"Night is where thou art not,Oh, my beloved!Night lies in the stone rolled close against thy door.Let the sighs of spring,(My sighing, oh, divine one,)Let the salt waves' weeping (my salt tears) allure thee!"
"Night is where thou art not,Oh, my beloved!Night lies in the stone rolled close against thy door.Let the sighs of spring,(My sighing, oh, divine one,)Let the salt waves' weeping (my salt tears) allure thee!"
The beautiful gestures flowed one into the next, like currents of living water.
"Lo, she awakens; light with shining fingers frets the dark rock fissure.She approaches; see the black rock melt."
"Lo, she awakens; light with shining fingers frets the dark rock fissure.She approaches; see the black rock melt."
"Hark! listen!" cried the dancer, and paused with arms outspread. It was as if winds stood still, as if a flower-branch, tossed in air, lost suddenly its power to return. Iriya caught her breath. She too rose. Jinrikisha wheels were on the gravel. "My hour is gone," said Iriya; "I know it from the shadows. I will now return home, taking the servants with me. You remain here, my child, and greet the friend who now enters."
"Yes, I will remain here, mother, my dear, dear mother, I will greet my friend," whispered the girl. The glamour of the dance had swept back and held her. Half in the world ofpoetry, half in the material present, she wavered. The dawn of her friend's coming shone through both. Iriya, with a last, tender look, slipped from the room. Yuki's lip quivered like a child's as she saw her mother go. But now, down the long hall, came the tap-tap of high-heeled foreign shoes. A new tremor stirred Yuki's lips, a little hint of fear hid in her eyes.
Gwendolen paused on the threshold. For a long moment the two stood transfixed,—gazing, searching, each the face of the other. Yes, a barrier had grown between them,—the mystery of marriage, the recollection (on Gwendolen's part) of unspeakable slanders, the ghostly, intangible stirring of race antagonism, to which they themselves could not have given name. Yuki began slowly to whiten, but Gwendolen, with a backward toss of the head like Diana on a hilltop, cried out aloud, "My sister!" and the two friends, crashing through phantoms, found each other's arms. They clung close, sobbing and swaying. Whispers started, but never found conclusion. Names were repeated with every intonation of deep love. "My friend,—my Gwendolen!" "Yuki! Yuki! Yuki!" A dozen times they drew back, looked again, and clung closer. Finally they succeeded in reaching a sofa, and sat down, with hands still intertwined.
"And you, little you, are the mistress of all this great house! You are to give receptions, and be the chief hostess. I suppose you will chaperonme, you chicken! Isn't it a joke?"
"It do seem joky," admitted Yuki, with another sigh of full content.
"Well, Madame la Princesse, may I give you now my first social commission? I want a prince of my own,—a Japanese prince. Let him be poor,—all the better,—but his trademark, I mean his crest, I insist on having it warranted as the real thing."
"What would then become of poor Mr. Dodge?"
"Mr. Dodge!" echoed the other, with greatest scorn. "You certainly never had any idea I would look twice at Mr. Dodge! Besides, he is making a fool of himself over that fat, ogling Carmen Niestra. Ugh! She reminds me of a huge suet pudding with sweet sauce. I always suspected Dodge of low sentiments."
"I know not of this Miss Carmen," said Yuki, in a troubled voice. "But I like Mr. Dodge, always, very, very much; and I am sure he loved you—distractionately!"
"That just about expresses it!" cried Gwendolen; and little Yuki never knew why her friend laughed so heartily, while the dark shadow of an unspoken pain still clouded her bright eyes. "Let's change the subject," the American said quickly. "Dad told me to give you lots of love, and to say that all of us were looking forward to that grand first reception of yours. Next Thursday, isn't it? No, Friday. We got our cards yesterday."
"You will come and assist me in the preparing, won't you, dear Gwendolen?"
"I couldn't be kept away!"
"And Mrs. Todd, too. Your kind mother, will she not come?"
Gwendolen averted her face. "The truth is, Yuki, mother takes Pierre's part. Nothing that dad or I can say has influence. That awful Mrs. Stunt owns mother now, body and soul; and Mrs. Stunt has no tender feelings to spare for her own sex."
"I am not surprised at your mother, or even greatly hurt. It is right that—he—should have friends to sympathize. Say to your mother, please, that I do not resent."
"I'll say nothing of the kind!" cried Gwendolen, indignantly. "It would please Mrs. Stunt too much. Oh, they will be waiting to question me about you. Mrs. Stunt's eyes will glare like those of a hungry hyena. I shall tell them that you are superbly indifferent. That will fetch them! Mrs. Stunt, as it is, will be the first to enter your reception-rooms,—the odious little painted ghoul!"
All brightness had faded from the young faces. Each stared upon troubled visions. "Since we are on such topics, Yuki," Gwendolen began, "I might as well tell you and have done with it,—Pierre himself is acting like a spoiled child, a cad. He wants to make trouble."
"His threat is to harm Prince Haganè, is it not?"
"Yes! But who told you?" She looked sharply at her companion. Yuki apparently had not heard. Gwendolenwent on. "Dad simply laughs at him for a foolish blusterer. He says a cricket might as well shake its fists at a grain elevator."
"There is no rumor at all that Pierre may go home to France?"
"Absolutely none. Ronsard is using him as a cat's-paw. Since your marriage Pierre has been openly announced Second Secretary of the French Legation. A sinecure, but it gives him entrée to all court functions,—to official receptions,—to—yourreception, Yuki."
"I have thought of this also," said Yuki. "He could not harm my husband in such an open place."
"No, but with that demon of a Ronsard behind him he could embarrass, perhaps mortify, both you and Haganè."
Yuki fell silent. Her slim hands clasped and unclasped nervously. Her eyes were fixed on a spot of carpet near her feet. "Of course it is certain that so great statesman as Haganè thought of all such dangers before he wished to marry me," she murmured, as much to herself as her companion.
"Good gracious, Yuki Onda!" broke in Gwendolen, with startling abruptness. "What are those fearful scars on your hands? Did they torture you after all?"
Gwendolen's shocked face and horrified tone expressed more than she would willingly have admitted.
Yuki's eyes flashed once. She drew her hands within her sleeves. "How can you say such silly thing? Nipponese do not torture!"
Gwendolen, to hide her emotion (for she did not entirely believe Yuki's vehement asseveration) sprang up and began walking up and down the room, near the sofa where Yuki sat, watching her. "What is it that you were about to warn me of Monsieur Le Beau?" asked the latter, calmly.
"He is weak—silly—sentimental; bleating all over the place about his blighted hopes,—his ruined life. He makes me ill!" The girl was thankful to expend on the absent Pierre indignation to which she dared not ascribe the real source. Those gashes on her friend's small hands were burned already on her own heart. It did not occur to her that accident had caused them. In a time of such conflict,they must be, necessarily, the marks of cruelty and violence. Yuki guessed the pent-up fount of passion in her friend, for she remarked quite coolly, "I assure you, Gwendolen, those little scratches were made by me,—myself, on our garden hedge. I was the stupidity. No one caused but myself. You know I have never told to you an untruthful thing. As for Monsieur Le Beau, he has all reasons for saying that I have ruined his life."
"Ruined his grandmother!" cried the other. "There you are, looking meek again. No wonder that all men are bullies when we turn coward at the first frown. I thank Heaven it was no man, however, that made those scars on you. If it had been—" She stopped short, looking so fierce that Yuki had to smile at her. "Well, Amazon?" she asked.
