Hagané's entrance had broken the receiving line. He became at once the
personage, the dominating influence. Guests moved about now, or gathered
into little social groups at will. The long apartment filled evenly, a
third to the ceiling, with a shifting surface of triangles which were
shoulders,--white shoulders, black shoulders, pink shoulders, sometimes
a military pair of gold-lace shoulders, each pair surmounted by a head.
The rooms, emptying ever, were ever filling, as in some well-constructed
drinking-fountain,--the very walls soaked in the hum and timbre of human
voices.
Gwendolen, freed from the thralls of official hostess-ship, gathered to
herself young men in passage, as a spray of scented golden-rod gathers
bees. She had a smile for all, a witty retort, or an insinuating
whisper, followed by a provocative look. Old maids, and mothers with
unattractive daughters, were wont to call Gwendolen a heartless
coquette. As for the coquetry, it was indefensible; as to the heart,
young men held varying opinions with regard to that coveted article.
The social atmosphere, charged with evanescent gayety, intoxicated her.
She felt like a flower held under the surface of champagne. Through all
the glamour spread a tincture of chrysanthemums. Ever after--sometimes
in lands very far away from Washington--the odor of these blossoms had
power to bring before her, as in an illuminated vision, the yellow
walls, the moving heads, and, clearest of all, the slender, mist-gray
figure of Yuki Onda; the delicate, happy face under the great loops of
blue-black hair.
As Gwendolen talked and strolled, promising a dance to one, refusing it
to another, with unreasoning caprice and the manner of a young empress,
her hazel eyes, under their long lashes, shot more than once an
undetected glance to a certain corner where, beside a pedestal of
drooping fern, stood a lonely guest. This person was young, good to look
at in a buoyant, breezy sort of way, and of the sex which (alas, yet
beyond contesting!) most keenly interested the fair observer. After such
glances she usually fell to fondling her sheaf of orchids, and once
pressed it up against her face. At this the brown eyes in the corner
gleamed, and took on the alertness of a terrier whose master snaps a
playful finger.
Mrs. Todd became solicitous that her guest of honor should be fed, but
hesitated to ask him for fear that her "foreign food" might prove
unpalatable. This apprehension was finally confided on tiptoe to her
lord. "Heavens! Susan," said the unfeeling mate, with the twinkle which
she dreaded, "do you suppose a Japanese commissary department has been
trotting beside him through Asia, Europe, Boston, and New York? Set him
before a mess of caviare, lobster à la Newburg, and extra dry, and see
what he does to it. Where did Gwendolen go?"
"She's over there by the punch-bowl, I believe," responded Mrs. Todd, in
absent-minded fashion. The good lady still hung, ponderously vague,
between her husband's opinion of Hagané's gastronomic culture and her
own half-solaced fears.
Todd craned his neck over the crowd. "Oh, there she is, just by the
punch-table. The young men are thicker than fleas on a candy kitten.
Wonder whether it's Gwennie or the punch."
"A little of both, I presume," said Mrs. Todd, austerely. She often
found her spouse unsympathetic.
"I don't blame 'em then,--dinged if I do," cried he, with a joyful,
premonitory lurch. A firm hand clutched him.
"I'm going for the prince now. He is talking to Yuki. Shall I send her
away? She looks as she did on confirmation day, the little idiot. The
way these Japanese worship their country and each other is simply
ridiculous. What do you think about keeping her with me and the prince,
Cy?"
Todd glanced at Yuki. His face softened. She had indeed an upraised,
glorified look, as if a beatified vision instead of a very solid living
man leaned down to her words.
"Keep her, by all means. She'll know how to wait on her bronze idol,"
said he, lightly, and dived into the crowd.
