AT THE SHRINE OF THE FOX-GOD
The street into which they trooped seemed an oriental opera-bouffe:
swaying, chatting people in loose, light-colored _kimono_, some carrying
crested paper lanterns tied to the ends of short rods: a thousand lights
and hues flashing and weaving. But for two of the party the colors had
lost their warmth and the movement its fascination.
"I simply _can't_ coop up yet in a _rick'sha_!" pleaded Patricia, as
they donned their discarded shoes. "Why not walk a little?" The proposal
met with a chorus of approval. They set out together, and presently
Barbara found Daunt beside her. Her resentment did not cool as she
laughed and talked mechanically, acutely aware that he was answering in
monosyllables or with silence.
Daunt was crying out upon himself for a fool. What right had he to feel
that hot sting in his heart? Yesterday morning he had not known that she
existed. If an hour ago the skies had been golden-sprinkled azure, and
Tokyo the capital of an Empire of Romance, it was only because he was a
boyish, silly dolt, sick with vanity and complacency. What had there
been between them, after all, save a light camaraderie into which a man
was an insufferable cad to read more? So he paced on, achingly cognizant
of the lapses in his conversation, quite unconscious that her own was
growing more forced and strained.
They were in the midst of a densely packed crowd where a native theater
was pouring its audience into the street. They had fallen behind the
rest, and there were about them only _kimono'd_ shoulders and flowered,
blue-black head-dresses. He made a way for her ruggedly toward a paling
where there was a little space. Above it was hung a poster of a Japanese
actress.
"That is the famous Sada Gozen," he told her. "She has just returned
from a season in Paris and New York, and Tokyo is quite wild about her."
As he spoke numbers thrust him against her and the touch brought
instantly to him that moment in the garden when he had held her in his
arms to lift her to the arbor ledge. The picture of her that evening in
the pagoda was stamped on his heart: the sweet, moon-lighted profile,
the curling, brown hair, the faint perfume of her gown that mingled with
the wistaria. It came before him there in the bustle and press with a
sudden swift sadness. He knew that it would be always with him to
remember.
A Japanese couple, hastening to their _rick'sha_, caromed against them,
and, with an effort, he tried to turn it to a smile:
"Some say it's difficult for a foreigner to come into intimate contact
with the Japanese," he said. "You have already pierced that illusion.
One is always finding out that he has been mistaken in people."
Her quivering feeling grasped at a fancied innuendo. "It doesn't take
long, then, you think?" Her tone held a dangerous lure, but he did not
perceive it.
"Not where you are concerned, apparently," he answered lightly.
She turned her head swiftly toward him, and her eyes flashed. "Where _I_
am concerned!" she repeated fiercely, and in his astonishment he almost
wrecked the paling. "Oh, I hate double-meaning! Why not say it? Do you
suppose I don't know what you are thinking?"
"I?" he said in bewilderment. "What _I_ am thinking?"
"You mean you have found you are mistaken in _me_! You have no right--no
earthly right, to draw conclusions."
"Ah!" he said, with a sharp breath. "I had no such meaning. You can't
imagine--"
"Don't say you didn't," she interrupted. "That only makes it worse!" She
scarcely understood her own resentment, and a hot consciousness that her
behavior was quite childish and unreasonable mixed itself with her
anger.
"What have I said?" he exclaimed, in contrition and distress. "I
wouldn't hurt you for a million worlds! Whatever it was, I ought to do
_hara-kiri_ for it! I--I will perform the operation whenever you say!"
A ridiculous desire to cry had seized her--why, she could not have
told--and she would rather have died than have him see her do so. "If
you will go ahead," she said tremulously, "and make a path for me, I
think we can get through now."
He turned instantly and his broad shoulders parted the crowd in a haste
that was thoroughly un-Japanese. But she did not follow him. Instead,
she drew back, and thinking only to hide momentarily her hurt and her
pride, slipped through a narrow gateway.
She found herself in a crowded corridor of the emptying playhouse. The
mass of Japanese faces confused her. A door opened at another angle and
she passed through it hastily into the open air. The street she was now
in was narrow, and she followed it, expecting it to turn into the larger
thoroughfare. It did so presently, and at its corner she paused till the
burning had left her eyes, and her breath came evenly. Then she walked
back toward the theater, feeling an impatient irritation at her
behavior.
Presently, however, she stopped, puzzled. The theater was not there. The
street, too, had not the character of the one in which she had left
Daunt. She must have taken the wrong turn. She walked rapidly in the
opposite direction, until another street crossed at right angles. This
she tried with no better result. In the maze of lantern-lighted vistas,
she was completely lost.
She was not frightened, for she was aware that, so far as physical harm
was concerned, Tokyo, of all great cities of the world, was perhaps the
safest and most orderly. She knew that "_Bei-koku Taish'-kan_" meant
"American Embassy." She had mastered the phrase that morning, and had
only to step into a _rick'sha_ and use it. Daunt, however, did not know
this. Aware that she had been behind him, he would not go on, and she
contritely pictured him anxiously searching the crowds for her. The
thought overrode her anger and humiliation. She would not take the
_rick'sha_ till she despaired of finding him.
Just before her, at the side of the way, stood a small temple with a
recumbent stone fox at its entrance. It made her think suddenly of the
riding-crop she had seen Daunt carrying, with its Damascene fox-head
handle. In the doorway burned a rack of little candles, and a chest,
barred across the top, sat ready to receive the offerings of worshipers.
Above this was suspended the mirror which is the invariable badge of a
_Shinto_ shrine. It was tilted at an angle and tossed back the glimmer
of the candle-flame. With a whimsical smile she took a copper coin from
her purse and leaned to toss it into the chest.
But her fingers closed on it and she drew back hastily, with a quick
memory of one of the tales Haru had told her in the garden. She knew
suddenly that she stood before a temple of Inari, the Fox-God, patron
deity of her whose conquests brought shame to households and dishonor to
wives. She remembered a song the Japanese girl had sung to the tinkle of
her _samisen_:
"My weapons are a smile and a little fan--
_Sayonara, Sayonara_...."
It was the song of the "Fox-Woman." She slipped the purse hastily back
into her pocket.
The Fox-Woman! As she walked on, for the first time the phrase came to
Barbara with a sudden, sharp sense of actuality. There were fox-women of
every race and clime, women who came, with painted smile, between true
lovers! What if she herself--what if here, in this land, that baleful
wisdom were to strike home to _her_? Like a keen blade the thought
pierced through her, and something shy and sweet, newborn in her breast,
shrank startled and fearful from it.
The street had narrowed curiously. It was paved now from side to side
with flat stone flags. She realized all at once that there were no
longer _rick'sha_ to be seen, only people afoot. A blaze of light caught
her eye, and she looked up to see, spanning the street, an arched
gateway, at either side of which stood a policeman, quiet and
imperturbable. Its curved top was decorated with colored electric bulbs,
and from its keystone towered a great image molded in white plaster--the
figure of a woman in ancient Japanese costume. One hand held a fan; the
other lifted high above her head a circular globe of light. A huge
weeping-willow drooped over one side of the archway, through which came
glimpses of moving colors, crowds, hanging lanterns and elfish music.
Barbara hesitated. To what did that white, female figure beckon? She
looked behind her--direction now meant nothing. Perhaps she had wandered
in a circle and the theater lay beyond.
She stepped through the gate.