The stone dwelling of Senator Cyrus C. Todd, usually as
indistinguishable from its neighbors as is one piano key from another,
presented at nine o'clock on this night of November third, nineteen
hundred and three, a claim to individuality in the excess of light
pouring from every window, from the perpendicular wink of every opening
door (opened but to close again as quickly); oozing, it would seem, from
the very pores of the pale façade, thereby giving to the great flat
rectangle of the house a phosphorescent value that set it six feet out
into the night.
The upper windows shone more brilliantly than those below. A roller
shade had been carelessly left high. Through the film of chamber
curtains heads could be seen passing. Once, there was the outflung
gesture of a slim, bare arm. Everything bespoke approaching festivity.
At this brightest window a silhouette suddenly appeared, sharp, dark,
complete. It was that of a Japanese girl with wonderfully looped and
curved coiffure, shoulders that sloped tenderly, and a small, straight
throat.
Just at this moment, on the shadowed entrance-steps below, answering
silhouettes began noiselessly to climb. These were men with thin black
legs, and strange burdens, black like themselves. They showed angles as
of gnarled roots; one, the great curved body of a gigantic spider. The
front door, opening instantly to a ring, disclosed them merely as
musicians,--Signor Marcellini of Milan and his colleagues,--bearing
basso, cello, and flutes, secure in swart cases.
The lower rooms of the house were slightly chill. Though flooded with
soft light, they were not yet fully illuminated. All doors within stood
open. It looked almost as if walls had been taken down, so long and
mysterious had grown the vistas. Through all tingled an aromatic smell,
something a little alien, like crushed herbs,--pungent, and full of
vague suggestion. Mrs. Cyrus C. Todd, flowing now down the palm-set
stairway in a purple tide of skirts, frothed with dim lace, stopped at a
switchboard half concealed in vines, sent forth a gloved, determined
hand, and in an instant the secret of the odor was revealed. The rooms,
to their farthest angles, literally exuded chrysanthemums. Senator Todd
was said to have expended five thousand dollars for these flowers alone.
Perhaps he wished to stamp in gold upon the memory of Washington this
coming-out party of his idolized, only child. The conceit was fair
enough, for Gwendolen was bright, and blonde, and golden in herself.
Statesmen and the wives of statesmen did not fail to observe that
chrysanthemums were the insignia of official Japan, and that November
third happened,--they emphasized "happened,"--to be the birthday of
Japan's beloved Emperor. These two facts, joined with the third, that
Senator Todd even now had aspirations to the Tokio mission, made a trio
of keen angles to be used as wedges for further speculation.
The walls of the lower story had been spread for the occasion with
yellow satin, upon which alternated delicate upright strokes of silver
and of white. Around, under the ceiling, grew a frieze of living
flowers. The great, coarse, woody stems crossed in a lattice-work, with
clusters of huge blossoms and green leaves breaking the angles at points
of decision possible only to a trained artist, or to a Japanese. The
white duck floor-covering spread to a border hand-painted, to match the
frieze. Where wall and canvas met, the real flowers again arose,--thick
parallel stalks of differing heights, upholding a wainscot border of
shaggy gold. Mantles were heaped with them. Japanese pots of them in
bloom alternated with conventional ferns and palms. Each electric bulb
jutted from the heart of a living flower. The very air had an amber
tone.
Overhead, invisible footsteps scurried in short flights. They sounded
feminine, young, full of excitement. "Heavens!" Miss Gwendolen de Lancy
Todd was crying, "where on earth _is_ my other glove? I am sure I just
laid it here! And my orchids! Has anybody sat on my orchids? I think
I'll have to marry the young person who sent them, though I forget now
who it was!"
"A person of the name Dodge, n'est-ce-pas?" ventured the little French
dressmaker, on her knees beside the fair white vision. Pins, retained at
the corners of her mouth, added a crushed softness to the pronunciation.
She rhymed it with "targe."
