If previous days in the Onda household had been tense, those following
were to reach the ultimate limit of nerve-endurance. Immediately after
his last tempestuous scene with Yuki, Tetsujo had left the house. Yuki
was minded to call after him, protesting that her promise given him on
the first day of war did not hold indefinitely. She moved forward, the
words nearly sped, when he turned on her a look and gesture so repellent
that she cowered, and let him pass. It did not seem at all her father
who now looked at her, but rather some angry Spirit of War, in temporary
assumption of Onda's body.
War! War! War! The streets thrilled to it. The sparrows chirped it. The
jinrikisha wheels rattled a pygmy fusillade. In this flare of national
ardor all passions burned more hotly, and among them, Tetsujo's
indignation against his only child. Iriya, being more inexperienced than
Yuki herself in interpretation of men's fiercer moods, could not tell
her that such caloric outbursts would die the sooner from their own
exaggeration. Yuki moaned, and shut her hot eyes from a future where her
father should always be angry, and her mother always trembling.
Early next day, after the reading of Hagané's letter, the women of
Onda's house were surprised to find their domestic retinue silently
increased by the addition of two grim, middle-aged men who called
themselves gardeners. From their reading of all "War Extras" that the
jangling bell of the newsboy announced, and from their sporadic and
often devastating attacks on harmless shrubs, one might have doubted
their skill in the professed art. Tetsujo disdained explanation, and
gave the one order that they were to be suitably fed at meal-times in
the kitchen, and treated with the consideration due to servants hired
specially by himself. Iriya had not the heart, scarcely the curiosity,
to question. All that day she moved about, a silent, timid figure of
protesting obedience. Yuki understood at once that her mother had been
told to ignore her. She understood, also, the meaning of the so-called
"gardeners," and turned to her father slow, scornful eyes, which he
refused to meet.
What the young seldom realize, in a case like this, is the suffering of
those in authority, who, according to adolescent eyes, delight in
imparting sorrow. Yuki was convinced that this strange changeling of a
father revelled in his cruelty. She forced herself into defiant
composure, chiefly in the hope of detracting from his supposed
enjoyment. Her mother's white face was another matter. She looked on
that just as little as possible. Old Suzumé and Maru grew to partake of
their master's elfish obsession. Their peering faces and bright eyes,
quickly withdrawn, maddened her.
No hope or thought of solution had come through the troubled night, nor,
as yet, with the gray day. Tetsujo had gone, presumably, to convey the
detested message to his prince. Yuki's one conscious determination was
to send another message to Pierre, which should state clearly and
comprehensively the new difficulty that had assailed her. Almost
certainly her father had arranged that no more letters should go forth
or be received. The gardeners and Suzumé would see to that. At times she
had a wild fancy of attempting flight, urging Pierre to rescue her in
the fashion of mediæval romance, and to take her to the Todds, or to
some Christian missionary, where they could be married and so set beyond
the reach of Hagané and her father. But would it set her beyond the
black tide of her own remorse? How then should she reconcile her fondest
belief, that in a union with Pierre she might serve to bring closer
French and Japanese friendship? This would be outrage, anarchy, at the
start. Yet something must be done,--something at least to remove her,
temporarily, from her father's loathing sight after she should have
refused Hagané's proposition. In this, perhaps, Pierre himself could
assist, or Gwendolen,--if she could only see Gwendolen. "Gwendolen!" She
stretched out her arms to the sunless, vacant sky, and called her
friend's name aloud.
Whether telepathy is a fact, or merely a pet child of some philosophers,
whether or not the ether of the East holds subtler vibrations than our
own, it is certain that exactly at this moment Gwendolen awoke in her
foreign bed from hurrying dreams of Yuki, and lay awake, staring, a
sudden weight of apprehension full upon her. The excitement of war may
have sharpened American senses also. Gwendolen's mind ran back for the
hundredth time to that strange, memorable banquet. Its meaning grew now
more sharp and sinister. Something had taken place there, something
intangible, but very real, something decisive, fatal, the effect of
which would first appear in Yuki. Gwendolen had as her birthright some
of her father's intuitive judgment of character. She had read that night
the hatred of foreigners in Tetsujo's sullen face, and did not dislike
him for it. Hagané baffled her; but she had noted how deep were the eyes
fixed now on Yuki, now on Pierre. Neither of them would wish for Yuki to
become the wife of Pierre, and neither did Gwendolen wish it. The girl
smiled curiously at her feeling of distaste. It did not seem right for
Yuki to marry a foreigner, even an utterly charming and immorally
beautiful foreigner like Pierre Le Beau.
