She straightened in his arms, drew her head back, black eyes gazing deeply into his. Then, suddenly, she threw both arms about him, clung to him convulsively, gaspingly, pressing her soft cheek against his. He moved a little so he faced her. "Kiss me, O-Toshi-san." She drew back her head a little, startled. "Kiss me, in the foreign way. You are a foreigner's, now." He bent over to her, pressed his lips against her soft mouth. But it was only a faint response. "I must teach you to kiss, dear. Come." Again he kissed her, again and again, and gradually she responded, hot lips clung to his, as she trembled, clinging in his arms.
"I left behind a flower yet in bud; it weighs on my mind that it may blow without me."
A drunken guest was reeling from a waiting-house down the alley. She drew herself away. "It is late. I must go." She raised herself on her toes, framed his face between her hands, kissed him. "Good-by, Kent-san. Good-by."
So it had come at last. The woman had come into his life. A geisha. Now what would follow? What would be the arrangements? Could he take her from the geisha house? Where? The thought of the _o-kyaku-san_ became suddenly intolerable. But just how should he proceed? Confound his ignorance about such matters. He would ask Karsten for advice, but first he wanted to see her again, to ask her what she wished to do. Probably he would see her in her window, in the morning. Anyway, he did not wish to reason, to fetter his thoughts with commonplace details. That could be done later. His mind reverted to the events of the hours just past, the amazingly unexpected good fortune, delight, which had come to him like a shooting star out of the dark. He let the images of recollection surge over him, envelop him. Thank God, life would have some meaning, some of the high light of love venture to brighten the dimness of dull routine existence.
He barely noticed, as he entered the office building the next morning, a couple of hand-carts, piled high with boxes and bundles, moving from the alley. He ran up the stairs, glanced through the window. The _shoji_ were open, but there was no sign of her. He seated himself at his desk to wait, noticed an envelope, a quaint flower-embossed thing, and opened it curiously. The missive was from Toshi-san, written in _kata-kana_, the easy phonetic script which she knew he understood.