Apart from Yuki, Mrs. Todd found unexpected solution in her task of
feeding the lion. His private secretary, Mr. Hirai, was not merely an
Oxford graduate, but an accomplished man of the world. He made
everything easy. At the hostess's first hint of invitation the Japanese
started in a solid body toward the supper-rooms. Several ladies who had
met members of the party in Boston or New York adhered, smiling, to the
moving group. Yuki fell back with the secretary, and began chattering to
him in Japanese, her dark eyes slowly turning to stars, her pale cheeks
kindling into rosy fire. All of the company centred about Hagané, as
thoughts centre about a master will. The occasion which Mrs. Todd
dreaded proved to her one of the pleasantest incidents of the whole
successful affair. Hagané, in his enjoyment of the delicate fare,
entirely justified his host's prophecy. The true hostess is never quite
so happy as when she sees her guests enjoying the good things which she,
through anxious hours, has been solicitous in providing.
Meantime Mr. Todd had reached his daughter. The young men drew back a
little in deference to the age and relationship of the intruder, but did
not get beyond range of allurement.
"It's come, little girl," he whispered, with eyes as young and bright as
hers. "It came by wire just a few minutes ago. It's here!" He tapped
significantly at the left side of his coat.
"The appointment? Oh! does mother know?"
"Not yet," admitted the senator, with the look of an urchin caught
stealing jam. "Perhaps we'd better--"
"You bet we'd better!" She threw back her head and laughed the merriest
laugh in all the world. Then she ran her sparkling eyes about the circle
of withdrawn, boyish faces. "You must excuse me; dad has a secret, and
that means insanity for me if I can't hear it at once. You wouldn't have
me go mad--now, would you?--before the first waltz plays!"
"Certainly not!" laughed the chorus.
"But, Miss Gwendolen," ventured a bold swain, "how about that first
waltz? For whom are you keeping it?"
"Well," said the girl, pausing, and letting shy archness possess her
downcast lids, "I did not want to tell you, but since you force me to
it,--I am keeping the first waltz for--mother!"
With another laugh, full of bright mockery, she caught her father's arm,
and hurried him away. The excitement of the past hour was nothing to
what she now felt. Chattering, sparkling, laughing, tossing,
gesticulating at times with her sheaf of flowers, she was a slim
fountain of youth, with a noon-day sun above it. "You really have the
appointment!" she cried to him, when they were well out of hearing. "I
knew you must get it, though the President certainly took his time. And
we shall sail next spring with Yuki! What! we go _before_ next spring?
Oh, how perfectly delicious! And mother doesn't know? Now, dad, I am
surprised at you! You must be sure to let mother know first, or her
feelings will be hurt. Oh, aren't we a pair of rascals, dad? Such nice
rascals! I do like ourselves,--now don't you, dad?"
Pierre Le Beau had, a few moments before, abandoned his lonely
sentinelship at the conservatory door; but, in the corner where the fern
stood, the sturdier watcher, brown of face and square of shoulder, held
a tenacious post. A deflection of visual lenses (though to outward
appearance his eyes seemed clear enough) kept him from beholding more
than one person in the crowded rooms. If she had been aware of the
silent challenge, her knowledge was cleverly concealed. Yet now, on her
father's arm, she drifted steadily, though with seeming unconsciousness,
toward that special nook. The watcher put a hand on a Roman chair beside
him, suggestively unoccupied.
Abreast of the little group,--the gold chair, great fern, and dim
inhabitant--Gwendolen stopped. A smile went forth that lit the shadows,
as she said quite clearly, "Thank you, I believe I will. I should like
to get a bit of a rest before dancing."
Senator Cyrus C. Todd did not lack intuition. "Ah, there's Skimmer. Very
chap I wanted to see!" he mumbled to himself, and hurried off in an
opposite direction.
He of the brown eyes leaned confidently down. "You chose my flowers!" he
vaunted.
Exultation was not the most desirable note to adopt with Gwendolen. She
answered nothing for a moment. She was busy adjusting herself to an
"unconscious" pose, as perfect as the bold lines of the chair and her
own graceful figure could combine to produce. She looked down upon the
orchids with a thoughtful, pensive gaze, then slowly upward to the
speaker. "Ah, was it then--you--who sent them?"
"Yes; didn't you know? Was it too cheeky, having met you but a glorious
once?"
No reply. Gwendolen lifted the flowers and brushed her soft lips across
them. Her companion drew himself erect among the drooping green shadows
of the fern, swallowed hard, and asked, in a chastened voice, "Did that
bloomin' blot of a florist forget to put my card in, after all I said?"