"Yes, a name like that, I believe," said Gwendolen, indifferently, and
craned her long neck over. "Mother called him some sort of a snip. Are
you certain that my dress hangs right now, Madame?"
"Oui, oui. It is perfection," declared Madame, sticking the remaining
pins into the black front of her dress.
"Then at last I am actually ready. I believe there's mother calling now.
Where did Yuki go? Oh, I see, over there by the window, as calm and cool
as if we were going to church instead of to our first ball!"
"Then all my coolness is stopping on my outsides," said the Japanese
girl, with a little incipient shrug and giggle, breaking at once into
the merriest of low laughs. She crossed the room swiftly, with an
unusual, swaying rhythm of movement. "Ah, Gwendolen, my heart it go like
yellow butterflies to be downstairs."
Gwendolen turned a radiant face to greet her. "Now isn't she a vision!"
cried the girl aloud, in fresh access of admiration for her friend.
"Madame, what do you think those French painters of yours would say to
her--Chavannes, De Monvel, Besnard,--who owe so much to Yuki's art?"
"You omit Monsieur Le Beau, who is a painter," said the little woman,
shyly. She was on good terms with the girls, and had made Yuki, as well
as Gwendolen, chic gowns with the breath of Paris upon them. "I knew
well the family of Monsieur Le Beau in France," she hurried on, seeing
the distressed flush in Yuki's face. "Non, non, Mamselles. I am a
chattering old femme. Let me look at you together before you descend the
stair." She sat back upon her heels to enjoy the picture.
"Yes," cried Gwendolen, "that's right. Take us both in." Laughingly she
drew Yuki's arm, with its long, trailing sleeve of gray, tightly within
her own. They rested together, swaying,--smiling,--Yuki's cheek still
warm with the name of Pierre Le Beau, two types as far apart as the two
sides of earth which had given them race.
Gwendolen was fair almost to the extreme of golden blondness. Her
features were small and perfectly related; her nose deliciously
interrogative at the tip. Her brows and lashes, drawn in a darker hue,
gave touches of character and distinction. She was very slender, erect,
and was poised as though she grew in the wind. The long tulle draperies
shook and stirred as if vitalized by her energy. She was all white and
gold. Her heaped-up skeins of hair, amber necklace, gloves, slippers,
and stockings gleamed with a primrose hue, and the freckles on her
orchids (poor flowers, just caught up hastily from an ignominious
corner) repeated the yellow note.
Beside her, Yuki Onda, a few inches lacking in height, impressive,
nevertheless, and held with a striking yet indefinable difference of
line, smiled out like a frail Astarte. Her pallor had an undernote of
ivory, where Gwendolen's was of pearl. Her head, with its pointed chin,
bore, like a diadem of jet,--balanced, like a regal burden,--the spread
wings of her hair. Beneath a white, low brow her eyes made almost a
continuous, gleaming line. The little nose came down, straight and firm,
with a single brush stroke. All the humanity, the tenderness, the
womanhood of her face lay in the red mouth and the small, round chin.
Her smile was startling, even pathetic, in beauty. Gwendolen had once
said, "There is sometimes something in Yuki's smile that makes me want
to fight God for her."
Yuki's robe, in deference to hours of pleading from Gwendolen and Pierre
Le Beau, was Japanese to the least detail. Mrs. Todd had protested in
vain for the "civilized" coming-out gown of white. The robe hung about
the girl in long, loose folds of cræpe, mist-gray, rising in soft
transitions from the dark band of the hem to pearl tones at the throat.
Under it were garments of heavier silk, dawn-colored, showing like
morning through thin clouds. Into the curdled substance of the cræpe,
cherry-flowers were dyed, or rather, breathed in, by a smiling, wrinkled
brown magician at the rim of Yuzen Creek,--pale shapes which glimmered
and were gone, rose to the surface and sank again, as though borne in
moving water. Besides the black note of her hair there was one strong
crash of contrast in the obi, or sash, a broad and dominating zone,
black, too, with fire-flies of gold upon it. For hair-ornaments she wore
a cluster of small pink flowers that had the look of cherry-blooms, and
a great carved ivory pin, pronged like a tuning-fork, an heirloom in her
father's family.
