That was a long and exciting ride for Sunny. Above the roar of the
rushing train Katy shouted in her ear. Perfectly at home in the Subway,
Katy did not let a little thing like mere noise deter the steady flow of
her tongue. The gist of her remarks came always back to what Sunny was
to do when they arrived at 27 Broadway; how she was to look; how speak.
She was to bear in mind that she was going into the presence of American
royalty, and she was to be neither too fresh nor yet too humble.
Americans, high and low, so Katy averred, liked folks that had a kick to
them, but not too much of a kick.
Sunny was to find out whether at some time or other in the past, Senator
Wainwright had not put himself under deep obligations to some member of
Sunny's family. Perhaps some of her relatives might have saved the life
of this senator. Even Chinks were occasionally heroes, Katy had heard.
It might be, on the other hand, said Katy, that Sunny's mother had
something "on" the senator. So much the better. Katy had no objection,
so she said, to the use of a bit of refined ladylike blackmail, for "the
end justifies the means," said Katy, quoting, so she said, from Lincoln,
the source of all her aphorisms. Anyway, the long and short of it was,
said Katy, that Sunny was on no account to get cold feet. She was to
enter the presence of the mighty man with dignity and coolness. "Keep
your nerve whatever you do," urged Katy. Then once eye to eye with the
man of power, she was to ask--it was possible, she might even be able to
demand--certain favours.
"Ask and it shall be given to you. Shut your mouth and it'll be taken
away. That's how things go in this old world," said Katy.
Sunny was to make application in both their names. If there were no
vacancies in the senator's office, then she would delicately suggest
that the senator could make such a vacancy. Such things were done within
Katy's own experience.
Katy had no difficulty in locating the monstrous office building, and
she led Sunny along to the elevator with the experienced air of one used
to ascending skyward in the crowded cars. Sunny held tight to her arm as
they made the breathless ascent. There was no need to ask direction on
the 35th floor, since the Wainwright Structural Steel Company occupied
the entire floor.
It was noon hour, and Katy and Sunny followed several girls returning
from lunch through the main entrance of the offices.
A girl at a desk in the reception hall stopped them from penetrating
farther into the offices by calling out:
"No admission there. Who do you want to see? Name, please."
Katy swung around on her heel, and recognising a kindred spirit in the
girl at the desk, she favoured her with an equally haughty and glassy
stare. Then in a very superior voice, Katy replied:
"We are friends of the Senator. Kindly announce us, if you please."
A grin slipped over the face of the maiden at the desk, and she shoved a
pad of paper toward Katy.
Opposite the word "Name" on the pad, Katy wrote, "Miss Sindicutt."
Opposite the word: "Business" she wrote "Private and personal and
intimate."
The girl at the desk glanced amusedly at the pad, tore the first sheet
off, pushed a button which summoned an office boy, to whom she handed
the slip of paper. With one eye turned appraisingly upon the girls, he
went off backwards, whistling, and disappeared through the little
swinging gate that opened apparently into the great offices beyond.
"I beg your pardon?" said Katy to the girl at the desk.
"I didn't say nothing," returned the surprised maiden.
"I thought you said 'Be seated.' I will, thank you. Don't mention it,"
and Katy grinned with malicious politeness on the discomfited young
person, who patted her coiffure with assumed disdain.
Katy meanwhile disposed herself on the long bench, drew Sunny down
beside her, and proceeded to scrutinise and comment on all passers
through the main reception hall into the offices within. Once in a while
she resumed her injunctions to Sunny, as:
"Now don't be gettin' cold feet whatever you do. There ain't nothing to
be afraid of. A cat may look at a king, him being the king and you the
cat. No offence, dearie. Ha, ha, ha! That's just my way of speaking.
Say, Sunny, would you look at her nibs at the desk there. Gee! ain't
that a job? Some snap, I'll say. Nothin' to do, but give everyone the
once over, push a button and send a boy to carry in your names. Say, if
you're a true friend of mine, you'll land me that job. It'd suit me down
to a double Tee."
"Katy, I goin' try get you bes' job ad these place. I am not so smart
like you, Katy----"
"Oh, well, you can't help that, dearie, and you got the face all right."
"Face is no matter. My mother are tell me many time, it is those heart
that matter."
"_Sounds_ all right, and I ain't questionin' your mother's opinion,
Sunny, but you take it from me, you can go a darn sight further in this
old world with a face than a heart."
A man had come into the reception room from the main entrance. He
started to cross the room directly to the little swinging door, then
stopped to speak to a clerk at a wicket window. Something about the
sternness of his look, an air savouring almost of austerity aroused the
imp in Katy.
"Well, look who's here," she whispered behind her hand to Sunny. "Now
watch little K-k-katy."