"Oh, I hate all men!—young ones in particular. Pierre thinks his heart is bleeding, but, after all, it is chiefly his precious vanity. He don't like being jilted! Subtract vanity from the average man and you don't leave much beside the fillings of his front teeth. They are all alike! I know them!" She flung herself to the sofa and clasped her arms once more tightly around her friend. The outburst had relieved her; but a new sadness came. Yuki was still very pale. A little pathetic drooping had begun to show at the corners of her lips. Gwendolen was by nature the antagonist of resignation. She hated the dawning look of it on Yuki's face. "Yuki, Yuki, shall we ever be happy again as we were at school? Yet we were restless there. All our thoughts flew westward, far, far westward, and over that broad ocean, to your Japan. We could never be really happy, we thought, until we had reached, together, this country of your birth. Oh, it is beautiful, as you told me! Each day its beauty deepens. I know now what you meant by yama-buki fountains all of gold,—and the wide, still yellow lakes of 'na.' In our Legation garden the cherry-trees are crusted over with tiny pointed rubies, which soon—yes, very soon—must turn to flowers. All that I see is beautiful, and yet, Yuki, think in how short a time life has brought us both deep sorrow!" She drew a sigh, the long, luxurious, despairing sigh of untried youth. Yuki, having griefs more real, echoed it in softer cadence.
"Yes, the cherry-buds will open, and the fountain of your yama-buki toss, no matter what we are feeling! Is it not kind to be so? I have heard that your Legation garden is not very—harmonious. Will there be many bright spring flowers in it?"
"The garden is a blot, but it is a big blot, and things grow there, thank Heaven! Haven't you ever been to the American Legation at all? Yuki, I have an idea!"
"No," Yuki had answered. At the new sparkle of excitement in the fair face she unconsciously sat more erect.
"I have an idea!" Gwendolen repeated. "You are now your own mistress. Why can't you drive home with me, and give mother a surprise? Nothing would soften her like that,—the Princess Haganè to call in person!"
"Yes, yes, I will do that thing!" cried Yuki, taking fire at once. "How clever you are, Gwendolen! I would sit here mourning for the month and not have such bright idea. I tell you, listen! We will send your jinrikisha off, then you stays to luncheon with me, and after luncheon we takes the pumpkin and some rats and turn them into a great coach with horses, and drive off in splendor, like two little Cinderellas, to your mother's house! Oh, what jolliness! let us go upstairs and remove your hat!"
"What!" cried the other, in mock astonishment, "you have an upstairs, and beds for me to fling my wraps upon, and a brush and comb, perhaps, for me to rearrange my locks!"
"Come see!" challenged Yuki. They ran off together, Yuki darting up the steps, Gwendolen catching at her flying heels, both laughing, giggling, uttering short shrieks. "Well," panted the American, sitting prone upon the top step, "it seems that life is going to be worth living after all!"
Exceptin rare cases the ceremony of marriage among Japanese is still unmodified by foreign innovation. These people prefer to regard it as the most intimate of social functions, a family sacrament, a transition to be made in grave silence, not in the buzz of comment. Congratulations may follow, they never precede, a wedding.
In the case of Prince Haganè, his official necessity for a wife appeared significantly enough in the engraved cards of invitation, sent out by hundreds, to announce weekly receptions (beginning with a certain Friday) held by the Prince and Princess Sanètomo Haganè in the residence of the Minister of War. That word "War," printed so smoothly among high-sounding titles, bore little relation to the dark clouds of conflict pouring in about Port Arthur and spreading a sombre pall above Manchuria. Dark, too, was the shadow cast upon the hearts of loyal Nipponese. For a lull had come, a mysterious silence. Explanations were not offered to the people. Dead bodies or fragments of bodies, were still brought home for burial; new troops, by midnight, threaded city streets and crowded the railway stations, bound for the front, yet no sounds of battle came. It was as if a wheel had stopped, throwing out the entire mechanism of a well-ordered campaign. At the Imperial Palace in Tokio conferences were held daily, Haganè, of course, being present. Sometimes Sir Charles Grubb and his American colleague were called.
Yuki noted the deepening gloom on her husband's brow. In his scant hours of home-staying he seemed, now, only half-conscious of her existence or its relation to himself. Once or twice he had roused himself to answer kindly enough some question of hers regarding the coming reception.
Meanwhile Gwendolen and the young wife were together daily. The "old times" at Washington, to which they so oftentenderly referred, as to an epoch centuries removed, gave promise of recrudescence. They laughed, giggled, ate olives, made fudge, and otherwise enjoyed themselves. If the absence of Pierre and the buoyant Dodge saddened at times these innocuous revelries, each girl hid her own regret.
Mrs. Todd, as Gwendolen prophesied, had melted instantly. The friendly visit of the Princess Haganè, the gentle pleading of the schoolgirl Yuki, unchanged in spite of her new glittering husk of rank, surprised that small camp of prejudices in its sleep, and soon waved a bright laugh of victory. At the next visit of Mrs. Stunt, however, before the Medusa-like disapprobation of that noble countenance, Mrs. Todd froze timidly again, to be again sun-thawed by Yuki, and recongealed by Mrs. Stunt, until the will-power of the good lady took on, through too frequent tempering, not, indeed, the elasticity of a Damascene blade, but rather the pithiness of an honest vegetable left in a winter nook.
During a softened interval Mrs. Todd had promised to stand in Yuki's receiving line. Even at the moment she had given a few sentimental sighs for Pierre, and made a mental reservation that she would "explain" to his satisfaction. When Mrs. Stunt turned a hard, reproving eye, she fain would have rescinded altogether, but this time both Mr. Todd and Gwendolen upheld her. Thus bravely seconded, she dared for once defy her mentor. Mrs. Stunt made gestures of acrid resignation, and turned her face away. During the afternoon she concocted several choice paragraphs for "The Hawk's Eye."
A clear, blue day in early March dawned for Yuki's first reception. Sunshine coaxed new flowers from the springing lawn, and rolled apples of joyous discord among the crows and sparrows. The two chief decorators, Gwendolen and Yuki, had not dared to rely on the day for external brightness. Draperies added to the long shapeless windows hung ready to exclude sunshine and storm alike. At Gwendolen's suggestion, candles and quaint candelabra were to give the key-note to decoration. Old junk-shops and second-hand dealers in temple brasses had been rummaged with rich results. Branching clusters of tapers sprang everywhere from plain spaces on the walls. Standing candelabra and quaint single candlesticksoccupied tables, mantels, and the tops of cabinets and book-shelves, alternating with bowls and vases of cut flowers. The wall-lights, placed tactfully but a few feet above the head of an average man, threw into softened shadow the vast and disproportionate ceiling. Yuki's delight was pleasant to witness. She never could have dreamed—as she often told her friend—that the old lecture-hall could look so well. The garish hangings and unspeakable oil-paintings became inconspicuous, and were further softened by wreaths of smilax and other imported hot-house vines. As the opening hour approached, Yuki became more and more excited, though her efforts after matronly calm were apparent. Even the knowledge that Pierre would certainly come that afternoon should not daunt her. Nothing had been heard from him since that one interview at Kamakura. Of this Yuki had not spoken, not even to Gwendolen. Well, let him come, and give her pain! She deserved it! Still would friends be left, Gwendolen, and Mr. Todd, and the dear mother, Iriya, and—and her husband, Haganè. Her troubled heart faced round to him, but it was as if she stood before a stone precipice. He was too great; she too close.