"I guess I must have been a Japanese in lots of my former incarnations,"
she said to herself. "Yuki declares it's so, and she should know. But--"
here she stopped and drew out her long, unbound yellow hair in two
diaphanous, glittering wings. "The fates certainly have put my Oriental
soul, this time, into a misleading body!" She was dressing now, and
stood before her pretty silver-laden bureau by a sunny south window of
the Legation.
* * * * *
About two hours later of the same day Minister Todd and his secretary,
sitting alone in the thrice-guarded sanctum of the former's private
office, looked up in incredulous astonishment as a dainty tapping
betrayed a feminine guest. Then Todd's thin smile widened. "Gwennie,
I'll bet!--and on the war-path! Only that little rascal would have the
cheek."
Dodge turned away to hide the glow in his brown face. Gwennie it proved
to be. She entered, dainty, perfumed, exquisite, in tan-cloth dress and
seal-skins that exactly matched her brows and lashes.
"I don't expect to be welcomed," she said aggressively, her little white
chin high in air. "But I simply had to come."
"Well?" This was from the minister.
Before stating her plea, Gwendolen threw a bewildering look of entreaty
upon the gloating Dodge. "Dad, I can't stand it! I haven't seen or heard
anything from Yuki for a week. Pierre Le Beau is driving me mad; and
last night I had the scariest dream about Yuki. I feel in my bones that
she needs me. Let me go to her, dad! Dearest, darlingest diddy-daddy,
say I can go!"
Todd put a loving arm about the supplicant, but at the same time he
shook his head. "Can't you be patient just a little longer, girlie?
Something is bound to turn up soon."
"If Prince Hagané is in it, it will be worse than a turn-up; it will be
a heave," said Dodge, shaking his head also.
"But, dad, I _have_ been patient. You know how I hate being patient. I'm
perfectly on edge when I have to wait. Every little bit of me begs to be
cut off, and allowed to run in scraps. Oh, don't look so solemn! I'm
only a girl. I can't upset the earth. Everything has gone wrong this
morning from the minute I stepped out of bed on a tailless cat. You can
make it well, daddy. My heart simply tugs in me toward Yuki."
At mention of her heart Dodge gave a prolonged and envious sigh. Todd
smiled, but Gwendolen only looked indignant. Tears stood in her pretty
eyes, and Dodge felt himself to be a brute.
"Your Excellency," he said, "if I might be allowed to suggest, why not
let me be Miss Todd's escort? If I am along, I think, perhaps--" He
broke off with a significant intonation. The two men exchanged glances,
and the elder, catching his chin with a characteristic gesture, walked
away thoughtfully.
"Oh, when dad looks like that, he is going over the entire American
Constitution before he answers," cried Gwendolen, in despair. "May I not
sit somewhere, Mr. Dodge?"
There were but three chairs in the room, the two revolving desk-chairs,
and one suggestively rigid and slippery, meant for visitors. Generally,
as now, it was heaped with a tottering mass of papers. Dodge, with
suspicious alacrity, leaned forward to wheel the minister's chair.
Before he could reach it, Gwendolen had thrown herself into the other,
and faced the open vitals of his private desk.
In the very centre, just out of range of the minister's eye, stood an
unframed photograph of Carmen Gil y Niestra, a languorous Spanish beauty
lately arrived in Tokio. The picture had come that morning by mail, and
was only waiting to be carried to Dodge's rooms; but Gwendolen could not
know that. She was humiliated and annoyed to feel a deep, dry sob rise
to her throat. At another time, when her best friend was not in trouble,
and she hadn't stepped on the cat, she would have made some bright
remark about it; but now she dared not trust her voice.