"Gwendo--_len_! Yu-_kee_! Come down instantly!" rose the voice of Mrs.
Todd. "You should have been down ten minutes ago."
"Ah, Madame Todd calls," exclaimed the dressmaker, scrambling to her
feet.
"But you are sure you really admire us, Madame?" challenged Gwendolen,
before she would stir.
"Oui, charmante, charmante, both are perfection apart--and a vision of
paradise together. But go, young ladies, the good mother calls again."
The spoiled child stopped for another instant, this time in the doorway.
"All right, mother. Coming this instant!" she hurled downstairs; then to
the little Frenchwoman she said, "Do not attempt to sit up, Madame. Yuki
is to stay all night, and will help me with the pins. After a glimpse at
the reception and some of the goodies below, you must hurry home to your
little Jeanne. Take plenty of bonbons with you, and I wish to send that
great bunch of daisies, with my love. All children love daisies,
n'est-ce-pas?"
At last they were off. Madame could hear Mrs. Todd, relieved, yet
petulant, scolding them the whole descending scale of the stairs. Moving
through the perfumed disorder of the room, Madame sought out the
daisies, and, with filling eyes, whispered aloud in French, "Now may the
good God be kind to that loving heart, and send to it only blessing."
Stockings, scarfs, fans, underwear,--a thousand dainty trifles must be
gathered up before the little Frenchwoman could give herself consent to
go. Madame and Miss Todd had been kind friends to the widowed exile.
Far over to one side of the room she stumbled upon a dark heap that
showed gleams of a cherry-colored lining. It emitted, as if consciously,
an aroma, subtle, faint, unforgettable, strange scented echoes of a
distant land. It was Yuki's long black "adzuma-coat," worn from the
Japanese Legation, where Baroness Kanrio and the maids had assisted her
to dress, and which, in this bright room, she had slipped laughingly to
the floor and forgotten. Madame held it out for a moment. Then she
folded and laid it softly on the foot of the bed. Her expression had
changed slightly. As if with relief, she snatched up a dressing-gown of
blue flannel, that cried "Gwendolen" from every turquoise fold.
"Gwendolen, where is your father hiding?" demanded Mrs. Todd, severely,
as the two girls reached the hall.
"Why, how should I know? Dad hasn't worried my mind. Isn't Yuki simply a
dream of spring?"
"You forget that I have admired Yuki upstairs," said the harassed
matron, and turned her back. "There's another carriage sounding as if it
wanted to stop! Every wheel goes over my nerve-centre. Cy, _Cy_--rus!
Where _is_ that wretched man? The musicians should be playing now. The
guests will pour in any instant. There is a carriage stopping! It _has_
stopped! Heavens, I shall go mad!"
"Shall Yuki and I run for the drawing-room, mother?"
"Yes, yes, dear. Right under that tallest palm. Be sure to stand ahead
of Yuki. Cyrus! Cy--_rus_! Oh, he is never anywhere when I want him."
Her wails preceded her down the hall.
"Are you looking for me, dear?" asked the senator, innocently, strolling
out in a leisurely manner from his study, where, against orders, he had
been smoking a cigar.
"_Am_ I!" panted his wife. "And you've been smoking!" But indignation
must be swept aside. "The carriages are stopping, man! Don't you hear
them? I'll be in bed for a month if I live through this night! Start up
the musicians, and join us immediately in the front drawing-room."
"Musicians,--musicians?" murmured Cyrus, looking about, "where are the
musicians?"
"Not under the hatrack, nor yet in my china-closet," cried his lady,
with angry vehemence. "Over there! Yes, there--where you saw the piano
wheeled this afternoon; behind that hedge of chrysanthemums!"