All through the forenoon of that busy day presents had been arriving. The flood-gates of official recognition had been thrown wide. Gifts of flowers, of fruit in wonderful baskets, of growing plants in exquisitely glazed hana-bachi, came in embarrassing confusion. Baron Tsukeru, who united a passion for Japanese peonies to a more exotic devotion to orchids, sent a great lacquered tray heaped with broken rainbows, hoar-frost, and strange, flying insects turned to flowers. Old Prince Shìrota, who had been present at their marriage, sent to the prince and his new princess a box of eggs, together with a humorous poem, saying, "May each smooth egg betoken a life of wedded happiness, and may each year bring an heir. So shall joy and the house of Haganè be immortal!" A cabinet minister sent a case of champagne, also with a poem; but his was paraphrased from Tennyson. Sweetmeats, oranges, and loose flowers came literally by cartloads.
The great central offering, however, was a heap of exquisitely wrought confection representing blue waves, with a pairof Miyako-dori, birds symbolic of conjugal felicity, floating upon the sugared sea. This gift, placed reverently upon a little table to itself, needed no card. Upon the unpainted side of the satin-wood box in which it was fashioned, shone the Imperial insignia, a gold chrysanthemum with sixteen petals.
The master, twice during the forenoon, had rolled up to the door in his carriage, gone into his private office, closed the doors tightly, and busied himself with desk-drawers and papers. In a few moments he emerged and drove away without having spoken. On a third visit, he came into the drawing-room, in search of Yuki. She and Gwendolen were at the far end, both looking upward and talking (one in English, one in Japanese) to a bewildered servant on a stepladder, who paused to listen, his face copper-yellow among the loops of smilax. Neither heard Haganè until he was fairly upon them. Yuki gave a start; but Gwendolen brought down level eyes and smiled at him. He spoke first to the guest, holding her hand closely for an instant, and uttering some conventional, though, in this case, sincere expressions of gratitude for her kindness to Yuki. He then asked of Yuki the exact hour at which the reception was to commence. He spoke in English. "Four, your Highness," answered Yuki, in the same tongue. "I shall be in this apartment at four," he said, and then took his departure.
The two friends watched through the window as he stepped under the porte cochère and entered the carriage.
"Your husband is a king among men, my Yuki."
"It does not become a Japanese wife to admit so."
"The hair he leaves on his barber's floor tingles with more manliness than the whole body of Pierre Le Beau."
"It does not become the one who has made Pierre suffer to say so."
"Pshaw! Nonsense! He enjoys his suffering. But of course I might have known you would make some such retort. Do you want me to try to keep him away from you this afternoon, or is it part of your penitence to assist him in insulting you?"
"Oh, help keep away, if you can!" gasped Yuki. "PrinceHaganè will be standing by me then. I wish most of all for him not to be annoyed."
"I wonder whether you realize, small Princess—" Gwendolen began, then suddenly stopped. Her look, as she scrutinized the upturned face, was singular; her tone, more curious still. She closed her lips tightly now, as if to forbid the thought to come, shook her blonde head, and facing back to the window tapped a hollow rhythm on the pane.
Yuki's cheeks grew hot. "Some one—some one need me, I think," she murmured, and literally ran from the room.
Prince Haganè, punctual to the instant, fresh from the hands of his man-servant, impressive, unforgettable, in dark native robes of silk, took his place at the head of the receiving line. Yuki wore a robe and obi of splendid brocade, too heavy for an unmarried woman, but now befitting the dignity of a peeress. The colors were her favorite gray and pink, shot through with threads of silver. In her dark hair were pink orchids, the living flowers. She wore no jewelry but a broad gold band on her wedding finger,—a concession to her Christian principles,—and a clasp to her obi-domè, or flat silken cord which holds the great folds in place. This clasp represented intertwisted dragons. Like the ivory pin which she and Pierre had broken, it was an heirloom in her father's family.
The new kinswoman, little Princess Sada-ko, was to be near her, above Gwendolen in the line, but lower than the matron, Mrs. Todd. Mr. Todd had "begged off." So also had Yuki's parents. Onda, in fact, spurred by his dread of meeting foreigners, found good pretext for visiting a village nearly a day's ride away.
Guests had not begun to arrive. Even the Todds (Gwendolen had gone home two hours before to change her dress) had not yet made appearance. Haganè stood quietly in his place, and let his gaze move slowly through the changed and decorated rooms. The candles gleamed with intense yet softened brilliancy. In an adjoining parlor he could see the corner of a long table spread with rich food. Servants in livery moved about, noiseless as shadows. A distant door was opened. The flames of the candles leaned all one way, fretted a little,then stood upright. A few drops of wax trickled over to the floor. Instantly a servant came with knife and saucer to scrape up the hardening substance.
The old Prince Shirota sat in a low chair near the fire, with a late American magazine on his silken knees. Iriya hovered near, devouring with proud eyes this vision of her daughter consorting on equal terms with princes. Servants stole everywhere, soft, sleek, gentle, like well-fed animals.
A curious expression grew in the eyes of Haganè. His mouth writhed into a harsh and ugly smile which did not pass. Yuki felt the change in him, glanced up, and shrank a few inches further from his side. He did not notice her. He had been reading, but a few hours before, the written report of a Japanese spy, one of the few who had escaped alive from the very citadel of Port Arthur. The conditions of that fortress were plainly stated: food in abundance, ammunition, men, stone walls practically impregnable, a brave man in command,—all things in Russian favor; and yet by Japanese life that stronghold must be taken, by death the national honor be restored. As their Emperor read, and laid the paper down, he had bent his head, as if praying, and one hand had covered his down-bent eyes. Haganè shivered at that memory. Hunger, privation, cold, the agony of wounds untended, the deeper agony of remembered little ones soon to be fatherless, praying now in distant mountain villages,—this must the Japanese know to full measure. Food and shelter in Manchuria could alleviate, and for such alleviation, money was the only aid. Food, clothing, shelter, ammunition! Why, the very candles fanning out a brief existence on these walls would feed a brave battalion for a week! The table yonder, spread with delicacies for foreigners already gorged,—that long table would bring peace nearer by a hundred cannon detonations. The outer world, civilization so-called, demanded that tawdry ostentation still show her front.
"My Lord—your Highness," whispered Yuki, barely touching his sleeve, "has aught offended you?"
He looked down into her anxious face. His noble scorn melted into sadness. "Nay, Yuki, I was but counting the lives of soldiers by these candles on the wall."
"Lord, so have I thought, even to the point of weeping; yet you had told me to make some display, to have things fair to look on."
"I blame you not, my good child. There is no fault at all in you; yet the smell of that rich food sickens me. I long to be in the field with men; to share their handful of cold rice, their shred of salted fish. I hate the silk upon me, the soft rug at my feet, the smiling servants,—how can they smile? When the foreign manikins arrive, it will be hard fighting for me not to laugh at them,—to throw, like some stung cuttle-fish, the inky substance of my scorn—why should they laugh and feast? But, little one, I rave. You have never heard the old volcano growl before? Well, I shall be calm now; let us draw pink clouds about me, and set spring flowers among the fissures of my soul."
"I fear you not, my Lord, I but adore your spirit. I, too, in my weak woman's way, have had a thought. Shall we not purchase less rich food another time, and fewer candles? Instead, I shall buy thread and cloth and cotton. I will this very day invite the women here to weekly meeting for sewing. Princess Sada has been telling me that many are already started. We can make bandages, clothing, cover for your brave men. Into the texture we shall weave our very hearts. Tears of pity may, indeed, soothe noble wounds no less than the ointment of our surgeons. Shall it not be so, my husband? May I speak to my friends to-day?"
