The Breath of the Gods Part 25

Gwendolen, first catching sight of the visitor, went forward in her bright, impetuous way. "Thank goodness that you came! Isn't this war-news exciting? Wasn't that banquet last night, after the Red G.o.d appeared, a regular skeleton's feast? Have you heard from Yuki this morning?"

Before Pierre could segregate the necessary replies, Minister Todd was in the room. He walked slowly, studying, with his thin quaint smile, a large visiting card, apparently just received. He nodded all around, and then addressed himself directly to Dodge.

"Prince Hagane has called. Would you advise me to see him alone?"

"No, no, Cy. I won't hear to it!" protested Mrs. Todd. "With this war started, he may be intending you bodily harm!"

"Nonsense, my dear," said her spouse, patting one plump shoulder.

Dodge had been scrutinizing the legend on the pasteboard.

"This is his Highness's most rigidly official card. Yes, sir, you will have to see him alone. But don't commit yourself by the faintest hint.

We have as yet received no instructions from Washington."

"Why, what was that great bunch of cables that came this morning?" asked the lady, with childlike eyes.

Todd grinned toward his secretary, who now cast a grinless and apprehensive look in the direction of Pierre. Dodge answered for the office, "Those related to an entirely different matter, Mrs. Todd, a personal matter. Your husband, Minister Todd, has had no instructions with regard to this war just begun."

Pierre, reddening slightly, beckoned Gwendolen across the room. They stood staring out across the wide brown lawn. Mr. Todd and his a.s.sistant left the room together. Above the Buddhist garment she was desecrating, Mrs. Todd murmured plaintively, "I've known it all along,--though Count Breakitoff in Washington a.s.sured me it could not come. I was certain that just as soon as I got over here the horrid thing would break out.

Just suppose the Russians capture Tokio! They boast already that they will dictate terms of peace in Tokio before next Christmas day, and the Russian troops are like wild beasts." Here she gave a shudder, and raised her voice. "Oh, Gwendolen, why did we leave Washington, or even our peaceful Western home? I'd give ten thousand dollars to be set down right now in a good Christian wheat-field. This is awful, simply _awful_!"

"And I think it glorious, simply glorious!" sang Gwendolen from the window. "Already the prospect tingles in my veins. It is better than a coming-out party, better than auto-mobiling on a road of green gla.s.s! I feel that delicious, tragic, matinee feeling I used to have as a child, just as the curtain starts to rise."

"And you are not afraid something is going to happen?" asked Mrs. Todd.

"I'm only afraid that something isn't going to happen," returned the intrepid one.

Pierre sauntered toward the hearth. "I come of a fighting race, yet now I share Madame's views rather than those of her spirited daughter. This war means a new gulf between Yuki and me."

Gwendolen's face sobered. "I've thought of that. You are right. It means a wider gulf; it ought to mean a wider gulf."

Pierre moved nearer the fire and spread his delicate hands to the flame.

"Your tone, Mademoiselle," he began with a most pathetic attempt at lightness, "might imply that the gulf is already of sufficient width to admit despair."

Gwendolen threw back her head and looked at him from under long lashes.

"I didn't say so," returned she.

"Speech is the least satisfactory form of intelligent communication,"

answered Pierre, still trying to smile himself and her into the delusion that he was but partly in earnest.

"Did you see the way that Yuki's father watched us all last night?"

asked the girl, irrelevantly.

"No, I cannot say I bestowed much attention. Whenever possible, I keep my eyes from unpleasing objects."

"You do well, Pierre," a.s.serted Mrs. Todd; "especially in this case. I was next him most of the time, and though I did not look, I have acquired neuralgia in the shoulder which was nearest him."

"He wasn't what one would call exactly--gushing," mused Gwendolen. She seated herself now, and fell into a sort of reverie, dropping her chin and catching it in one hand,--a gesture ludicrously like Mr. Todd.

Pierre's glance into her face added, it would seem, to his uneasiness.

"I presume it is only war that has brought Prince Hagane to call so promptly," said he, tentatively, with a note of challenge in his voice.

Gwendolen gave a small sniff. "War! He may call it war,--but it is Yuki!

Prince Hagane stands behind that old pickled samurai, Onda; I felt it last night. I tried to hint it to you then, but you were determined not to see." She rose to her feet again, and began to flutter near, in the fashion most disastrous to Mrs. Todd's always sensitive nerves.