"Oh, yes, there in the duck-shooters' lodge. All right, old lady. I'll
start 'em. Don't get excited!"
Guests now streamed upstairs toward the dressing-rooms. Signor
Marcellini began his most seductive waltz; and the senator stood beside
his heaving spouse just as the first smiling acquaintance crossed the
door-sill.
"Ah, Governor! Ah, my _dear_ Mrs. Jink!" chortled Mrs. Todd. "This is
surely a good omen,--my daughter's first official congratulations to
come from you. Gwendolen, let me present Governor Jink and Mrs. Jink,
fresh from our own dear Western state. Miss Yuki Onda of Tokio, Mrs.
Jink,--Gwendolen's most intimate school-friend, and my Oriental
daughter, as I call her. Ah, Sir George! Punctuality is one of the
British virtues. Mrs. Blachouse, my daughter, Miss Todd."
The reception swung now, full and free, into the sparkling waters of
felicity. Laughter, lights, and the rustling of silken skirts on inner
mysteries of silk; music held back by the multitudinous small sounds of
human intercourse, with now and then a protesting wail from violins and
the guttural short snore of a cello! Laughter, and the clink of glasses
on metal trays, the scraping of spoons against porcelain, tinkling of
ice in fragile vessels, and incessantly the shuffle of footsteps on
soundless, unseen floors! Perfumes of dying flowers and foliage, odors
of essences, fumes of fresh-cut lemons, and of wine!
Outside, at the curbing, a continuous roar and rattling of carriages
went on. The covered entrance-way, like an elastic tent drawn out,
sheltered a thin moving stream of faces. Behind them the scrape of
wheels, stamping of horses, and vociferous bawling of drivers sent a
premonitory tingling through the blood. At intervals there came the
snort and hiss of that modern Fafnir, the automobile, followed by the
nauseating taint of gasoline.
To Gwendolen and Yuki it seemed as if the line of visitors would never
end. "Yuki, Yuki," whispered the former, "if they keep popping by like
this, each with that wooden grin, I shall certainly go into hysterics!
Did you see how nearly I broke down in the face of that last fat lady in
tight gray sleeves? She looked like a young rhinoceros in its little
sister's skin."
"I no longer perceive anybody at all," said Yuki, tranquilly. "I only
see the small duck called 'oshi-dori' bobbing down, then up, on the
Sumida River."
"Hush!" whispered Mrs. Todd, in evident excitement. "Here comes the
Russian ambassador with his entire suite. I was wondering whether he
would snub us because of the war-talk, and Yuki, and the chrysanthemums,
and the Mikado's birthday! Now, girls, smile your sweetest!"
But the good lady was given a surprise. Yuki leaned back to touch her
arm. At the look of irritated inquiry the Japanese girl said clearly,
"You must excuse me from this, dear Mrs. Todd; I cannot shake hands with
that person. If I shook, I would be the hypocrite." Without waiting for
permission or remonstrance, she turned and hurried from the direction in
which the Muscovites now approached. Mr. Todd, with hand already
extended in welcome, saw nothing of the little by-play. Gwendolen heard,
sympathized entirely with Yuki, but wisely held her peace. Mrs. Todd,
after a gasp of outraged dignity, recalled herself, perforce, for the
new greetings.
Yuki had slipped from the line quietly enough. She walked away now quite
slowly and with apparent calm. Within, she was turmoil and distress. Had
she done right? Had she offended, beyond forgiveness, her kind friends,
the Todds? But, looking from the opposite point, how could she touch,
even in social insincerity, the hand of a man whom she felt by instinct
to be a subtle enemy of her native land? This very minister was
suspected by many to be one of the strongest who urged the weak Czar
into insult and hostility. Would Mrs. Todd reprove her publicly? Would
Baron Kanrio, when he heard, defend the childish impulse?