Haganè had lifted one hand to his mouth while she made eager speech. It was steady enough when he answered. "You have pleased me, little one, greatly have you pleased me. I shall speak of this even to our Sacred Sovereigns."
Gwendolen came bounding in like a child. "Do you recognize me, Yuki?" she cried, pitching her long cloak backward. "Of course Prince Haganè would not."
She stood before the two, a shimmering vision of white, touched at intervals by gleams of primrose hue. Haganè smiled. "If I mistake not greatly, it is the entire costume worn by Miss Todd when first I was honored to make her acquaintance. You called the ball a débutante's I think."
"Heavens, Yuki, think of his remembering! I see now,Prince Haganè, that you are truly a great man. What on earth have you been doing to your prince?" she added in a lower tone, as Haganè stepped forward to greet Mr. and Mrs. Todd. "He doesn't look a day over thirty-five, and handsome—He is the noblest-looking man that ever I saw!"
Mrs. Todd, resplendent in her favorite mauve satin, violently adorned in butter-colored lace, took her place next to Yuki. She liked well the importance of the position, yet kept furtive glances scurrying toward the door in outlook for Pierre and Mrs. Stunt. It was the apparition of the latter that she dreaded most. She trembled in recalling Mrs. Stunt's threat of forbidding and condemnatory conduct. "Not in Yuki's own house, my dear Mrs. Stunt," she had pleaded. "Don't go to the reception at all if you disapprove so of their behavior. Wait until you meet them outside." To this Mrs. Stunt had replied only by tight lips, and a glance of incorruptible virtue, as one who should say, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" Mrs. Todd envied her friend the rigidity of her moral nature.
Mrs. Stunt came among the very first. Although small in stature, she never failed to make herself conspicuous. She had acquired an air of patronage, of condescension. If a person or a group of persons continued to converse within the first few moments of her appearance, she had a way of looking at the offenders, of singling them out, that was never thereafter forgotten. On this occasion she was resplendent in a new gown of silvery gray silk, very tight as to bust and hip, and a trifle scanty as to skirt. A reason for this insufficiency showed in the yokes and sleeves of the Misses Stunt, lank, timid damsels of fifteen and thirteen respectively, who followed with unquestioning eyes their energetic mother. Each had a pinkish frock hung from a "guimpe" of silvery gray.
Kind-hearted Mrs. Todd literally held her breath as this important person bore, like a small nickel-plated naphtha launch, straight to the dark sea-rock of her host. The tight gray waist had the sheen of armor. Mrs. Todd watched for the steely reflection in her friend's bright eyes. They were now lifted to the face of Haganè. But no!—barbed lightnings did not flash admonition from their depths. Never were blue china beads more free from righteous indignation thanthose upraised orbs. She literally grovelled, first at the feet of Lord Haganè, then before his bride. Yuki received her gushing compliments with unsmiling lips. This made no difference. The Misses Stunt were then signalled to grovel.
Mrs. Todd's mouth, opened in incredulity during this brief scene, had forgotten to close. Something like indignation tingled through her full veins. Was Mrs. Stunt after all the hypocrite Gwendolen said she was? "Mrs. Stunt!" she called eagerly. Surely some explanation could be made.
The valiant one swept by her with a nod. She gave but one short sentence, back-flung, "Dear Mrs. Todd, how very warm you're looking!"
Princess Sada, whose title Gwendolen took pains to enunciate distinctly, came in for her share of compliment. The American girl next her, half-angry, half-hysterical with suppressed laughter, was hastily whittling a mental arrow, her keen eye searching, meanwhile, for some weak spot in the self-love of her foe. Mrs. Stunt, scenting trouble,—her perceptions in this regard were canine,—would have avoided the girl, but farther down the line were more Japanese. Another princess might be stowed among them. Mrs. Stunt could not relinquish a possible princess. She gathered up her mantle of effrontery, and went to her doom.
"Oh, Mrs. Stunt, not that high, fashionable hand-shake between old friends," cried the clear, sweet voice. Guests now poured into the doors. Many paused to hear the next sound of that pleasing voice. "I can't tell you how glad I am that you have met at last my friend Yuki, the Princess Haganè! You have talked so much about her, and now you have really met. I saw Yuki's joy in the meeting. You were intoxicating in your sincerity, dear Mrs. Stunt, a pewter-mug literally frothing with felicitations! Why, and here is Miss Stunt and Miss Leonora Stunt! Yes, I am glad to see you both; but move on, children; you must get mama to bring you with her on some of her frequent visits to the Legation!"
Mrs. Stunt carried her tarnished pewter bravely down the line. She was actually dull, leaden-toned with rage. It was not so much Gwendolen's impertinence that stung her, but the fact of the loud, clear voice, pitched for all to share.Whatever Mrs. Stunt's good opinion of herself, she could not but realize that most of those who overheard rejoiced in the Stunt humiliation.
The moment she had spoken, Gwendolen regretted it. "A mean, tawdry, contemptible bit of revenge!" she muttered to herself. "I feel already nearly as vile as she." The girl looked up to meet her father's deep-set eyes. A pathetic little moue, a single pleading gesture, and the tenderness returned to them; but his first look rankled.
It had been decided between Mr. Todd and his daughter that he should remain near some door or window in the thick of arriving-time, where at each loud carriage entrance he could draw aside the drapery and try to recognize the equipage. When the French coat-of-arms appeared he was to signal Gwendolen. Of course Le Beau would accompany his chief. The two now were inseparable. The only plan which Gwendolen's thought had suggested was to intercept Pierre at the door, and with what wit and invention then came to her aid, try to separate him from his evil genius, Ronsard, and, if possible, keep him away from Yuki.
Dodge entered airily alone. He wore a crimson carnation in his buttonhole and dove-gray "spats" above his patent leather shoes. Seldom now did he accompany the Todd family to any social function. Gwendolen had been asked by her parents the cause of this sudden aloofness, and they had received in turn the ambiguous and not altogether respectful reply, "How should I know? Am I our secretary's keeper?"
Dodge paused now near the door through which he had entered. The rooms were filling rapidly. His clear, dog-like eyes of hazel brown threaded the crowd, resting the fraction of an instant on each form. He searched, apparently, for some special object. Gwendolen, in her pretty débutante's gown which should, by rights, have evoked pensive memories, received but the usual light stroke of observation. The brown eyes shot on past her, swept around the walls, came back to the door where the owner of them stood, and then turned about to the entrance hall. "Ah!" said Dodge, under his breath. The eagerness of the sound carried it to Gwendolen's ear. She saw him disappear. A moment later he re-enteredwith Carmen Gil y Niestra, languid and beautiful, in cream lace and crimson carnations.
The two young people came down the line together. Yuki gazed with some curiosity on the face of the Spanish girl. Gwendolen waited for them. She held herself like a young Empress receiving coronation felicitations. The white débutante's dress seemed to become alive as Dodge neared it. One long tulle fold streamed after him as he went by. Gwendolen caught at it angrily.
Mr. Todd touched his daughter on the shoulder. She slipped out quietly to the hall-way, threw on the long dark cloak she had left there for the purpose, and was in the doorway before the French barouche had entirely stopped. Pierre issued first, and without having observed her, stood ready to assist his chief. He gave a nervous start as Gwendolen touched him. "Let the count go in alone," she pleaded. "I must speak with you."
