CHAPTER XVI
It was the evening of the return of Richard Verley to Sanyo. Azalea was sitting passively under the hands of the maid, Natsu, having her shining black hair brushed and twisted into the elaborate mode approved by Matsuda. Word had come into the room where thus far she had been kept a prisoner, ordering her to prepare for the wedding ceremony. Whatever her inward emotions, now as she sat under the hands of the woman, she showed only a stoical calm. That nameless antagonism which had always existed betweenthese two had become a deeper thing during these days in the house of Matsuda. Instinctively Azalea knew the woman for an enemy, and accordingly feared and hated her. Though forced to submit to the woman’s attendance, yet she would not condescend a word either of entreaty or command. Matsuda held her destiny in his hand. He could rob her of her child. He had kept his word and taught her lips to frame themselves to meeker words. But the woman—Natsu-san—to her at least she need not kneel. Now on this day as Natsu dressed her mistress, Azalea showed no interest in the other’s evident agitation, despite the fact that the woman showedunusual signs of being discomposed. Finally as the silence became unbearable to her, the woman broke it with strange words:
“Mistress,” she said, “the man Okido is waiting below in the guest room.”
Azalea inclined her head, but made no comment. Okido, like all other people, was of no interest to her. The woman lowered her voice.
“I have taken a patch from your floor, mistress. If you will put your head to it you will hear what he has to say to the master.”
Azalea’s glittering eyes looked at thepatch uplifted by the woman. Still she remained silent.
The woman’s insidious voice continued carefully:
“Mistress, you have heard the ancient saying of the samurai: ‘To die with honor when one can no longer live with honor.’”
The girl beneath her hands did not stir, nor did she deign to turn her head to where the woman pointed. The shorter sword of the samurai was set close to the patch. It was covered with a white cloth—the cloth of honorable death. The woman had provided the wife of the white priest with a means of escape. Yet she had judged wrongly. Azalea was not merely thedaughter of samurai. She was the wife of a Christian. Life could not be taken so easily as the woman supposed. The code of the samurai pointed out that death was better than dishonor. The new religion said nothing on this matter. It simply forbade the suicide.
The woman, her task completed, arose and brought a mirror to Azalea, who, still silent, stared fixedly and unseeingly at the reflected face. She started somewhat as the maid’s lips touched her ears, and in the glass she saw the fat red face close to her own.
“Mistress, to-day if you listen you willlearn the full extent of your folly and the dupe you have been to us all.”
The mirror slipped from Azalea’s hands. She reached them up suddenly and pushed them against the face of the maid. Her nails sank into the puffed fatness of the woman’s cheeks.
“Your touch offends me,” she said. “Come not so near, low-born one.”
With a cry of rage the woman sprang back, clasping her hands over her hurt cheeks. Then, muttering, she shuffled toward the doors. There she paused vindictively.
“You are a peacock now, Madame Azalea, but your feathers will look lessproud and pretty when you learn what they have cost you. You disdained the servant of the white Highness and taught him to do likewise. But the lowly one was in his service long before his eyes desired you. Even a snake crawling in the grass may strike a revenge. There is nothing too small or lowly to bite.”
Azalea did not move or deign to turn her head, even after the woman had gone and she could hear her glide along the hall. For a long time she sat in silence. Once she looked with fearful stealth at the opening in the floor, but she did not look for long. There was nothing further for her to hear, she told herself. Who knew alreadybetter than herself the extent of her debasement?