THE BAYING OF THE WOLF-HOUND
Barbara stood in her room at the Embassy. It was spacious and airy, the
high walls paneled in ivory-white, with draperies of Delft blue. The bed
and dressing-table were early Adams. A generous bay-window set with
flower-boxes filled a large part of one side, and its deep seat was
upholstered in blue crepe, the tint of the draperies, printed with large
white chrysanthemums. The floor was laid with thin matting of rice-straw
in which was braided at intervals a conventional pattern in old-rose.
Opposite the bay-window stood a Sendai chest on which was a small
Japanese Buddha of gold-lacquer, Amida, the Dweller-in-Light, seated in
holy meditation on his lotos-blossom. At first sight this had recalled
to Barbara a counterpart image which she had unearthed in a dark corner
of the garret in her pinafore days, and which for a week had been her
dearest possession.
To this room Mrs. Dandridge herself had taken her, presenting to her
Haru, whom the bishop's note had brought--a vivid, eager figure from a
Japanese fan, who had sunk suddenly prone, every line of her slender
form bowed, hands palm-down on the floor and forehead on them, in a
ceremonious welcome to the foreign _Ojo-San_. Her mauve _kimono_ was
woven with camelias in silver, set off by an _obi_, showing a flight of
storks on a blue background and clasped in front with a silver firefly.
The heavy jet hair was rolled into wings on either side, and a high puff
surmounted her forehead. Thin twin spirals, stiff with pomade, joined at
the back like the pinions of a butterfly, and against the blue-black
loops lay a bright knot of ribbon. She was now moving about the room
with silent padding of light feet in snowy, digitated _tabi_, admiring
the gowns which the maid had taken from Barbara's trunks. Occasionally
she passed a slim hand up and down a soft wrap with a graceful, purring
regard, or held a fleecy boa under her small oval chin and stole a
glance in the cheval glass with a little ecstatic quiver of shoulder.
Once she paused to look at the lacquer image on the Sendai chest.
"Buddha," she said. "Japan man think very good for die-time."
"Haru," said Barbara as the maid's busy Japanese fingers went searching
for elusive hooks and eyes, "is it true that every Japanese name has a
meaning?"
"So, _Ojo-San_! That mos' indeed true. All Japan name mean something.
'Haru' mean spring, for because my born that time. Very funny--_né?_"
"It is very pretty," said Barbara.
"How tha's nize!" was the delighted exclamation. "_Mama-San_ give name.
My like name yella-ways for because _mama-San_ no more in this world. My
house little lonesome now."
"Where is your house, Haru? Near by?"
The slender hand, pointed to the wooded height behind the garden. "Jus'
there on the street call Prayer-to-the-gods. My house so-o-o small, an'
garden 'bout such big." She indicated a space of perhaps six feet
square. "Funny!--_né_?"
"And who lives there with you?"
Haru smiled brilliantly. "Oh, so-o-o many peoples! _Papa-San_, an'--jus'
me."
"No brother?"
She shook her head. "My don' got," she said. "_Papa-San_ very angry for
because my jus' girl an' no could be kill in Port Arthur!"
She spoke with a smile, but the matter-of-fact words brought suddenly
home to Barbara something of the flavor of that passionate loyalty, that
hot heroism and debonair contempt of death which has been the theme of a
hundred stories. "Do all Japanese feel so, Haru?" she asked. "Would
every father be glad to give his son's life for Japan?"
The girl looked at her as if she jested. "Of _course_! All Japan man
mos' happy if to be kill for our Emperor! Tha's for why better to be
man. Girl jus' can stay home an' _wish_!" As the gown's last fastening
was slipped into its place, she turned up her lovely oval face with a
smiling, sidelong look.
[Illustration]
"_Ma-a-a!_" she exclaimed. "How it is _beau_-tee-ful! _né_? only--"
"Only what?"
"My thinks the _Ojo-San_ must suffer through the center!"
Laughingly Barbara caught the other's slim wrist and drew her before the
mirror. By oriental standards the Japanese girl was as finely bred as
herself. In the two faces, both keenly delicate and sensitive, yet so
sharply contrasted--one palely olive under its jetty pillow of straight
black hair, the other fair and brown-eyed, crowned with curling
gold--the extremes of East and West looked out at each other.
"See, Haru," said Barbara. "How different we are!"
"You so more good-look!" sighed the Japanese girl. "My jus' like the
night."
"Ah, but a moonlighted night," cried Barbara, "soft and warm and full of
secrets. When you have a sweetheart you will be far more lovely to him
than any foreign girl could be!"
Haru blushed rosily. "Sweetheart p'r'aps now," she said, "--all same
kind America story say 'bout."
"Have you really, Haru?" cried Barbara. "I love to hear about
sweethearts. Maybe--some day--I may have one, too. Some time you'll tell
me about him. Won't you?"
Suddenly, far below the window, there came a snarling scramble and a
savage, menacing bay. Barbara leaned out. A tawny, long-muzzled
wolf-hound, fastened to a stake, glared up at her out of red-dimmed
eyes.
"Poor fellow!" she exclaimed. "He looks sick. Does he have to be tied
up?"
The Japanese girl shivered. "Very bad dog," she said. "My think very
danger to not kill."
The deep tone of the dinner gong shuddered through the house and Barbara
hastened out. Patricia met her in the hall and the two girls, with arms
about each other's waists, descended the broad angled stair to the
dining-room, where the Ambassador stood, tall and spare and iron-gray,
with a contagious twinkle in his kindly eye.
"Well," he asked, "did you feel the earthquake?"