The minister now emerged, a pendulous and unstable bulk. Gwendolen flew to his side. He looked into a face vital with excitement, hurt pride, vague apprehension. Her eyes were fairly black, her usually pale cheeks, red as Carmen's flowers. Her beauty smote the old sensualist with delight. "Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, but you are lovely," he murmured partly to himself. Ignoring physical disadvantages, he paused to make her a deep and courtly bow, his hand pressed reverently upon that portion of his torso where, beneath layers of unhealthy fat, squatted the small toad of his heart with the cross of the Legion of Honor about its neck.
"I am glad that you think me lovely at this moment," said the girl, coquettishly, swallowing hard her rising disgust. "I want you to help me. Please go in without Pierre. Do not let the usher call his name just yet. I must speak alone with him."
Count Ronsard's admiration was supplemented by a shrewd and contaminating look. He and Pierre crossed glances. The minister bowed again, this time with less ceremony. "Whatever beauty asks is already granted."
He whispered something to a servant who had stepped up to take Pierre's place. The servant hurried in before. Ronsardclimbed heavily, alone, the two stone steps of the portico. Gwendolen had drawn near Le Beau, when the bawl of the usher, in a voice unusually loud and distinct, arrested her. "His Excellency Count Ronsard, Minister of France, Monsieur Pierre Le Beau, Second Secretary to the French Legation."
Gwendolen caught her breath. Her eyes began to blaze. At this instant Count Ronsard, now on the top step, gave a cry, tottered, and would have fallen but for Pierre's agile spring.
"My ankle, my infernal ankle! I have sprained, perhaps broken it!" he groaned aloud in English. "Your arm, my son, I cannot walk alone."
Thus supported, he limped heavily into the drawing-room. Yuki hurried to meet him. A low cushioned chair was wheeled for his convenience. He dominated at once the entire assemblage. Formal greetings ceased. Half a dozen different nationalities crowded in to inquire about the accident. He and Pierre took turns in explanation. French, German, Spanish, Italian, English, Japanese, each was answered courteously in his own tongue. Yuki sent upstairs to her medicine-case for bandages and liniment; but this attention the gallant count repelled. His boot would keep the swelling down, he said, until the sick chamber of his own house could be reached.
Gwendolen let fall her cloak in the hall way; whoever would might rescue it. Slowly she entered the drawing-room, paused near the interesting group about the sufferer, and stood watching, her whole slight frame in a hot tingle with impotent anger. No mark of pain rested on the flabby countenance of Ronsard. Pierre looked far more ill. This fact but added to Gwendolen's uneasiness. Yuki had a tender heart for human suffering. She heard the count's brave self-control admired, and her disgust turned to a mental nausea. For the moment no counter-stroke occurred to her. Even the keen eyes of Prince Haganè were, apparently, deceived. He stood near the Frenchman expressing grave concern. Yuki, perforce, remained within calling of her afflicted guest. Haganè at length moved off. Pierre, Ronsard, and Yuki were together, a meeting that Gwendolen had striven against, and plotted toprevent. Gwendolen fancied that her schoolmate already turned more wan, that she trembled and shrank from the low words that were spoken. She was a white dove picked upon by vultures. Mrs. Stunt stood across the room gleaning items with her steely gaze.
Discomfited, utterly worsted, Gwendolen trailed slow steps down the lighted vista. She longed for her father, but now he and Prince Haganè had begun to talk. A vacant window, half-hidden in trailing vines, allured her. She hurried to it, threw aside the curtain, and looked out into the deepening twilight. All of this fair March day had been blue and windless. The night was a bowl of liquid sapphire, a deep aerial sea into which the house had been lowered, like a great illuminated bell. So tangible, so intense, was the outer blueness that it seemed to Gwendolen, should she lift the sash an inch, a gentian tide must gurgle in through the fissure, steal along the wall to the shadowy floor, and silently fill the long rooms with a purple flood.
That moment brought to the girl her first tinge of worldly bitterness. Heretofore, with the one exception of her quarrel, things had seemed naturally to come right just because she wished it. Even in dreams, things always came right for her. Now, by some shabby turn of fortune, the reverse was true; failure marked every effort. Being young, healthy, and totally unacquainted with real sorrow, it was inevitable that she should luxuriate in an imaginary despair. She stared into the night, envying its cool blue depths of silence and oblivion. She raised long lashes to the stars, gleaming faintly now like small phosphorescent mushrooms springing on a damp blue field, and wondered, sighing, whether on those distant planets lived any girl so miserable as she.
"Miss Todd," murmured a low voice. She wheeled back to the lighted room with a gesture so sudden that two large tears splashed upon her cheeks. Dodge stood beside her half-abashed, altogether eager, deeply flushed by the late battle with his pride. Gwendolen's heart gave a bound toward him, then sank down whimpering. The girl, too, felt an overwhelming need for tears. One kind word more from Dodge, one faint concession on her part, and she must surrenderutterly, bend down with her face hidden, and sob out her anxieties and her relief. Oh, if they were but alone, and she could "make up" as she longed to do! But now, because all eyes might turn to them, because she had not the self-control to explain, his tenderness must be met by scorn, in self-protection she must lash herself to stoicism by blows rained on him. She drew herself upright. He could not see how feverishly one primrose-colored hand clutched the window-frame. "You have—mis-taken your—corner, Mr. Dodge," she jerked out in a voice that needed to balance every word, like an acrobat on a wire. "Miss Niestra is, I think, in another part of the room."
"I have, as you say, mistaken the corner. I shall not offend again," said Dodge.
The girl's heart called out after him. She bit her lips to keep back the gush of tears. "Now he will hate me forever and ever! He'll never want to speak to me again," she told herself. She threw her head back, and stepped out into the light. Scrutiny would help to steady her. Count Ronsard still held court, his two attendants being Pierre and Yuki. Gwendolen's generous heart flared into new anger for her friend. "What are my stings to Yuki's!" she cried to herself. "Those two men are devils to torture a woman as I know they are doing!" Gwendolen felt a sense of returning energy. She had found a definite task.
Count Ronsard, who flattered himself that he understood all women, to whom raw débutantes were as glass candy jars in a village shop-window, felt a little surprise, perhaps even a little excitement, as Gwendolen, smiling like a tall white angel, bore down upon him, and announced, in her sweetest voice, that she had come to "keep him company." Enlightenment and a challenge lay in her two next sentences. "Bring me that footstool, Pierre. Yuki, darling, let me take your place now as ministering angel to the count. Other guests may need you."
Like a snowy bird of Paradise flecked with gold, she perched beside the caged Frenchman. He saw through her feint as clearly as she had seen through his. Having avowed himself incapable of walking, he had no choice but to remainwhere he was, or to return home. In sheer intellectual delight at the girl's wit and daring, he yielded himself to her snare. Her sentences enwrapped him in bright skeins. Excitement gave her pungency. She realized that she had never talked so well, and even in the midst of it regretted that it had to be wasted on an "old pig." Pierre hovered about sullenly until released by a nod from his chief. No further speech did he obtain with Yuki. Gwendolen noted, with malicious satisfaction, how close the young wife kept to her husband's side, how tenderly the great man leaned and spoke with her. Together they now moved through the crowded rooms, delivering invitations to the sewing-meeting on the following Monday, the first to be held. The air of the room crackled to eager acceptances. Mrs. Stunt's was the explosion of a small torpedo. Tranquillity and her usual pale-rose flush came back to the face of the little princess. Gwendolen's sparkling eyes jeered light into those of Count Ronsard. The man was a great man in his distorted way. As yet life's greatest values were, for him, of the mind. Rising at last with ostentatious and smothered groans, as he prepared to limp to his waiting carriage, he gave the girl her meed of praise. "Mademoiselle," he said gravely, "it would be a happy day for France were you to become the wife of one of her diplomats."
