OF course, figured Matsuda to himself, even the addition of one so
famous as the Spider could not at once bring fortune to the House of
Slender Pines at war-time. Then, too, there was the honorable child to
sustain.
Not for a moment, Matsuda told himself, did he begrudge or regret the
celebrations in the Spider’s honor rightly insisted upon by his wife.
Undoubtedly she was an honorable guest. Still, a poor man, the keeper of
a half-score of geishas, must make proper provision for their future
sustenance and his own old age. If the Spider were, in fact, to prove
her old title of fortune-bringer to the geisha-house, it was necessary
that she begin at once.
So, while the Okusama and the geishas showered the Spider with favors
and waited upon her slightest wish, while the honorable descendant of
the illustrious Saito blood joyously passed from hand to hand, while the
Okusama cast aside her dolls and hovered like a brooding mother over
Moonlight and her baby, Matsuda held his head within his own chamber and
cunningly planned a scheme whereby the Spider’s presence in his house
might be turned to immediate profit.
By his contract with the Saito family, the Spider was released from
bondage. Hence she was not entirely bound to serve him. She had already
excited his exasperation by her persistent refusal to dance for
prospective customers the dance by which she had won fame. She desired
to assume another pseudonym, and for a month at least asked that she
might rest and thus regain her strength.
A month! inwardly had snorted Matsuda. Why, even the last batch of
troops would be at the front by then. Japan would be emptied completely
of her men. Now was the time, if ever, to draw patrons to the house,
since the departing soldiers celebrated their going at the most popular
geisha-houses. Only the fact that the House of Slender Pines was some
distance away among the hills kept the soldiers from patronizing it in
preference to those in the city of Kioto. But, could Matsuda venture
down below, proclaiming the fact of the return of the Spider, ah, then
indeed he might be assured of customers for a time at least!
No amount of pleading or reasoning, however, moved the Spider. With the
pitying, solicitous, fond arms of the Okusama about her, she languidly
proclaimed herself still ill, as indeed she looked and was.
So Matsuda chewed on his nails and thought and thought. He thought of
the agents of the young Lord Saito Gonji, who had come to see him at the
time Gonji’s regiment was stationed in Tokio. He thought of the
exorbitant reward temptingly tendered him for any information of the
Spider. How he had cursed his inability to find the girl at that time.
But the young Lord Gonji was gone—gone forever, undoubtedly. Who was
there in all this haughty family, which had disdainfully and
contemptuously cast out from its doors the miserable geisha, who could
now possibly be interested in her lot? Nevertheless, the master of the
geisha-house pondered the matter, and as he did so there came up
suddenly before his mind’s eye the round rosy face of the rightful heir
of all the Saito ancestors. His heart began to thump within him with a
strange excitement. Suddenly he set out upon a journey.
------------------------------------------------------------------------