san."
There was no time for debate; the cable office would close in a few minutes. As he copied his message on to the printed blank, his thoughts were racing, occupied with the girl's story. Should he take a chance? He hesitated for a moment. "Persons in position to know"--his pencil framed the words half mechanically. He felt an odd conviction that she was right. The clerk reached over for the message; he was in a hurry to get his work done and get away. Well, let it go.
He found her standing in the street beside the car. "Step in, Adachi-san, I'll take you home."
"No, there is no need for the car now. I shall walk."
Again that peculiar prejudice against what she ingenuously deemed the luxuries of the privileged classes. What a potpourri of quaint ideas stirred in that brain behind those delicately curved brows, those wonderful eyes, and yet she appeared extraneously so like all those Japanese girls whom one saw casually, everywhere, thinking idly that they harbored only thoughts of flower arrangement, tea ceremonial, or the ordinary dreams and aspirations of girlhood. She had given him but casual glimpses at her mind, evanescent, baffling flickers, stimulating curiosity, tempting him to learn, to find out, to intimacy. So far the day had given no opportunity for confidential talk; mischievous mischance seemed to have been ever bent, vexatiously, on intervening. Now the walk might afford better chance.
She lived near Kanda-bashi, she said. They passed along the crowded streets, crossed the Ginza and turned down the broad street along the palace moat. Here there was no one. He took her hand, and, hand-in-hand, child-like, as do young Japanese couples, they walked on. But she was in no mood for personal talk. The moon; see how the light refracted on the green-oxidized copper roofs of the palace buildings, and the black reflections of the gnarled pines in the silvery water! She was thoughtful, a little serious. He walked on with her, wholly happy at the sense of her nearness, the softness of the small hand in his, languorously content.