"Merci," said Gwendolen, with a French curtsy. "The profession allures me, but—an American diplomat will be good enough for me!"
A shortwhispered colloquy between Haganè, the little Princess Sada-ko, and Yuki, during the reception, a few days before, resulted in the decision that the Japanese ladies should be asked to come quite early to the sewing party; the foreign contingent to be bidden later, about one in the afternoon. To all Japanese the early hours of the day are best. Yuki knew that this was not the case with foreigners. Besides, to have served a hot foreign luncheon to an indefinite number of guests would have taken from the purpose of such a meeting most of its charitable intent, and, very likely, all of the material profit. The simplest of Japanese collations,—a bowl of thin fish soup, rice, tea, a fairy dish of pickles, one sweetmeat, maybe, this could be served with propriety to the Empress herself, had that gracious lady been present. These women worked for their own hero soldiers, for their own adored Nippon. Their utmost efforts were privileges; what the foreign ladies gave might, among themselves, be considered alms.
When all had arrived, that is, the foreigners as well as Japanese, they were to be given for entertainment, music of the two worlds. First, English songs from a charming soprano, a Mrs. Wyndham of Yokohama, justly celebrated in the East, as in her own land, for an unusually pure and lovely voice. For Japanese they were to have improvisation and martial chanting from a Satsuma biwa player, a court musician in highest favor with their Majesties. The lending of him to Yuki for this meeting had been a royal answer to Haganè's modest statement of his young wife's plan.
The Japanese ladies, mostly of the noble class, began to arrive before the blue morning mists had quite lifted from the long, gleaming surfaces of castle moats; before the wild white herons, perching on great down-sweeping arms of castlepines, had warmed their chilly feathers to the skin; before the budding cherry-boughs had dared unfold a single dripping leaf. By eight o'clock that end of the huge upstairs hall set apart for their exclusive use had few vacant places. The Japanese ladies brought scissors, thimble, and needles; material and thread were contributed by Prince Haganè. Yuki's mother was among the first. Iriya grew younger and prettier with each day, in this new pride and happiness won through her only child. She had not brought the servants. Yuki insisted that they be sent for. They came as upon the chariot of the wind, released by a gruff sound of acquiescence from their master, their blue sleeves flying horizontally in the morning air. Little Maru, whose excessive love for candy kept her in a condition of pink rotundity, gasped joyously for breath. "Ma-a-a!" she cried at first sight of a courtyard filled with crested kuruma; and "Ma-a-a!" again, as she tripped on the top step and fell full-length into the hall; and "Ma-a-a!" once more as the obliging butler stooped to rescue her, until Suzumè, frowning heavily, called her a bean-curd, and bade her cease exclaiming.
It was a gentle company that worked in the upper hall. Shining black heads bent as one above tumultuous yards of white cotton cloth. The peculiar odor of cambric and unbleached domestic was mixed with Japanese perfumes of sandalwood and incense, and with the unique aroma of hair-oil made from camellia berries. Work went on steadily. Great white towers of bandages were finished, and removed by servant-maids, who staggered, laughed, and joked softly, as they bore the tottering burdens to the packing-room downstairs. Sounds of hammer and nails arose as the packages went into boxes. They could hear workmen haggling over the spelling of certain Manchurian addresses.
In the big hall the nobly-born seamstresses talked, smiled, raised eyebrows, nodded, shook their heads over bad news, and gave small, half-finished exclamations over good, much as a roomful of Western women might have done. The fortunes of war dominated interest. Bereavement had already fallen upon more than one of the gentle company. Deathwas spoken of quite simply, with no affectation of distress. Universal contempt was expressed for a certain young widow who had been coarse and self-centred enough to faint at her husband's tomb. "Hirotsunè's spirit must have covered his eyes with shame at that sight, and thanked the gods she had borne him no son," said an elderly aunt of the dead hero, Hirotsunè.
But not all the conversation was of war. The rise in the price of provisions was commented upon by anxious housewives. In all cases the household expenses had been cut down, and the money deflected to the national treasury. This seemed as natural to them all as that water should flow. "The poor food makes, of course, no difference to us who are adult, or to our boy children," murmured one sweet-faced matron. "But sometimes the babes, and the very old servants, grumble a little at having barley mixed with their rice." Fashions, since no one thought of buying new gowns, was, for once in a female gathering, utterly ignored. Gossip concerning foreign residents, especially women, remained, as usual, an engrossing theme. The latest Yokohama and Tsukijii scandals were whispered, not without zest. These high-nosed, fierce-looking creatures of their own sex were a source of constant marvelling to Japanese women. "Kitsui" (mannish) they were called, as the extreme of disapprobation. Yuki defended them, and gave a softer coloring to some of the alleged misdeeds. Gwendolen she cited as an example of a Western girl who must, in her past incarnations, have been entirely Japanese. The guests listened politely, but Yuki read skepticism on their calm faces.
During the long forenoon not once was a voice raised or a loud laugh heard. Yet not one face ever lapsed into indifference. One might have gained from the resilient poise of slender throats an impression of yielding strength. Their chatter was a murmur, with tripping, short interludes of sound, and cooing, long-drawn vowels soft as their own white hands. They were a flock of gray doves in a sheltered niche. Never, one would have said, were creatures more tender, more feminine, more dependent. So would a foreignerhave thought, to see them; but a Japanese knows the truth. Not a woman there but might be the child, the parent, the wife of a hero. Many had looked calmly on death. Not one among them would falter at the extremest test of heroic sacrifice, and should the call come, this little sewing band would rise, arm itself with swords, and deal what desperate death it could upon intruding enmity, before at last plunging sharp surrender into its own brave heart.
At noon the Japanese meal was served. After it came a little pause of rest, enlivened by smoking from small gold pipes, and the drinking of added cups of tea. Just before one o'clock the sewing was resumed. Then the little silk-clad ladies waited, in deeper agitation than they would have felt in facing Kuropatkin, for the coming of their foreign friends.
Mrs. Todd was punctual almost to the minute. With her came Gwendolen and Mrs. Stunt. A slight coolness now existed between the two elder ladies. Mrs. Stunt's explanation that her effusiveness to the Haganès was merely "sarcasm" had failed to convince even so trustful a nature as Mrs. Todd. Coolness, however, did not keep Mrs. Stunt from a neighborhood where she might derive profit.
She had walked on foot to the Legation, declaring that her jinrikisha-man was shockingly drunk, and had begged a seat in the American carriage. It was, of course, given, and by the time Yuki's residence was reached the artful one had regained some of her lost favor with Mrs. Todd, and deepened the loathing of the silent Gwendolen.
The three came up the stairs together, their foreign shoes pounding in unison, causing the huge, badly constructed house to rattle at every window.
"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd, as she lifted her lorgnette to survey the long hall and the gathered company, "a regular sewing-bee, isn't it? And I see, Yuki, you've got the piano upstairs, after all. I didn't believe you'd get it up those steps."