A greater one than Kanrio would soon be here. In the agitation of the
moment she had forgotten that tremendous fact. Prince Hagané, her
father's feudal lord, or daimyo, often called the "Living War-God of
Japan," was to come, for a few moments, to this reception, and partly
because of her. A Japanese, no matter how great, seldom neglects the
privileges of humanity. Yuki's parents had written that the Prince was
to see her, and deliver news. What would he say now,--what would her
father say,--if told of this rude and un-Japanese yielding to a personal
distaste? "Yet," muttered Yuki to herself, through small clenched teeth,
"even should Lord Hagané himself command me, I think I would not touch
that Russian's hand."
Moving forward slowly, but always in a straight line, she came full
against a small white surface on a level with her face, a thing
shield-shaped, and framed in black. It did not move aside for her, as
similar white patches, vaguely seen, had done. Brought up suddenly, she
realized it to be a shirt-front, and presumably behind the shirt-front
there must be a living man.
"Oh, beg pardon!" she faltered, shrinking back. "I begs much pardons,
sir."
Two eager hands caught her own. A gay, low voice said, laughing, "I have
watched your coming. I willed it. How straight you sped, you beautiful,
strange bird!"
But Yuki, dazed for the moment, did not answer. She panted slightly, and
tried to draw her hands away.
"I have waited here, by the conservatory door. You must be tired with
standing. Come in with me, and rest."
Still unable to command herself, she let the speaker lead her into the
warm shadows. She hoped he had not seen her rudeness to the Russian
minister. Mrs. Todd swept round an angry glance just in time to see them
disappear.
Pierre Le Beau found a sheltered seat, and gently, yet in a masterful
way, forced her down beside him.
"Oh, Yuki, but you are beautiful to-night! Was I not mad enough with
love without this new gray snare of mist, these blossoms drifting along
an irresistible tide? It is a lifetime since I have seen you."
The beating of the girl's heart slowly slackened. "The lifetime of a
flower, then," she said, smiling upward. "It was but last night, you
know, when we all work so hard with the decorators and the
chrysanthemums."
"Last century!" he laughed. "I really exist only in the moments when I
am with you. All else are dungeon hours, locked with your last
'Good-bye.' Do not shrink from me now, darling. Let me hold you in my
arms once this wonderful night."
"My hair you will disarrange, and others notice," she pleaded, holding
him back with one white hand. "And, dear Pierre, you rumples my mind
more than my hair. I must be calm to-night, and cheerful with many. I am
the débutante."
"You are hard to win," said Pierre, "but I believe I like it so. Your
Japanese etiquette is a thorny hedge. More than once I've torn my soul
upon it. Ah, but even that could not keep me quite away. You struggled
hard, you elf of pearl and mist, but at last you said you loved
me,--that you wished to be my wife."
He brushed away the hand and caught her. She gave a little shuddering
movement in his arms. "That was a terrible, bold thing for a girl of the
samurai class to say. My heart shake a finger at me yet, that I have
confessed so immodest a thought. I should hereafter be very circumspect
with you, to pay for that bad thing!"
"Circumspect!" laughed Pierre. "Yes, we shall both be circumspect like
this,--and this!" She wrenched herself from his kisses, and stood
upright in the narrow path. "No, Pierre; I mean it. Please do not do
such things, or my frightened spirit never will return. I must go to
Mrs. Todd; I fear she is angered."
"Angered,--with you?" asked Pierre, arrested by the sincerity of the
girl's protest. Yuki turned her head away. Suddenly he recalled the
Russian minister's approach, and connected it with Yuki's flight. He
stared at her averted countenance. "Yuki, did you leave your
friends,--would you offend them,--rather than greet the Russian
ambassador?"
"Yes," whispered Yuki, trembling.
The radiance of Pierre's face went out, his head sank. "So that was the
reason. You would not touch a Russian! As you know, my mother is a
Russian."