Gwendolen's upraised eyes were now those of a commiserating dove. "I'm
sorry, but I did not see any card among the flowers."
The fern had a short ague and stood still. "I'll take a surgeon along
when I go to see that florist."
"I wouldn't," said the girl, pityingly. "It was the loveliest sheaf I
ever saw. He deserves something better than broken bones for arranging
it."
"Yes, they were jolly. They must have pleased you," said the young man,
with a wintry gleam of resignation. "I was bent on finding something
that really looked like you. I went all over Washington, New York, and
Philadelphia in person. But I was so careful of the card! I told the
foo--the man, over and over again, to be sure and enclose it. It was
printed out in full,--'T. Caraway Dodge, First Secretary of American
Legation, Tokio, Japan.'"
"You think you have found something that looks just like me?" asked the
girl, slowly, ignoring the latter half of his speech. Her face was full
of deprecating interest. She daintily drew forth a single strange
blossom, and held it, poised for contrast, against the dark leaves of
the fern. Thus detached, it bore an unfortunate resemblance to a ghostly
spider.
"Oh, not stuck off on a cork, like that!" cried the tortured donor. "All
in a lump, don't you know,--beaten up like the whites of eggs, with
gold-dust sprinkled over, and parsley around the edges!"
"All in a lump--beaten up like eggs--parsley around the edges," began
Gwendolen, gravely, when suddenly she tripped and fell against her own
laughter. Her pretty shoulders quaked. She bent far over for control,
and tried to hide the treacherous mirth.
But Dodge had seen enough for him. "By Jiminy! you've been jollying me
all the time! And I swallowed it like a bloomin' oyster!" He came around
to the front, drew up a stool, flung himself upon it, and looked up with
grins that bespoke a renewed zest for life. "Now honest, Miss Todd, you
owe me something for this. Didn't you know who sent them? Didn't you
really find that card in the box?"
"No, I didn't--honest--but--m-mother did!" confessed Gwendolen, now
half-stifled with laughter.
"And you didn't resent it? And you thought them pretty from the very
first moment?" cried the youth, on a high note of satisfaction. He
reached up now boldly, took the single flower from her hand, pinched off
the end of a long fern-leaf to back it, and deliberately arranged
himself a button-hole.
Gwendolen wiped the tears of merriment from her bright eyes. "Pretty?"
she echoed. "It is too tame a word. I thought them a dream,--an
inspiration,--a visual ecstasy!"
"Yes, I said they were like you," returned the impudent Dodge, as well
as he could for the distorted countenance bent above the process of
pinning in his flower. "There," he said, anent this finished operation,
"it's in. I think it becomes me. I didn't run my finger to the bone but
once. Now tell me what ma-_ma_ thought of the flowers and the card?"
In spite of her usual self-possession, the girl was stricken dumb. To
add to her confusion, a deep embarrassing blush rose relentlessly to her
throat and face, and would not be banished.
"You won't repeat it!" cried the terrible youth. "You don't dare
to,--but I will. Mama said,--lifting her lorgnettes (here he
deliberately mimicked the air of a middle-aged grande dame),--'T.
Caraway Dodge! Who is T. Caraway Dodge? Oh, I see,--a snip of an
attaché!'"
A look into the stupefied face above him showed that his bold guess had
been true. Intoxicated by success, he ventured another toss.
"If you say the word, I come pretty near repeating your answer."
Behind the astonishment, then the consternation of the girl's face, a
harder something flashed. She was not accustomed to have the lead so
rudely taken. This young person must be disposed of on the instant. His
impudence would have given points to Jonah's gourd. She now rose to her
feet, held her chin unnecessarily high, and, with the air of a young
Lady Macbeth, drawled out,--"I will spare you the trouble, Mr. T.
Caraway Dodge. Much as I dislike to be rude, the words I said were
these--" She paused. Dodge rose too. The brown eyes and the hazel were
nearly on a level. He was laughing. "Well?" he reminded at length.
His unconsciousness of offence gave the last flare to her indignation.
