The feeling came to him that she was smiling. The mouth, features remained calm, unchanged, but it was as if she could convey with these marvelously expressive eyes alone mirth, amusement, probably also sorrow, anger, anything.
"I am sorry to have troubled you." He had to say something, even though he should have liked just to sit there and fill his eyes with the sight of her. "I hope I have not disturbed you--er----?"
"My name is Adachi." She had caught the question which he had meant to imply.
"I have not seen you here before, Adachi-san."
As he sipped his tea, he employed all his wit to maintain the conversation, enjoying the clear, soft sound of her voice, its musical contralto tone reminiscent of the subdued resonance of a great brass temple bell from a distance. But he wanted principally to build up ground for more intimate acquaintance, to become established as at least some one just a little more personal than the ordinary caller. She was smilingly responsive, gracious. He managed to remain a half hour, with commonplaces. The weather led to talk of the countryside, places she had seen, his own stay in Japan, and on to his impressions of the country, to mutual tastes.
He came away with a pleasant feeling of success that he had not been disappointed. Prosaic as their conversation had been, there had been a subtle, warm undercurrent of understanding, mutual sympathy, which was leading swiftly, surely, towards friendship. It was one of Karsten's theories that the feeling of attraction between men and women was intrinsically governed by an as yet little understood, undefined element of something like telepathy--that such attraction as was produced by merely physical features, such as beauty, for instance, was, if not unessential, at least only an outward, largely crude feature of the play of the relation between sexes. It could be explained most closely, said Karsten, in terms of physics, the response which is established between instruments similarly attuned, an intangible, invisible condition, which draws humans irresistibly, apparently irrationally, together in one case, while in another, where outward circumstances would seem to be more conducive thereto, they remain untouched, cold. Of course, there was something in it. Kent felt that some sort of sympathy like that existed between this girl and himself. Oddly, he was certain that he was not in love with her, and yet he craved intensely for intimate companionship with her.