Barbara gave an exclamation of dismay. "Has there been one already?"
"Pshaw!" he said contritely. "Perhaps there hasn't. You see, in Japan,
we get so used to asking that question--"
"Now, Ned!" warned Mrs. Dandridge. "You'll have Barbara frightened to
death. We really don't have them so very often, my dear--and only gentle
shakes. You mustn't be dreaming of Messina."
The Ambassador pointed to the ceiling, where a wide crack zigzagged
across. "There's a recent autograph to bear me out. It happened on the
eleventh of last month."
"Father remembers the date because of the horrible accident it caused,"
said Patricia. "A piece of the kitchen plaster came down in his favorite
dessert and we had to fall back on pickled plums.
"I'm simply wild to see your gowns, Barbara," she continued, as they
took their places. "Is that the latest sleeve, and is everything going
to be slinky? We're always about six months behind. I know a girl in
Yokohama who goes to every steamer and kodaks the smartest tourists.
I've almost been driven to do it myself."
"You should adopt the Japanese dress, Patsy," said Mrs. Dandridge. "How
does it seem, Barbara, to see _kimono_ all around you?"
"I can't get it out of my mind," she answered, "that they are all
wearing them for some sort of masquerade."
"It takes a few days to get used to it," said the Ambassador. "And what
a beautiful and practical costume it is!"
"And comfortable!" sighed Patricia. "No 'bones' or tight places, and
only four or five things to put on. I don't wonder European women look
queer to the Japanese. The cook's wife told me the other day that the
first foreign lady she ever saw looked to her like a wasp with a wig on
like a _Shinto_ devil."
There rose again on the still night air the savage bay Barbara had heard
in her room. "I'm afraid I must make up my mind to lose Shiro," the
Ambassador said regretfully. "He's a Siberian wolf-hound that a friend
sent me from Moscow. But the climate doesn't agree with him, apparently.
For the last two days he's seemed really unsafe. There's a famous
Japanese dog-doctor in this section, but he's been sick himself and I
haven't liked to go to an ordinary native 'vet.' But I shall have him
looked at to-morrow."
"I do hope you will," said Mrs. Dandridge nervously. "He almost killed
Patsy's Pomeranian the first day he came. Watanabé says he hasn't
touched his food to-day, and we can't take any risks with so many
children in the compound. We have forty-seven, Barbara," she continued,
"counting the stablemen's families, and some of them are the dearest
mites! Every Christmas we give them a tree. It makes one feel
tremendously patriarchal!"
It was a home-like meal, albeit thin slices of lotos-stem floated in
Barbara's soup, the lobster had no claws, and the _entrée_ was baked
bamboo. Save for a high, four-paneled screen of gold-leaf with delicate
etchings of snow-clad pines, the white room was without ornament, but
the table gleamed with old silver, and in its center was a great bowl of
pink azaleas. Smooth-faced Japanese men-servants came and went
noiselessly in snowy footwear and dark silk _houri_ whose sleeves bore
the Embassy eagle in silver thread.
The Ambassador was a man of keen observation, and a cheerful philosophy.
His theory of life was expressed in a saying of his: "Human-kind is
about the same as it has always been, except a good deal kinder." He had
learned the country at first hand. He had a profound appreciation of its
whole historical background, one gained not merely from libraries, but
from deeper study of the essential qualities of Japanese character and
feeling. He had the perfect gift, moreover, of the _raconteur_, and he
held Barbara passionately attentive as he sketched, in bold outlines,
the huge picture of Japanese modernization. Yet light as was his touch,
he nevertheless made her see beneath the veneer of the foreign, the
unaltering ego of a civilization old and austere, of unfamiliar,
strenuous ideals, with cast steel conventions, eternal mysteries of
character and of racial destiny.
Coffee was served in the small drawing-room--a home-like, soft-toned
room of crystal-paned bookcases, and furniture that had been handed down
in the Dandridge family from candle-lighted colony days.
"It seems a shame," said Mrs. Dandridge, "that this evening has to be
broken, but Patsy and I must look in at the Charity Bazaar. I'm sure you
won't mind, Barbara, if we leave you alone now for an hour or so. It's a
new idea: every lady is to bring something she has no further use for,
but which is too good to throw away."
"I presume," observed the Ambassador innocently, "that some of them will
bring their husbands."
"Ned," said Mrs. Dandridge, as she drew on her wrap, "people will soon
think you haven't a serious side. It would serve you right if I took you
along as my contribution."
"Ah," returned he, "I was thoughtful enough to make a previous
engagement. Doctor Bersonin is coming to see me."
Patsy's nose took a decided elevation.
"The Government expert," she said. "He was on the train. It's the first
time I ever saw him without that smart-looking Japanese head-boy of his
who goes with him everywhere as interpreter."
"I've noticed that," Mrs. Dandridge said. "He's always with him in his
automobile. By the way, Patsy, who _does_ that boy remind me of? It has
always puzzled me."
"Why," Patricia answered, "he looks something like that Japanese student
we saw so often the winter Barbara and we were in Monterey. You
remember, Barbara--the one who spoke such perfect English. We thought he
was loony, because he used to sit on the beach all day and sail little
wooden boats."
"So he does," said her mother. "There's a decided resemblance. But
Doctor Bersonin's boy is anything but loony. He has a most intelligent
face."
"Besides," said Patricia, "the other was nearsighted and wore
spectacles. Good-by, Barbara. I hope the doctor will be gone when we get
back."
Her voice came muffled from the hall "--Oh, I can't help it, mother! I'm
only a diplomat-once-removed! He _is_ horrid!"