"Oh, it is not _all_ Russians! Do not think that I would wound you. Many
are good. Mr. Tolstoi, Mr. Wittee, your honored mother, too, I am sure.
They hate, as we, the tyrants that wish to crush the people, and to
bring on this cruel, unjust war. I saw the petals of our Emperor's
flowers shrivel as he passed them by! I, too, would have shrivelled,--my
soul would have turned black,--at his breath."
"No war will come!" cried Pierre, vehemently. "I have told you this
before. I know it from the inside. There will be no war. Your country
will not face Imperial Russia!"
"If those bad ones push us just too far,--if they delay replies, and
provoke us just a little more,--Nippon will fight, and I think that God
will let us win!"
"Your Christian God must side with Russia. He cannot aid a nation that
does not believe in him!" Pierre's eyes held curiosity and a challenge.
Yuki turned slowly to him, answered the look with sombre brooding, and
then stared upward to where close moisture of the high glass dome curved
space into a frosted shell. "Perhaps, though," she said, pausing between
each word, "the Christian God--believe--in--_us_!"
Before his surprise found vent her mood and tone had changed. "But, no,
no, Pierre; we talk no more of tragic things this night, not of war, and
hate, and destiny. It is our ball, Monsieur Pierre Marie Le Beau,--I
begs you to remember that. And me and Gwendolen are now in society. I am
in society,--is it not nice? Come, let us return to society at once."
She caught his arm, laughing, and tried to urge him from the bench.
"You witch of moods!" said Pierre. "Are other Japanese girls like you?
When I hold you closest, then do you seem most far away. I seize you in
a thousand tantalizing forms, only to fear, each time, that never yet
have I seen the real Yuki. Ah! take me to your land, my love, and make
me one with it. What do I care for war, for Russia, even for France, if
once I could believe you entirely my own? You know I am fighting hard to
sail with you next spring. The French ambassador here gives me much
hope, and in France my relatives are working."
"Yes, yes, we shall go together on that great ship," said Yuki,
soothingly, "and together we shall seek my dear parents, and ask them
for our happiness."
Pierre's face lighted. "But you will be true to me no matter whether
they give consent or not?" he cried. "Swear it, Yuki."
"I will be true to you, Pierre," said Yuki. "You wish to hear that many
times, do you not? But I cannot say I will marry you without their
consent. But they are kind--they must like you, Pierre." She flushed
delicately. "We--we will make them to say '_yes_,' Pierre."
Still the young man hesitated. "This condition that you hold so
stubbornly is our menace," he began. "I don't urge you to marry me at
once, without their good wishes, only to promise that, after trying in
every way to gain them, you will take your life into your own hands and
come to me."
"Why do we fret and worry about such things so far away? You will take
from me all joy of our party. Will you not return to the room with me?"
"No," said Pierre, seizing a hand in his, "I shall hold you until this
is a bit more clear. No, Yuki--"
"Yuki,--Yuki!" came a cautious voice, an echo, it seemed, to Pierre's
last word. "Where are you? Mother has sent me here. Prince Hagané asked
for you. She says to come at once."
"Let my hand go. I must hurry. It is Prince Hagané," whispered Yuki,
and, slipping deftly from Pierre, she hurried to join her friend. He
followed quickly, stopped in the doorway, and stood there, scowling.
The crowd had thinned. He could see the heads and shoulders of the two
girls moving and whispering together as they sped. Beyond them,
surrounded by his suite of glittering officials, Spanish-looking men in
broadcloth and gold lace, rose the dark, impressive figure of Prince
Hagané. He was in the dull silken robes of his own land, unornamented
but for a single decoration,--the highest that a Japanese subject, not a
prince of the blood, had ever received.