Dodge, carefully removing the papers to the floor, seated himself on the
visitor's chair, and let his eyes rest with a curious, half-triumphant
look upon Gwendolen's downcast face. This young man, unlike others to
whom she had chosen to show favor, had not hastened to throw himself at
her feet, pleading to be sat upon, trod upon, built upon, anything but
the one obvious suggestion that he rise and walk away. He had never
tried to take her hand; never once said that he loved her, though the
girl until this moment had felt certain of it. Sometimes she had tried
to flatter him into the declaration; again she would pique and goad him.
The result had been the same. Dodge followed her everywhere, paid her
all possible attentions, and said everything but the one thing she had
determined to hear. With an instinctive coquette, the desire is not so
much to overcome her quarry, as to feel that there is no quarry she
cannot overcome. But even from the seductive moonlit decks of the
steamship Dodge had escaped, uncommitted. The situation was both piquant
and exciting.
"Well, Dodge," said the ambassador, at length. "I am willing to take
your suggestion. Is the carriage ready, Gwen?"
"It's been at your door for hours."
"I'll let you go, since you seem to feel so set on it. But be careful of
what you say or do, and don't promise anything. Give little Snowflake my
love, and tell her I miss her about the house."
Gwendolen, without a word of thanks, walked toward the door. "Now,
Dodge, remember," warned her father, in a semi-whisper.
"If Mr. Dodge is being sent along as a sort of diplomatic nurse, or a
keeper to an idiot, I won't have him," flashed the girl.
"Nonsense, child!" said her father. "You'd better run along in a hurry
before I change my mind. I don't know but as I'm weak--"
Without waiting for more, the girl literally ran from the room. Clerks
and visitors in the outside offices looked up in wonder. That dry sob in
her throat had stirred again. Even her dad, on this horrid day, was
cross.
Outside the sun had begun to shine brilliantly. The high winds, those
scourges of the Tokio winter, were, for the time, at rest. The people in
the streets appeared contented and happy enough, trudging along on
wooden clogs, or trotting with noiseless, straw-sandalled feet between
the shafts of vehicles. The small boys wore miniature flags in their
caps.
When again she felt mistress of her voice, she said, with an attempt at
her usual gay levity, "Now, Mr. Dodge, I intend to know what all that
mysterious interchange of glances in the office was supposed to convey."
Dodge seemed to think. "I should fancy you'd know by instinct," he
answered. "Japan and Russia are at war. America is neutral."
"Yes," challenged Gwendolen, "and the earth goes around the sun, and the
moon around the earth. But what is that to Yuki and to me?"
"You are the daughter of the American minister, and Miss Yuki is under
the protection of Prince Hagané. It's the bother of marriage. You must
see that she can never marry Le Beau. The worst of it all is that Le
Beau's such an ass!"
"I don't consider my friend, Mr. Le Beau, an--er--animal," said
Gwendolen, all the more stiffly that her statement was not quite true.
"I beg your pardon," said her companion, meekly, and relapsed into
careful silence.
Gwendolen fidgeted. This did not suit her mood at all. She wanted to
quarrel. "Yuki and Pierre are frantically in love, poor things! But of
course an incipient diplomat doesn't take into consideration anything so
trivial as--love."
Dodge smiled into her petulant eyes, a sort of elder-brother smile that
stung her. "If I am the incipient referred to, you have missed your
mark."
"You pretend to be Pierre's friend, but you never did like him."
"When have I pretended?"
"You are jealous because he is so good-looking. All men are that way."
"Aren't girls sometimes that way too?" asked he, with elaborate
innocence.
The shot told. She reddened angrily. "You are very disagreeable this
morning, Mr. Dodge."
Again fell silence.
"Come," said the girl, changing her tactics swiftly. "It is I who am
beastly, I know it. I'm going to try now to be good. Tell me honestly,
as a friend, do you think that Pierre has absolutely no chance of
marrying Yuki?"