Yuki had, of course, met them at the door. She and Gwendolen fell, through force of habit, far in the wake of the bustling dame. Mrs. Stunt kept well beside the leader.The two girls clasped hands shyly, and looked at each other with side glances, like happy children in the first embarrassment of play. Many of the Japanese ladies lifted glances of interest to the tall blonde girl. This must be she of whom the Princess Haganè had spoken, the girl with the face of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu,—with the strayed soul of a Nipponese. She wore this afternoon a simple costume of golden-brown silk. It was just the transition tone between her golden hair and the darker brows and lashes. A wide hat of bronze-colored velvet piled high with paler plumes balanced itself on her delicate head. Bronze-colored gloves ran up the slender arms to the elbow, where the sleeves fell away in a deep pointed ruff. A belt of dull yellow shark's skin and bronze boots completed the costume. The seated women, ignoring the advancing bulk of Madame Todd, the restless insistency of her companion, let smiling eyes rest on Gwendolen, then nodded to each other, and exchanged glances, as if in corroboration of Yuki's previous words.
"I am keeping seats for your party, dear Mrs. Todd, over there by that most sunshine window," said Yuki. "Please see that a chair is held for Mrs. Wyndham, who is so very kind to sing for us. Ah, I hear many peoples arriving. I see Mrs. Wyndham now. I will advance to her." Yuki hurried off, and soon returned with the prima donna, whom she delivered into Mrs. Todd's efficient hands.
"MydearMrs. Wyndham," cried that lady. "Oh, I beg pardon. Mrs. Stunt, Mrs. Wyndham; my daughter, Miss Todd, Mrs. Wyndham. I didn't realize that you had not met Miss Todd."
"I called at your Legation last Tuesday,—the proper day, I am sure,—but failed to see Miss Todd," said the Englishwoman, stiffly.
Mrs. Todd flushed crimson. Mrs. Stunt turned away to hide her satisfaction. A public slight to Gwendolen generally meant, for Mrs. Todd, attempted annihilation of the offender. She turned angered eyes to Mrs. Wyndham, and would have spoken, but Gwendolen pressed her arm. "No, mother dear, don't defend me; I deserve it. Let me speak. Mrs. Wyndham, I am mother's despair at the Legation. Iforget reception-days half the time. I—I—" here she lowered her voice to a delicious, confidential whisper, "the fact is I—Ishirkthem. So many old frumps, you know! It's getting to be a regular hen-roost. But, honest, I am sorry I was out last Tuesday, and I want you to give me another chance." Gwendolen could generally be irresistible when she chose. Now she chose not only to win Mrs. Wyndham, to whose high-bred English face she had taken an instant liking, but to deal another blow to her enemy Mrs. Stunt.
In both efforts she was successful, though Mrs. Wyndham did not capitulate all at once. The sparkling hazel eyes and the gray ones met. Suspicion lived a little longer in the latter. "Please," murmured Gwendolen. Suspicion died. "I am always at home on my Wednesdays," said the Englishwoman.
"I'll be there," laughed Gwendolen. "Have me a place set at your breakfast-table!"
Yuki had vanished to perform her duties of hostess. Mrs. Todd and her small party took the "sunshine" seats, and a Japanese lady whom they had not met brought them foreign sewing materials. Work had not begun with them when a low, plaintive voice leaned to Mrs. Todd's large ear. "Please, please, help me in all ways you can, dear Mrs. Todd. This is much worse than that reception I held downstairs. So many foreign ladies are come,—and they all look at everybody so very hard! Ask kind Mrs. Wyndham to sing just as soon as she are ready, and soon, please."
Mrs. Wyndham rose instantly, and looked with composure over the sea of lifted heads. Every chair was now taken, and servants brought up new ones from the rooms downstairs. She was used to audiences, also to commendation. In her hands she held a roll of music. Mrs. Wyndham was one of those colonists—a large class in the Far East—who never forgive Japan for not being England. She emphasized her homesickness by withdrawal from all native interests, except, as now, when she could give pleasure and assistance by her voice. It was her pride that she ateno Japanese products. Everything on her table was "imported." Even her garden held only English flowers. That great sea of spiritual and physical beauty which lies in Japanese character, and in its environment, was to her nonexistent. Such dwellers in the East are like children who, in springtime, search the grass for fallen apples, and never once lift their disappointed faces to the pink canopy of bloom.
As may be inferred, all Japanese music was, to Mrs. Wyndham and her intimate associates, mere squeaking, caterwauling, an excruciating discord. She spoke constantly of "civilized" music. She was fond of referring to the English school of harmony. She was exaggerated in her use of English method.
"Shall I be compelled to play my own accompaniment?" now asked Mrs. Wyndham. Her pretty face showed concern.
"If the music is not too hard I will try," said Gwendolen, springing from her chair, while scissors and thimble fell clattering to the floor. She gave the fallen articles a contemptuous glance, and, without a motion to rescue them, followed Mrs. Wyndham to the piano.
A group of young Japanese girls, put in a corner to themselves, exchanged looks of delight, and began to titter like wrens. "How much do the ways of the honorable foreign scissors and thimble resemble those of Japanese scissors and thimble!" they confided one to another.
"My thimble generally rolls off the veranda and buries itself among pebbles. I think it possesses an imp!" laughed one.
"Mine goes always into the red coals of the hibachi," giggled another.
"That is precisely the conduct of my worthless article," added a third. "The water-kettle has to be taken aside, and grandmother scowls. Then we all dig for the thimble with the copper fire-sticks. When we find it, it is quite black, and—Ma-a-a!—so hot, that it must be dropped at once into cold water, where it hisses like the head of a small serpent."
"Now what shall I sing for such a crowd as this?" musedMrs. Wyndham, as she shuffled the loose leaves of her music. Her words had the sound of inner meditation.
"What would the Japanese like best?" asked Gwendolen, in a low tone.
"Oh, mydear! I wasn't thinking of them!" protested the other. "They are incapable of appreciating any real music. I was thinking of our foreign friends."
"Yuki Haganè is a Japanese. She loves the best music. Brahms is almost a passion with her. She says that he sounds like the wind in pine-trees, high above a great battle."
"Oh, Brahms!" said the other. "I never sing Brahms. He is too harsh and unpoetic. These bellowing contraltos affect him. As for me, I must have something light, poetic, full of melody."
"Here is our American McDowell," murmured Gwendolen, and bent her face that its expression might not be seen. "Being patriotic by profession I plead for McDowell."
"You do not consider him,—over their heads?" asked the Englishwoman, dubiously.
"Oh, well, you can give them Sullivan next time, and bring down the average!" Mrs. Wyndham bent a suspicious look, but Gwendolen's lifted gaze was that of a seraph over a last harp note. "I'll try McDowell. Can you play the accompaniment?"
"I can at least attempt it," said Gwendolen, meekly, and forthwith rippled out the prelude with an ease that further deepened suspicion.
The song began with a single note, long sustained, the voice striking in abruptly among hurrying chords. Mrs. Wyndham's beautiful voice took it like a star. Suddenly, with another upward swerve, the note wavered, passed into a new kindling as into the life of a bird, and swept along on higher currents with motionless, outspread wings.
The foreign ladies exchanged glances of rapture. The Japanese workers, on the other hand, stared first in astonishment, then with growing apprehension. Surely this was not singing! Something must be going wrong with the honorable insides of the kind lady! They stole timid lookstoward their hostess, and by her calm, interested face were reassured. Still the piercing note went higher. The singer's throat swelled slightly, and her face turned red. From the group of Japanese girls one hysterical chuckle escaped. That set off the whole lot. Staid matrons bowed convulsed faces to folds of cotton cloth; silken sleeves came into requisition. A few of the foreign ladies looked about and frowned. Yuki half rose from her chair.