As the man turned from the window, and proceeded toward the door, Katy
shot out her foot, and the man abstractedly stumbled against it. He
looked down at the girl, impudently staring him out of countenance, and
frowned at her exaggerated:
"I _beg_ your pardon!"
Then his glance turning irritably from Katy, rested upon Sunny's
slightly shocked face? He stopped abruptly, standing perfectly still for
a moment, staring down at the girl. Then with a muttered apology,
Senator Wainwright turned and went swiftly through the swinging door.
"Well, of _all_ the nerve!" said Katy. Then to the girl at the desk:
"Who was his nibs?"
"Why, your friend, of course. I'm surprised you didn't recognise him,"
returned the girl sweetly.
"Him--Senator Wainwright."
"The papers sometimes call him 'The Man of Steel,' but of course,
intimate friends like you and your friend there probably call him by a
nickname."
"Sure we do," returned Katy brazenly. "I call him 'Sen-Sen' for short.
I'd a known him in an instant with his hat off."
"I want to know!" gibed the girl at the desk.
The boy had returned, and thrusting his head over the short gate sang
out:
"This way, please, la-adies!"
Katy and Sunny followed the boy across an office where many girls and
men were working at desks. The click of a hundred typewriters, and the
voices dictating into dictagraphs and to books impressed Katy, but with
her head up she swung along behind the boy. At a door marked "Miss
Hollowell, Private," the boy knocked. A voice within bade him "Come,"
and the two girls were admitted.
Miss Hollowell, a clear-eyed young woman of the clean-cut modern type of
the efficient woman executive, looked up from her work and favoured them
with a pleasant smile.
"What can I do for you?" The question was directed at Katy, but her
trained eye went from Katy to Sunny, and there remained in speculative
inquiry.
"We have come to call upon the Senator," said Katy, "on important and
private business."
Katy was gripping to that something she called her "nerve," but her
manner to Miss Hollowell had lost the gibing patronising quality she had
affected to the girl at the door. Acute street gamin, as was Katy, she
had that unerring gift of sizing up human nature at a glance, a gift not
unsimilar in fact to that possessed by the secretary of Senator
Wainwright.
Miss Hollowell smiled indulgently at Katy's words.
"_I_ see. Well now, I'll speak for Mr. Wainwright. What can we do for
you?"
"Nothing. _You_ can't do nothing," said Katy. She was not to be beguiled
by the smile of this superior young person. "My friend here--meet Miss
Sindicutt--has a personal letter for Senator Wainwright, and she's
takin' my advice not to let it out of her hands into any but his."
"I'm awfully sorry, because Mr. Wainwright is very busy, and can't
possibly see you. I believe I will answer the purpose as well. I'm Mr.
Wainwright's secretary."
"We don't want to speak to no secretary," said Katy. "I always say: 'Go
to the top. Slide down if you must. You can't slide up.'"
Miss Hollowell laughed.
"Oh, very well then. Perhaps some other time, but we're especially busy
to-day, so I'm going to ask you to excuse us. _Good_-day."
She turned back to the papers on her desk, her pencil poised above a
sheet of estimates.
Katy pushed Sunny forward, and in dumb show signified that she should
speak. Miss Hollowell glanced up and regarded the girl with singular
attention. Something in the expression, something in the back of the
secretary's mind that concerned Japan, which this strange girl had now
mentioned caused her to wait quietly for her to finish the sentence.
Sunny held out the letter, and Miss Hollowell saw that fine script upon
the envelope, with the Japanese letters down the side.
"This are a letter from Japan," said Sunny. "If you please I will lig'
to give those to Sen--Thad is so big a name for me to say." The last was
spoken apologetically and brought a sympathetic smile from Miss
Hollowell.
"Can't I read it? I'm sure I can give you what information you want as
well as Mr. Wainwright can."
"It are wrote in Japanese," said Sunny. "You cannot read that same.
_Please_ you let me take it to thad gentleman."
Miss Hollowell, with a smile, arose at that plea. She crossed the room
and tapped on the door bearing the Senator's name.
Even in a city where offices of the New York magnates are sometimes as
sumptuously furnished as drawing rooms, the great room of Senator
Wainwright was distinctive. The floor was strewn with priceless Persian
and Chinese rugs, which harmonised with the remarkable walls, panelled
half way up with mahogany, the upper part of which was hung with
masterpieces of the American painters, whose work the steel magnate
especially favoured. Stephen Wainwright was seated at a big mahogany
desk table, that was at the far end of the room, between the great
windows, which gave upon a magnificent view of the Hudson River and part
of the Harbor. He was not working. His elbows on the desk, he seemed to
be staring out before him in a mood of strange abstraction. His face,
somewhat stony in expression, with straight grey eyes that had a curious
trick when turned on one of seeming to pin themselves in an appraising
stare, his iron grey hair and the grey suit which he invariably wore had
given him the name of "The Man of Steel." Miss Hollowell, with her
slightly professional smile, laid the slip of paper on the desk before
him.