Dodge studied the restless eyes for sincerity before he answered. "He
has a chance. If she is willing to throw over her parents, her Emperor,
and her native land, in order to run away to him,--they may find
protection. But if I know Japanese character at all, Miss Yuki would die
first--and she ought to. The one decent thing for Le Beau is to release
her."
"But to run away, by night perhaps, in actual danger of her life--oh,
how romantic!" sighed Gwendolen, clasping her hands. It was done to
irritate, and it succeeded.
"Romantic? Damfoolic!" sniffed Dodge, before he could stop himself.
"Mr. Dodge!"
"By George, it slipped out! I beg your pardon, Miss Todd, I should not
have said it."
"For what do you ask pardon--the expression, or the thought?"
"The expression, of course. I was a mucker to use it in your presence."
"Am I to understand that the thought underlying your remarkable
utterance is unchanged?"
"Why, er--that such a step would be foolish, and--er--unworthy?"
stammered the wretched youth, now as greatly disconcerted as even
Gwendolen could wish; "why, of course I still think it. I have to think
it!"
"I approved of it openly. I demand retraction of the thought also."
Gwendolen's chance had come. Here was a bone,--a flimsy cartilage, it is
true, but still a thing to pick her quarrel over. In the making-up she
might find compensation for other recent chagrins. Gwendolen liked to
make up. The magnanimous yielding, the condescension on her part, added
to the humble gratitude of the recipient, brought a sense of pleasant
power.
"You demand retraction of the thought," repeated Dodge. He faced her
slowly. She was deliberately studying the two American flags embroidered
between the blue cotton shoulders of the carriage-driver, high on the
box. The delicate profile, uplifted in sunlight, had a translucency in
the outline like the petal of a rose. Dodge gazed with hungry heart, but
deepening frown. "You didn't mean that." He said it soothingly. "You
couldn't insist on anything so utterly childish as the retraction of a
personal thought. I've apologized for the words."
"Do you refuse, then?" said Gwendolen, with a toss of the head she had
seen Julia Marlowe give.
"You really mean such a thing?"
"I mean it."
"Then--I refuse."
The girl turned. This time it was Dodge's somewhat ragged profile held
against the sky. "You dare to refuse me?" she gasped. Her hazel eyes
grew inky; they seemed to shoot off sparkles of jet.
"I am at your service for everything else," he said steadily.
No other word was spoken until they reached the foot of Kobinata Hill,
where the betto, springing lightly to earth, preceded the galloping
horses up the slope.
"You know," said Dodge, slowly, "this may mean to me giving up every
hope of happiness. And it's such a nasty little cause,--like having
one's eye put out by a spitball."
"Yet you prefer it to retracting one rude, silly thought!"
"For God's sake!" cried the badgered youth, "how can a man retract what
he still thinks? Do you want me to lie, and say I don't think a thing
when I do think it."
"Yes," said Gwendolen, with a strange glint in her face. "Lie! Say that
you do not think it. I shall be satisfied with that."
"I'll be damned if I do!" said Dodge. "I'll lie to please myself, but I
won't lie at the bidding of another,--not even you! Shall I stop the
carriage and get out?"
Gwendolen, with a little choking sound in her throat, turned away. Her
gesture seemed an assent. Miserably the young man realized that he was
bound by Mr. Todd to remain with her, and overhear the conversation that
might ensue. In a moment more he helped her from the carriage in
silence, allowing her to precede him to the Onda gate, and up the garden
stones to the door.
Old Suzumé answered the knock. She parted the entrance shoji very
craftily, one bent eye to the crack. Her left cheek could not have been
two inches from the floor. This gave an uncanny look, as if a severed
head, or one of those long gourd-necked ghosts of Japanese mountains,
had appeared to receive them.
Gwendolen said, "Oh!" and retreated. Dodge stepped forward boldly, and
put one gloved hand into the crack. The old dame shivered at this, and
seemed to cower for a spring. A swift, soft rush of feet came through
the house, and Yuki, flinging both doors wide, sent a crooked smile
toward them.
"Come quickly," she panted; "I pray you wait not to remove the shoes. My
father is absent. I have prayed for Gwendolen; there is great thing to
be said."
