He made up his mind to banish from his mind all idea of romance, to look upon her critically. If he had invested this girl with a glamor of beauty created out of his own imagination, he would know it. He tried to prepare himself for certain disappointment; of course, he had been an ass. Still, as he climbed the stairs, his senses were aquiver with an irrepressible anxiety,--what if she should be real, after all? He peered eagerly up at her. Again the sense of beauty, the radiant magnetism of it, swept over him; but he put it off, forced himself to note that that dim half-light, which her black hair set against the golden background of the great gilt screen behind her on which refractions of light from beyond made a delicate shimmer and play of faint aureate coruscations, might be limning a nimbus which would fade away in the cold brightness of clear, white daylight.
Of course, he knew that she would tell him that Viscount Kikuchi was absent. He had planned for all that. Too bad! Might he not have a place for a moment where he might write him a note? She led him to the great desk in the big room. Now would be his chance--but before he could obtain a satisfactory look at her, she had disappeared. Hang it! He began to write his note. He had it all in his head, merely a polite word of regret, an assurance that his coming again so soon did not indicate that what he had in mind was at all important. He would call again. But he wrote slowly, hoping that she would come. Still he did not hear her until she was close beside him, with a tray with cigarettes and tea. She set it before him and stood facing him, a few feet distant, courteously at his service. All this would give time. He sipped slowly from the tiny, bowl-like cup, of the pale green, slightly aromatic fluid, took a cigarette, lit it. With the feeling of one who has placed a stake against the chance of a spun coin--he leaned back and looked at her.
Thank God, she was pretty, yes, even beautiful, with that great crown of soft black hair framing features delicately carved, finely-drawn crescent eyebrows; slender figure, but with the slightest suggestion of warm, soft curves under the closely clinging texture of the kimono. But it was the eyes which held him. He had often felt the appeal of the eyes of Japanese girls, with their appearance of intense blackness until very close view revealed the dark-brown shade, but in this girl's eyes was a depth, a liquid sheen of luminous, limpid blackness which fascinated and held.