At the door of the château the Duke found a Japanese servant. This
servant led him into a court paved with mosaic, set with palms and
marbles about a fountain in which nymphs, sporting in abandon, splashed
a god with water. From this court they ascended a stairway, rising in
the circular tower which the Duke of Dorset had already noticed. The
baluster of the stair, under the rail was a bronze frieze winding
upward, of naiads, fauns, satyrs, dancing in a wood, group following
group, like pictures in some story.
They stopped at the first landing and crossed a second corridor to
a suite of rooms, finished in the style of Louis Quinze. The servant
inquired about the Duke's luggage, got his direction and went out. The
Duke walked idly through the suite; he might have been, at this hour,
in Versailles. Every article about him belonged there in France. The
bed was surely that of some departed Louis, standing on a dais,
brocade curtains, drawn together at the top under a gilt crown. In this
bedchamber he crossed unconsciously to the window, and remained looking
out at the park descending to the river, and the mountains dreamy and
beautiful beyond.
He wondered vaguely what it was that had led him over four thousand
miles of sea, across a continent to this place. Did he come following
the will-o'-the-wisp of a fabled legend? Did he come obeying some
prenatal instinct? Did he come moved by an impulse long ago predestined?
The query, now that he stood before it, was fantastic. These, surely,
were not the things that moved him. They were things merely that clouded
and obscured the real impulse hiding within him. Some huge controlling
emotion, dominating him, moved behind the pretense of this extravaganza;
an emotion primal and common to all men born since Adam; a thing skilled
in disguises, taking on the form of other and lesser motives, so that
men clearheaded and practical, men hardened with a certain age, men
dealing only with the realities of life, sat down with it unaware, as
the patriarch sat down with angels. The wisdom of Nature moving with
every trick, every lure, every artifice, to the end that life may not
perish from the earth!
The Duke of Dorset turned from the window. He did not realize what this
emotion was, but he felt its presence, and for the first time in his
life the man had a sense of panic, like one who suddenly finds his
senses tricked and his judgment unreliable. He walked across the
bedchamber into the dressing room.
He found his luggage already in the room. The servant asked for the
keys, the Duke gave him all but the key to the box containing the rifle
that he had now no need to open. To a query, the servant answered that
Mr. Childers would receive him as soon as he was pleased to come down
into the library. The Duke of Dorset bathed, changed his dress, and
descended.
The library was octagon in shape, carpeted with an Eastern rug, set with
a great table, lined with books, and lighted with long casement windows.
Cyrus Childers was standing at one of the windows. He came forward and
welcomed the Duke of Dorset.
"I am sorry," he said, "that Caroline is not here. She and the Marchesa
Soderrelli are in the East yet, but they will arrive in a day or two."
He stepped over to a table and fumbled with a pile of letters. But his
eyes did not follow his hands. They traveled over his guest, over his
tanned face, over his broad shoulders, and as he looked, he spoke on: he
regretted the Duke's long tramp across the mountains; the closed
lodge at the harbor; the negligence of Caroline. He deplored the great
inconveniences which the Duke had undergone.
"The Marchesa Soderrelli said that you were coming to Canada," he
continued, "and I endeavored to locate you there, but I fear that I did
not sufficiently persist in my effort, because the Marchesa assured rue
that you would certainly let us know when you arrived on the Pacific
Coast. You see, I trusted to the wisdom of the Marchesa."
Then he laughed in his big voice. "Ah," he said, "there is a woman!
A remarkable woman. Did you know her before your coming to the bay of
Oban?"
"I had that honor," replied the Duke.
"She said in Biarritz that you would likely be there. Your fame was
going about just then in Biarritz."
"Rumor," the Duke answered, "has, I believe, dealt kindly with me."
The old man laughed again.
"With me," he said, "it is always the other way about."
He followed the remark with a few words of explanation. The Duke must
manage to amuse himself until the others arrived. He would find books,
horses, if he cared to ride, and excellent shooting in the river
bottoms.
After luncheon Cyrus Childers rode with his guest over the cultivated
portion of the estate, through the meadows, the pasture fields, the
orchards, and everywhere the duke found only Japanese at work. He
remarked on this:
"How do these men get on with other workmen?" he said.
The old man stopped his horse. "I solved that difficulty before it
reached me," he answered. "I have no race problem, because I have only
one race. I wanted a homogeneous servant body that would remain on the
estate, work in harmony, and adjust its own difficulties. The Japanese
met these requirements, so I took the Japanese. But I made no mistake.
I did not take them to supplement white labor. I took them wholly. There
is not a servant nor a workman anywhere on the entire estate who is not
of this race."
"You have, then, a Japanese colony?" said the Duke.
The old man extended his arm. "It is Japan," he replied, "except for the
topography of the country."
"I have been told," said the Duke, "that the instinct of the Japanese
to found a colony constitutes the heart of the objection to him on the
Pacific Coast. Other Orientals plan to return to their country; but this
one, it is said, brings his country with him. I am told that they have
already practically colonized certain portions of California."
"The Vaca Valley and sections of the Santa Clara Valley," replied Cyrus
Childers, "contain Japanese settlements."
"And I am told," continued the Duke, "that with respect to such
settlements, it is the plan of the Japanese first to drive out the other
laborers, and then deliberately to ruin the orchards and vineyards,
after which they more easily procure them."
"I have no trouble of that sort," said the old man, "since I pay in
money for the service which I receive."
"It is strange," said the Duke, "how this sentiment against the Japanese
extends with equal intensity along this coast through the American
states and northward into the Dominion of Canada. One would say that
these were the same people, since they are moved by the same influences.
The riots in Vancouver seem to be facsimiles of the riots in San
Francisco. When it comes to this oriental question the boundary between
the two countries disappears. Our government has exerted its influence
to check this sentiment, but we do not seem able to control it. Can you
tell me why it is that we are unable to control it?"
"Yes," he said, "I can tell you. It is for two reasons: first, because
the North American laborer wishes to suspend a law of Nature--that the
one who can live on the least shall survive. The Japanese laborer can
underbid him for the requirements of existence, and consequently he must
supplant him. And why should he not, he is the better servant? This
is the first reason. The second reason is, that the peoples of the
English-speaking nations are in one of their periodic seizures of revolt
against authority." And he laughed.
"The conditions maintaining a difference in men follow laws as immutable
as those turning the world on its axis. Efforts at equalization are
like devices to cheat gravity. Thus, the theory of rule by a universal
electorate is a chimera. Men require a master as little boys in school
require one. When the master goes down, terror follows until a second
master emerges from the confusion. There is always back of order
some one in authority. There is no distinction between the empire
and republic except in a certain matter of disguises. The seizure
of so-called liberty, attacking peoples, now and then, is a curious
madness; a revolt against the school-master, ending always in the same
fashion--disorder, riot, and a new master back at the desk. When this
seizure passes, your government will again be able to control its
subjects."
"But," said the Duke, "is there not an obligation on a government to see
that its people are not underbid in the struggle for life!"
The old man's voice arose. "What is a government!" he said.
"It is the organized authority of a whole people," replied the Duke.
The old man laughed. "It is the pleasure of one or two powerful
persons," he said.