"Do sit down, Gwendolen, or you will have my brains as tangled as this knot of silk," cried the matron. She began now to jerk at the shining strands, as if they were partly the cause of her irritation. In an instant they were reduced to the condition of a small demented rainbow.

Pierre took a low stool, seated himself near the knee of his hostess, and began deftly to unravel the tangle.

He had not tried to answer Gwendolen's last remark; perhaps he could not. Something in his face smote the girl's generous heart. She knelt at the other side of Mrs. Todd's ample knee-s.p.a.ce, crying, "Pierre, I have hurt you! I am a horrid, brusque girl. I ought to be a telephone 'central.' I didn't mean to hurt."

"That's just your way, Gwendolen," admonished Mrs. Todd. "You will do things first, and repent them after. How often have I told you that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?"

"Nay, Madame," entreated Pierre, "speak not so harshly. Miss Gwendolen is merely impulsive. I know her for a good friend of my Yuki, and, I hope, of myself. Such candor may smart a little, but it is beneficial.

The truth is, I am sore, wounded, aching, from a talk just held with his Excellency Count Ronsard. I think I came here for balm."

"You told him of your--attachment?" questioned Mrs. Todd, eagerly.

Gwendolen rose slowly, went over to a divan and seated herself.

"Yes," said Pierre, "I told him. And for reasons quite different, quite apart from any that Yuki's friends or relatives might urge, he is antagonistic to the idea of my marriage. Of course his opposition means nothing to me. I care not if the whole of France sailed East to prevent me. My faith is bound to Yuki, and I shall not give her up. But in the matter of official appointment Count Ronsard can make difficulties.

Indeed I am convinced that he has been holding my credentials all along, and, for his own whim, will not give them."

Gwendolen had listened quietly to the full speech, though her eyes were shining with anger. "The old sinner!" she exclaimed; "the idea of his daring to object to Yuki! What were his reasons, I would like to know!"

Pierre flushed. "To put it delicately,--that Yuki is not of French descent."

Gwendolen bridled. "Oh, I see! You needn't say any more. Probably he would object to me for the same reason, thinking me an alloy of red Indian and buffalo. For sheer, cra.s.s ignorance, commend me to the European savant! Well, I would like to go to Mr. Ronsard and just inform him that there is no king nor emperor of Europe who need not be proud to win my Yuki-ko!"

"You may be sure I told him, with enough of vehemence to suit even you, Mademoiselle."

"The miserable old wretch!" murmured Mrs. Todd, above the kesa.

Gwendolen's gaze, now that the anger died, went moodily to Pierre. He met the look with a smile no less winning for its sadness.

"Pierre, you are a dear boy," she said, her own eyes suddenly stung by tears; "I know Yuki loves you, and I can't blame her. I wish--oh, I wish you could be happy together; but--"

"Can you not omit that last small word?"

The girl sighed deeply, then leaned forward, her elbows on her knees.

"Pierre," she was beginning in great seriousness; she had in her mind to ask whether, if once convinced of the impossibility of marriage with Yuki either now or ever, he would still demand from her fidelity, defiance of her parents, and of all the established rules of her cla.s.s,--still hold her to that promise he had wrung.

Since that banquet of the Red G.o.d, only the evening before, and now fleeing with strange rapidity into the past,--since she had seen Pierre's very charm and artistic sensitiveness used as clever traps for his entanglement, he meantime suspecting nothing, Gwendolen felt not only that the marriage would be indefinitely postponed, but that it would be finally prevented. The subtlety, the ideality, the self-sacrificing impulses of a j.a.panese nature indissolubly bound to Pierre must mean sorrow, if not degeneration to both. As well try to graft a French geranium upon the stem of a young bamboo! Before she could put her question, Mr. Todd, re-entering, diverted all interest to himself.

Mrs. Todd was first to speak. "Oh, Cy, tell me quick! Has war really begun, or were those reports only to frighten us? Did he confess that war had come?"

"He didn't confess, exactly. He admitted war, as he might have admitted that the day was cold or the wind blowing. I never feel quite myself before that man! He charges me with electricity first, and then hypnotizes me afterward. As clearly as I can make out, it was a friendly visit, its particular object being to ascertain correctly the amount of indisposition acquired by each separate guest from last night's revelry."

"Revelry," murmured Gwendolen.