Pierre's first thought was an inconsequent one of childish irritation
that the man bore no marks of age. On the other hand, no one could have
thought him young. The massive features, bronze in tone, and set in a
sort of aquiline rigidity, the conscious, kingly poise of head and
throat rising from deep brawny shoulders, the stiff black hair, touched
evenly throughout with gray, had none of them the color of youth. Yet
beside him youth looked tame, and old age withered. This man was on the
very summit of life, the central point of storms, rather than their
object. His deep-set eyes gazed now far beyond to the future, then back
into the past, with equal certainty of vision.
Such was the great man Hagané--"Ko-shaku Hagané," feudal, not imperial,
prince; a title signifying the highest rank attainable by a subject not
descended from the gods. Native ballads called him the "Right Arm and
the Left Ear" of the Emperor. Woodcuts of his splendid, ugly head, set
by country farmers within household shrines, proclaimed him the Living
War-God of Nippon. His victories and innovations at the time of the
Chinese struggle had spread his fame through two worlds.
As Yuki and Gwendolen drew near, Mrs. Todd first perceived them. "Here
they are. Present me first, Cyrus,--then Gwendolen, then Yuki," the
matron gave whispered command. Hagané responded to the first two
greetings with unsmiling courtesy, offering a perfunctory extension of
his thick hand.
"Now, your Highness," said Todd, his thin, jovial voice carrying easily
to where Pierre stood, "here's somebody that will look more natural.
Step up, Yuki-ko. You aren't afraid!"
Hagané had already fixed keen eyes upon the girl. His hands fell to his
sides. A faint smile, merely a gleam on metal, hurried across his face.
Pierre saw his lips move. Yuki went closer, hesitated, gained courage,
and looked up into the broad face. Pierre saw Mrs. Todd and Gwendolen
exchange smiling glances. Todd threw back his head to laugh. The smile
returned to Hagané, unexpected, intensified, brilliant, as if a new day
had broken. Pierre winced. He saw Yuki sway again,--put forth two white
hands, falter, then sink suddenly prone, her palms outspread, her white
forehead on the floor, her whole slim, crouching body topped by the
great black burden of the sash, instinct with reverence not far from
adoration.
Hagané lifted her immediately, his smile deepening. Mrs. Todd turned
away, embarrassed. The small ripple of excitement in the onlookers died;
but Pierre, with angry eyes, sought Yuki, and drew her slightly to one
side.
"When you are my wife there will be no such ridiculous kow-towing," he
said.
"Who is your friend, Yuki?" asked the great man, stepping
condescendingly near.
She performed the introduction well, speaking in English without a
tremor of the low voice.
"Ah," said Hagané, speaking also in English, "I am recently from the
country of Monsieur, which, I do not mistake in conjecturing, is France?
Perhaps you are a visitor here, like myself." He put out the great hand,
and after an imperceptible hesitation Pierre thrust his own within it.
The grasp turned him pale.
"Your Highness is correct in both surmises," he answered stiffly; "I am
of France, and I am a visitor. At an early date I anticipate the
pleasure of being in your Highness's country."
"Indeed? Pray remind me of this meeting when you arrive, Monsieur. Shall
you sail soon?"
"Not for many months, I fear," said the Frenchman. "But I shall
certainly avail myself of your kind suggestion."
Yuki's eyes were urging him to go. The girl herself could not have told
why she felt apprehension in the proximity of these two men. Hagané had
never been antagonistic to foreigners, and she knew that, in Japan, she
and Pierre could not have another friend so powerful. Yet she was
uneasy.
Pierre, with a last bow, went. The little episode stirred him. The
thought rushed through him, too, that here was possibly an invincible
friend. He would make the most of it. Even Yuki's abject obeisance,
which before had stung him, shone now in the light of desirable
dependence on the great man's word. Let him, Pierre, secure his
appointment, and, with Hagané his friend, the old gods might shake their
heads and growl in vain.
He went into the street. The long rooms had suddenly grown too small for
his aspirations. One friendly cigarette was smoked, and then another.
Life seemed a jolly thing, that hour, to Pierre.