In the guest-room of Madame Aoi’s house, the Lorrimers had waited fully
a half-hour. Their patience was wellnigh exhausted. Lorrimer’s
nervousness and anxiety threatened to result in utter collapse. The
events of the last few months, through which this dissipated man of the
world had suddenly found himself to be the father of a child he had
never seen, and by the woman his conscience had never ceased to tell him
he had wronged, were having their effect upon him.
He was a weak-natured man, easily ruled through his affections; but he
was not bad-hearted. Many years ago the woman who was now his wife had
prevailed upon him to divorce another wife that he might marry her.
Richard Lorrimer’s affection for his second wife had evaporated during
the honeymoon, and was nameless and dead in twelve months. Since then
his life with her had been dull, aimless, purposeless, broken in its
monotony only at intervals by the woman’s spasmodic efforts to fan the
flame into life.
Now a strange and novel emotion was stirring the soul—if soul it could
be called in such a nature—of Richard Lorrimer. He had a feverish,
almost childish, longing to see, to possess, this child—his own. He was
too sluggish and indolent by nature to have an imagination which would
have pictured her in his mind. He had a hazy idea that she would be like
any other American child, that she would, of course, be shy of him at
first, but that the natural feeling of a child for its father would
assert its power. He felt certain that she would prove a source of
pleasure and comfort to him.
Nervously he paced the floor, with irregular, broken strides, stopping
now and then to look about him, or to answer the impatient remarks that
escaped his wife’s lips.
“This is beautiful,” she said. “I suppose we are to wait here all day.”
Lorrimer glanced about the room.
“Do you suppose there’s a bell somewhere?” he asked, fretfully.
“What a question! Did you ever see a bell in a Japanese house?”
“The hotels all have them,” he answered.
“This is not a hotel.”
Lorrimer winced at her retorts. He said, a trifle apologetically:
“You see, my dear, the woman said she was dressing, or something like
that.”
“Then we may as well go back to Mr. Blount’s. These Japanese women are
inordinately vain, and spend hours in dressing.”
“My daughter is not Japanese,” said her husband, mildly.
The woman pursed her lips.
“I wonder what you really expect to see, Dick?” she said, looking at him
curiously. “You’re all unstrung.”
Just then Aoi appeared at the door. She came towards them in a state of
repressed excitement, and she welcomed her guests with stammering and
uncertain words, though she courtesied so repeatedly that the visitors
became uneasy.
“My daughter?” inquired Lorrimer, as soon as Aoi had ceased her
kowtowing.
“She will come in a moment. The illustrious ones will pardon the child’s
nervousness.”
“It is only natural,” said Lorrimer, quietly, biting his underlip in his
own restlessness.
Aoi’s face, with its humble smile, suddenly appeared alert. She seemed
to be listening.
“Ah, now she is coming, augustness,” she said, as she crossed to the
doors and slowly pushed them aside.
The Lorrimers had not heard the soft patter of the little feet in the
matted hall, for a Japanese girl’s tread in the house is almost
soundless. Hence, when Aoi drew the sliding-doors apart, they had not
expected to see the girl on the very threshold.
They started, simultaneously, at sight of the little figure. With
drooping head, Hyacinth softly entered the room. At first glance she
seemed no different from any other Japanese girl, save that she was
somewhat taller. She was dressed in kimono and obi, her hair freshly
arranged and shining in its smooth butterfly mode. Her face was bent to
the floor, so that they could scarcely see more than its outline.
She hesitated a moment before them; then, as though unaware of the
impetuous motion towards her of the man she knew was her father, she
subsided to the mats and bowed her head at his feet.
The silence that ensued was painful. Then Mrs. Lorrimer gasped,
hysterically:
“This is not—not she?”
Lorrimer stooped gently down to the little figure and lifted her to her
feet. She raised her face, and for a moment these two whose lives were
so strangely connected looked into each other’s faces. The father could
not speak for some time, so intense were the emotions that assailed him.
When he did find his voice, it was broken and trembling.
“My—my dear little daughter!” he said.
Then he bent and kissed her. She stood still, almost stonily, under his
caress, but she did not return his embrace. She quietly withdrew her
hands from his.
“It is unnatural—horrible,” said Mrs. Lorrimer, beneath her breath. Low
as was her voice, it broke the spell of silence, which rested like a
pall in the room. Lorrimer turned to her quietly.
“And this,” he said to Hyacinth, “is your—your mother.”
She turned her eyes slowly upon the woman, and looked at her steadily.
Then she said, in clear English:
“You make mistake. My mother is dead.”
Again an embarrassed silence and constraint fell upon them all. This
time it was Aoi who broke it. She turned her head from them as she
spoke.
“Little one, it is your duty to accept the Engleesh lady as your
mother.”
For the first time the girl’s unnatural calmness deserted her. She ran
to Aoi, throwing her arms passionately about her.
“No, no,” she cried. “You are the only mother I know. I will never have
another. No!”
“What are they saying to each other?” asked Mrs. Lorrimer, watching them
curiously.
“My knowledge of Japanese is limited,” said her husband, heavily.
“The whole thing’s a farce,” she said.
“Do you find it so?” he asked, smiling bitterly.
“Oh, Dick, we can’t be expected to understand a girl—like that.”
“She is my daughter,” was his quiet reply; and there was a new dignity
in his voice.
“Yes, but she is different from us, so utterly alien. Just look at her.
Would any one believe she was your daughter?”
He looked over at the little figure now soothing the weeping Aoi, and
his wife’s words found a hollow echo within him.
“Yet,” said Mrs. Lorrimer, thoughtfully, “she is still very young and
quite pretty. A few years in the West may make a great change in her.
Who knows, we may make quite a little civilized modern out of her yet.
She is Richard Lorrimer’s daughter.”
As though she knew they were talking about her, Hyacinth left Aoi and
came towards them, though she was careful to keep at a distance.
“Will my honorable father excuse our presence for to-day?” she said, in
English.
“But you are going with us at once,” said Mrs. Lorrimer.
With a movement that in a Western girl would have seemed rudeness,
Hyacinth turned her back slowly towards her step-mother and addressed
her words solely to her father.
“If it please you, august father,” she said, “will you not deign to
permit me to remain here with my—my friends till the time comes to leave
Sendai?”
Her form of speech hurt her father strangely. He watched her
face—unloving, emotionless, it seemed, when turned to his—and his own
grew wistful. He was more than anxious to indulge her.
“Yes, yes, certainly,” he said. “I appreciate your feelings. By all
means stay here if you wish. How long before—”
“Will you not permit me to remain one month?” she said, somewhat
timidly, and her eyes suddenly fell. She could not tell why, but a flood
of emotions seemed to fill her heart, so that she could no longer
contain herself if she must look into the face of her father.
“We expected to leave at once,” he said, gently; “but if it is your wish
to remain longer, understand, I want you to have your desires
gratified.”
She went towards him falteringly a few steps. She held out her hands
uncertainly.
He took them quickly in his own. She raised her face to his, and
suddenly her eyes became blinded with tears; but, when he stooped to
kiss her, she slipped to the floor at his feet.
He clasped his slender, nervous hands together and looked down at the
queer little figure, now seeming to bow to him after the strange fashion
of the Japanese in bidding adieu. Then he turned to his wife.
“We had better go now,” he said, huskily.
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