Now, fortunately, the highest note was reached. It broke its flight with a great twitter of wings. The bars of a staccato love-song began. Again the Japanese women stared, but now in admiration as well as wonder. Never were singing notes so light, so delicate, so silvery! As the song ended (and indeed it had been exquisitely given), the foreign ladies burst into simultaneous applause. Led by the bolder among them, the Japanese followed suit.
"Oh, we can't let you stop atthat, dear Mrs. Wyndham," came Mrs. Stunt's high, rasping voice. "Won't you give us that lovely thing of Goo-nowd's you sung at our last Charity concert?" Mrs. Wyndham consented. After Gounod it was an English ballad, then another and another, until at length the singer, with pretty petulance, turned from the piano saying that she had already monopolized too much time. A great buzzing of thanks and congratulations surged about her. No expression of admiration was too exaggerated. In fact there was none that pretty Mrs. Wyndham had not heard many times before. She accepted these tributes now, as usual, with deprecating smiles, and little protesting shakes of the head, finally declaring that they would make her conceited if they didn't stop.
No one noticed the American girl, still at the piano. She gave a swift look around, and seeing that the biwa player had not come, began whispering to the keys the first notes of one of Chopin's most delicate fantasies. Like the down on a moth's wing, it came. Like crystal raindrops, then, mixed with the perfume of bruised petals, and sometimes the distant yearning of a bird. This was music that even the untutored Japanese girls could feel. It held the sound of their own koto strings,—it breathed whispers of theirown trees, and winds, and sighing sea-stretches. Gradually all voices in the room ceased. Faster the notes came, though still with a suggestion of whispering. Gwendolen's white hands became a misty blur. The theme drew closer, with now a wind-driven swish of rain and scurrying petals; now the nearer cry of a bird, and a low under-rhythm of human sorrow. The sounds whirled and lifted into melodious agitation. The caged bird seemed to give low plaints of fear; the wind and the rain drove close, dashed into the face of silence, and drew back. Then all sounds died away in waves of exhausted sobbing. Gwendolen sprang up, leaving the piano vibrant. She hurried to the nearest window, turning her face from all in the room.
Mrs. Wyndham was the first to speak. Her light laugh had an artificial sound. "And to think, my dear, that I insisted upon knowing whether you could manage my accompaniments!"
Gwendolen did not heed. She was tingling with the excitement and unrest that Chopin's music so often brought her. Yuki came softly, slipping a little scarred hand into that of her friend.
"I hate Chopin!" cried the American girl, in a low, angry voice. "I wonder why I keep on playing him! Every time I say I won't, and then I go and do it! He is morbid, he is childish, he is French! One sees his weak chin quiver, and the tears roll down his cheek! He wants you to see them. I hate him, I say! But, oh, he is a compelling genius!"
"Yes, he do like every one to see him when he cries. But when I hear him I think, 'Oh, what must it be to a person's soul to be able to cry such tears of music!'"
A sound at the main entrance-door caused the little hostess to turn. "Ah, there is the Satsuma biwa player! I must now go to him. He, too, makes tears, Gwendolen, but of a different sort. Perhaps you will not wish to cry for him. You may even think him to be funny, as many of the Japanese ladies thought Mrs. Wyndham's beautiful singing to be funny. You must not try to stay,—you and Mrs. Todd,—if it will tire you."
As she hurried away Mrs. Wyndham drew slowly near. "You naughty one! I shall owe you a grudge for this. You are not to be forgiven until you promise to come often—often—and let us play sometimes together. You are a genius!"
"Not quite that, I think," said Gwendolen, smiling. "Though, indeed, I have never known a friend to take music's place, except Yuki; and now that she is a princess, I suppose I can't feel her to be so much my own. I shall love to come to you and play. Your voice is like sunshine on an English fountain."
"Ah!" said the other, "what a charming speech! No man could say anything half so pretty! Now, as reward, I am going to give you a piece of valuable advice." She leaned confidentially near. "Make your escape while you can." She nodded significantly toward the biwa player, who, with Yuki beside him, stood shrinkingly in the doorway. "I've heard him once,—or one like him. It is what you Americans might call 'the limit'!"
"You mean for me to go? But I have never heard any Japanese music at all!" protested Gwendolen.
"Oh, in that case—" said Mrs. Wyndham, with her delicate shrug. "If you care for the experience!" She hurried off with many protestations of regret. Several other ladies followed her example.
The biwa player now stood beside the piano. Two Japanese tatami (padded straw mats six feet in length) were brought in and placed upon the floor. Before inviting him to be seated Yuki made a hesitating little speech to the company, first in English, then in Japanese, saying to the foreigners that while the music to come would doubtless be strange, and possibly displeasing to them, to her and her compatriots it was a trumpet-call to heroism. "It stirs our blood to every drop!" she cried, forgetting, for the instant, her shyness. "It echoes to the brave deeds of a thousand years ago,—it foretells deeds more greater that may come! It is the crying of strong souls, it is breath of our fathers' Gods!"
Gwendolen, in that vague sort of way in which impressionsof alien customs are formed, had believed all male musicians in Japan to be blind. Some one had told her so, or she had read it. She was surprised, therefore, and interested, to see in this famous singer of battle-hymns a young man, indeed almost a boy, with thin, shaven face, tumultuous black hair not too closely or evenly cut, tossed in thick locks all over his well-poised head; and eyes, large, straight, expressive, and brilliant enough to be the ornament of a young French or Italian seigneur. He showed a slight embarrassment, at first, in the presence of so many women. He was used to the audience of statesmen, to the flashing response of Majesty. Here were not only Japanese girls, mere children, but a great company of high-nosed, pink and purple foreigners. Saturated as he was, made up of lore and legend, with songs of the Lady Sakanouyè, or of Ono no Komachi never far from his lips, even Gwendolen's bright beauty seemed a trifle abnormal, bleached, repellent.
Now his hostess, the young Princess Haganè, looked into his eyes, and spoke to him in their own tongue. "Be not concerned, honorable sir, at the presence of foreign women! They cannot understand your words, of course; but I am sure they will listen courteously. As for us,—we Japanese women,—we are the wives, the daughters, the mothers of heroes. Our frail lives toss as thin flames on the altar of prayer. We cannot fight, we can only pray and work. Sing strength to us as we minister to distant soldiers dying, perhaps on barren fields, or heaped, dead, in the ploughed siege-trenches of this fearful war!"
His deep eyes seemed to drink of her inspiration, so long was the gaze with which he held her. "I am honored to sing at your bidding," he answered. He had forgotten to bow at the words. He forgot that she was a princess. He recognized her as a spirit. Forever after this slight girl, seen but once, became one of the poet's galaxy of pale, pure stars. For years he could not sing of the death-struggle of the Heikè clan without a vision of her prophetic eyes.
He took his seat very slowly on the soft straw mat. Yuki withdrew, and became lost among her guests. The biwa, a large lute in the shape of half a pear, had been held, all thistime, closely against the young man's breast. Now, in taking his seat, the instrument was extended to the full length of his right arm. It gave out, under his close grasp, a sleepy hum. For an instant only it was placed apart from him, on the mat, that he might spread and smooth the knees of his silken robe, draw his stiff sleeves into exact angles, and adjust the low kimono collar. Then he turned impatiently again to the lute. It murmured to him; he drew it close, smiling as a mother upon her babe.
"Ain't he handsome for a Jap?" whispered Mrs. Stunt to Gwendolen. The girl winced. She was studying him in her own way. His manner, just before beginning, was aloof and reserved, as if he were restating to himself consecration to service. The Japanese women, even the oldest, gazed upon him with deep reverence.