Dodge shut his teeth together. He was to be needed. Without a look for
him, Gwendolen, obeying Yuki's injunction as to shoes, sprang up the one
stone doorstep and followed Yuki along a dim corridor. Dodge, more
deliberately, motioned Suzumé to remove his shoes, standing first on one
foot, then on the other, and balancing himself by the aid of a shoji
frame. The untying of shoestrings was a difficult task for excited old
fingers. Her beady eyes darted incessantly back into the house.
"No harm can be done. I am from the American Legation, and was sent to
accompany Miss Todd," said he, in Japanese, pitying the old dame's
nervousness.
"Hai! hai! Sayo de gozaimasuka?" mumbled she, greatly relieved. She
loved and was proud of Yuki; she adored her mistress; but there was a
single voice in that house, and it belonged to Tetsujo.
Dodge went alone into the house, guiding himself by the voices. They had
reached the guest-room. All fusuma and shoji had been closed. Without
knocking Dodge pushed aside a silver panel painted with birds. At the
same moment Iriya entered by the opposite wall of the room, a mere white
ghost of propriety.
Yuki, almost in Gwendolen's arms, was pouring out rapid, disjointed,
incorrect phrases of English,--sometimes with a whole sentence in her
own tongue,--so that the listener could catch the meaning only in
fragments.
Dodge, after a bow to Mrs. Onda, walked straight to Yuki, took a seat
near her, and by his quiet eyes compelled her attention. He began to
speak in slow, deliberate Japanese that the mother also might
understand. Whether interpreting through his careful pronouncing or
divining from his emphasis, Gwendolen, too, seemed to follow him.
"In allowing Miss Todd to call this morning, Miss Onda, her father,
Minister Todd, has commissioned me to say to you--"
"Don't you believe him!" cried Gwendolen, flinging herself bodily before
Yuki. She turned flashing eyes upon the speaker. "The poor child has
enough to bear already, without your giving more!"
"I must deliver your father's message, Miss Todd. And I shall do so,
though I have to wait until Miss Onda's father comes."
At sound of that dreaded name Gwendolen's courage for the moment fell.
Dodge quietly resumed, in Japanese, "While Mr. and Mrs. Todd have only
the most affectionate feelings toward Miss Onda, they beg to recall the
very delicate international questions raised by the present war. America
being neutral--er--Miss Todd's official position--"
"Miss Todd's official fiddlestrings," interrupted Gwendolen. "There,
Yuki! He's through! That's all he had to say! Now can't we go into your
bedroom, or out to the garden, and finish our conversation in peace?"
"Gwendolen, dear,--no!" said Yuki, pressing her hand. "It is most
terribly serious time with all. I am glad to have Mr. Dodge here; he
will not prevent any help,--he will give it. I must now relate, Mr.
Dodge," she went on, very brave and self-possessed, "the new, strange
circumstance--" Suddenly she flushed the color of a peony, dropped her
face in her hands, and murmured to Gwendolen, "Yes, you must say it,
Gwendolen. It is such immodest things for Japanese girl to speak! You
tell him."
"I'm not sure that I understand very clearly myself," said Gwendolen,
with a puzzled frown.
Iriya stared on, white, motionless, unsmiling.
"As far as I can make the trouble out," said Gwendolen, flinging her
words to Dodge, rather than speaking them, "Prince Hagané backs Yuki's
father, utterly, against Pierre. They won't consider the possibility of
her ever marrying him. Worst of all, while her heart is sore with this,
they are trying to force her into marriage with some rich old man,--some
influential relative, I believe, of Hagané. Isn't he a relative, Yuki?"
"No-o! He is not the relative," said Yuki, from behind sheltering hands.
"It is himself--he--the Prince Hagané!"
"Prince Hagané! Prince Sanétomo Hagané?" cried Dodge, in incredulous
surprise. "Good Lord! Why, he's the biggest man in this kingdom, next to
the Emperor and the Crown Prince! Has--has he made your father a formal
offer of marriage for you, Miss Yuki?"