"I said to those present, 'The sending of so costly a bouquet by Mr.
Dodge is a little--er--pushing, and the sender must be told so; but
since, by accident,--the flowers just happen to suit my gown--'"
"Nonsense!" laughed the rash Dodge, "you never talked that way in your
life, unless you deliberately made it up. That's your stunt now, of
course. Any one could see it. What is more likely, you said--what I
planned for you to say was,--'Oh, here are the flowers I have been
waiting for! I think I'll have to marry the person who sent me
these!--There's the music of the first waltz! It's a peach! Come,--you
haven't promised it, have you? Everybody is waiting for the hostess to
begin. Let us start the ball rolling!"
In sheer incapacity to resist, a weakness wrought of a benumbing
conflict of anger, mirth, and amazement, Gwendolen leaned to him,--and
her débutante ball opened with her, joyous, whirling in the arms of Mr.
T. Caraway Dodge.
After this initial favor, he was rigidly, even scornfully, ignored; but
little cared Dodge for that. He had had his day. The impetus given could
carry him smiling on through hours of cold neglect. He was determined to
be the gayest of that circling round of joy, and succeeded. Stout
matrons, lean old maids, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Peruvian,
Pole,--just so it wore skirts and could move its feet, all were food for
his new mill of ecstasy.
Gwendolen danced oftenest with Pierre. He was literally a perfect
dancer, and to-night he said that the champagne all went to his heels.
Yuki, in her decorous Japanese draperies, wound about by stiff brocades,
did not attempt foreign dancing.
Hagané and the older members of the suite left early. Hirai, the
secretary, remained, evidently charmed by the long eyes of his young
countrywoman. During the time she was not talking to him or Pierre, Yuki
remained near Mrs. Todd, delighting the soberer friends who came to
speak with them by her beauty and intelligence. In the pleasure of
seeing this enjoyment of her Oriental protégé, Mrs. Todd forgot to scold
about the affair of the Russian minister, and made only one remark about
Yuki's undignified and un-American "kow-tow" to the prince.
"I was just pushed down, Mrs. Todd," protested Yuki, earnestly. "Some
hand from my own land pressed me before I knew. So was I taught to greet
our feudal daimyo when I was the very little girl; so all in Nippon, of
old customs, greet him now. I will try never again to do such a thing in
America."
"Well, well, that's all right!" said the matron, patting her slim
shoulder. "You are a good little girl, if you did kow-tow. There's
Gwendolen with Pierre again! Doesn't she look well to-night?"
"Well!" echoed Yuki, as her eyes followed the flying shapes.
"'Well' is so faint a little word. To me Gwendolen looks
beautiful,--beautiful--like the Sun Goddess in our land. She is like a
bush of yama-buki in the wind! I never saw nobody at all so beautiful as
our Gwendolen!"
"And to think she must give up this brilliant social success, and go to
a heathen country for four years!" mused Mrs. Todd, gloomily. She had,
of course, been told the great news.
If Yuki heard the muttered words, she did not show resentment. The smile
of intense affection had not left her face as she said aloud: "Anywhere
that Gwendolen goes, I think she will find happiness. She has in her
eyes the light of a happy karma. Evil and sorrow cannot stay with her
long."
"Well, and what of you, my little Japanese daughter?" asked Mrs. Todd,
touched by the unselfish words.
"Oh, me!" said Yuki, becoming instantly grave. "I do not think about my
karma,--each person cannot see his own, or know of it; it clings about
him too close. But if I should think--No, I cannot! I am afraid! Ah,
here comes back the sunshine. It is Gwendolen, fanning! Ah, so hot a
little sunshine is Gwendolen! Sit here, and let me make the fan go fast
for you, Gwendolen,--your wrists--your throat--that will make coolness
quicker than just your face!"
Both girls laughed now, and talked together; Pierre joined them; Dodge
ventured near; the senator came up. It was a sparkling group, with the
centre always Gwendolen; yet even to Mrs. Todd's unimaginative eyes, the
loneliness of the little gray figure, the strange blue-black hair, and
pointed, faintly tinted face, struck a note of mystery,--of something
very near to sadness.