"A Miss Sindicutt. She has a letter for you--a letter from Japan she
says. She wishes to deliver it in person."
At the word "Japan" he came slightly out of his abstraction, stared at
the slip of paper, and shook his head.
"Don't know the name."
"Yes, I knew you didn't; but, still, I believe I'd see her if I were
you."
"Very well. Send her in."
Miss Hollowell at the door nodded brightly to Sunny, but stayed Katy,
who triumphantly was pushing forward.
"Sorry, but Mr. Wainwright will see just Miss Sindicutt."
Sunny went in alone. She crossed the room hesitantly and stood by the
desk of the steel magnate, waiting for him to speak to her. He remained
unmoving, half turned about in his seat, staring steadily at the girl
before him. If a ghost had arisen suddenly in his path, Senator
Wainwright could not have felt a greater agitation. After a long pause,
he found his voice, murmuring:
"I beg your pardon. Be seated, please."
Sunny took the chair opposite him. Their glances met and remained for a
long moment locked. Then the man tried to speak lightly:
"You wished to see me. What can I do for you?"
Sunny extended the letter. When he took it from her hand, his face came
somewhat nearer to hers, and the closer he saw that young girl's face,
the greater grew his agitation.
"What is your name?" he demanded abruptly.
"Sunny," said the girl simply, little dreaming that she was speaking the
name that the man before her had himself invented for her seventeen and
a half years before.
The word touched some electrical cord within him. He started violently
forward in his seat, half arising, and the letter in his hand dropped on
the table before him face up. A moment of gigantic self-control, and
then with fingers that shook, Stephen Wainwright slipped the envelope
open. The words swam before him, but not till they were indelibly
printed upon the man's conscience-stricken heart. Through blurred vision
he read the message from the dead to the living.
"On this sixth day of the Season of Little Plenty. A thousand years of
joy. It is your honourable daughter, who knows not your name, who brings
or sends to you this my letter. I go upon the long journey to the Meido.
I send my child to him through whom she has her life. Sayonara.
Haru-no."
For a long, long time the man sat with his two hands gripped before him
on the desk, steadily looking at the girl before him, devouring every
feature of the well-remembered face of the child he had always loved. It
seemed to him that she had changed not at all. His little Sunny of those
charming days of his youth had that same crystal look of supreme
innocence, a quality of refinement, a fragrance of race that seemed to
reach back to some old ancestry, and put its magic print upon the
exquisite young face. He felt he must have been blind not to have
recognised his own child the instant his eye had fallen upon her. He
knew now what that warm rush of emotion had meant when he had looked at
her in that outer office. It was the intuitive instinct that his own
child was near--the only child he had ever had. By exercising all the
self-control that he could command, he was at last able to speak her
name, huskily.
"Sunny, don't you remember me?"
Like her father, Sunny was addicted to moments of abstraction. She had
allowed her gaze to wander through the window to the harbour below,
where she could see the great ships at their moorings. It made her think
of the one she had come to America on, and the one on which Jerry had
sailed away from Japan. Painfully, wistfully, she brought her gaze back
to her father's face. At his question she essayed a little propitiating
smile.
"Mebbe I are see you face on American ad-ver-tise-ment. I are hear you
are very grade man ad these America," said the child of Stephen
Wainwright.
He winced, and yet grew warm with pride and longing at the girl's
delicious accent. He, too, tried to smile back at her, but something
sharp bit at the man's eyelids.
"No, Sunny. Try and think. Throw your mind far back--back to your sixth
year, if that may be."
Sunny's eyes, resting now in troubled question upon the face before her,
grew slowly fixed and enlarged. Through the fogs of memory slowly, like
a vision of the past, she seemed to see again a little child in a
fragrant garden. She was standing by the rim of a pool, and the man
opposite her now was at her side. He was dressed in Japanese kimona and
hakama, and Sunny remembered that then he was always laughing at her,
shaking the flower weighted trees above her, till the petals fell in a
white and pink shower upon her little head and shoulders. She was
stretching out her hands, catching the falling blossoms, and,
delightedly exclaiming that the flying petals were tiny birds fluttering
through the air. She was leaning over the edge of the pool, blowing the
petals along the water, playing with her father that they were white
prayer ships, carrying the petitions to the gods who waited on the other
side. She remembered drowsing against the arm of the man; of being
tossed aloft, her face cuddled against his neck; of passing under the
great wistaria arbour. Ah, yes! how clearly she recalled it now! As her
father transferred her to her mother's arms, he bent and drew that
mother into his embrace also.
Two great tears welled up in the eyes of Sunny, but ere they could fall,
the distance between her and her father had vanished. Stephen
Wainwright, kneeling on the floor by his long-lost child, had drawn her
hungrily into his arms.
"My own little girl!" said "The Man of Steel."