The Breath of the Gods Part 35

"Oh, what is it?" cried Iriya, herself on edge, and looking about in terror.

Again came the song, soft and clear. The singer stood, evidently, just beyond the bamboos. Yuki's lips writhed together. Her fingers tore and twitched, one hand in the other.

"Yuki! My Yuki!" came a voice. "Is it too late?"

Suddenly wrenching herself from Iriya's arms, the girl sprang down the two stone steps and plunged into the shadows of the garden. As one fiend-driven, she sped over paths, shrubs, rocks, and prim garden-stakes, until, at the hedge, she hurled herself upon it, beating at it with frantic hands, and sobbing.

"Oh, go! Go, beloved! Never again come here! Never sing that song again, or--I cannot live at all! I have promised--promised--a new pledge--stronger than the other! It's of my free will I give myself to him! Go home to your native land! Go! go!"

"What sound is that? What do I hear?" cried Tetsujo, from the guest-room balcony.

"It is our Yuki, walking in the garden," came Iriya's placid voice.

"Disturb not your honorable spirit, Master! I am with the child."

Tetsujo returned, to be met by a chiding, half-contemptuous remark from his deity. A moment later, Iriya's ashen face was in the kitchen.

"Suzume! Maru! For the love of Kwannon, come quickly! Miss Yuki is in a dead faint, against the thorn hedge! Her hands are bleeding!--Make no noise! The master and Prince Hagane must not know!"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Spring storms in Tokio, as in other capitals, sweep clean a wide pathway of days for sunshine and the coming flowers. On the morning after that great tempest which so nearly crushed Yuki against the pond-stones of the garden, scarcely could a shadow be found, so eager was the sun to atone for past misdeeds of her naughty younger brother, the wind. Small crumpled leaves began to straighten. Boughs, mud-soldered to muddy earth, drew slowly upward. The old world stirred like a conscious thing.

Pedestrians sent smiling, answering looks of brightness to the sky, as they hurried along to daily work. All over the great city, housewives were busy hanging out bed-clothing, and standing the removable wadded straw mats (tatami) slanting-wise against veranda posts, to get the full strength of the sun.

In that vast, merry hive there was one soul, at least, that neither saw the sunshine nor thrilled to the glory of a re-created earth. Pierre Le Beau had been sitting for many moments before an untasted breakfast, his body slouched forward under the table, his eyes fixed vacantly on a square of light slowly pushing its way through an opened window into the room. Count Ronsard, already in his easy-chair, with letters, papers, cigarettes, and an extra cup of coffee on a low stand beside him, lifted, just before opening each fresh missive, a look partly amused, partly irritated upon his sullen compatriot.

Tsuna, the butler, cautiously approached, and subst.i.tuted a fresh cup of coffee for the forgotten cold one. Pierre caught at the edge of the saucer. "Merci, Tsuna," he said with a smile which all his abstraction could not keep from being sweet, "but take all else away. I want nothing--or, at least, I have eaten sufficiently."

"Yes, Tsuna," supplemented the minister. "Clear the table, and admit no guests. If a 'chit' comes, bring it in yourself."

Pierre would have sunk back into his lethargy, but the count, having by this time finished his mail, deliberately set himself to learn the secret of this new dejection.

"What have we here, young lover?" he cried gayly. "Why do you affront the fair morning with your sighs? La, la, I know the symptoms,--the rueful mouth, set eyes, loathed viands,--all speak the distemper of love. Come, now, unburden thyself, mon fils. I have a leisure hour. I see in thee need for brisk philosophy."

Pierre shook himself free with difficulty from his haunting visions,--Tetsujo's black face and burning eyes; a windswept hedge, bowing and straining in storm until at the next gust of tempest it must lie flat, like the cover of a book, showing clear her home; the white, strained, watching face; and, later, in a stiller, denser blackness, faint c.h.i.n.ks through upright hedge-stems of bamboo falling from a broadly lighted house; his own last desperate song of Carmen; the terrible answering cry; the sound of feet on gravel; the sound of tender hands beating on thorn; a mother's sob; and then,--devouring silence.

How had the sun such callousness that it could shine to-day after such a blackness?

Ronsard watched him until he turned slow, haggard, miserable eyes. Then the count lowered his own. At this critical point Pierre need not perceive the glimmer of pleased hope. "I am not unacquainted with sorrow,--and of this sort, Pierre," he murmured gently. His voice might have poured from an alabaster jar. Pierre felt the soothing, and still he hesitated to reveal this deepest wound. In their one previous discussion Ronsard's words had been drops of acid. The boy shuddered anew at the remembered sting.

And yet he must speak to some one. This anguish could not be borne alone. Later on, Mrs. Todd would purr plat.i.tudes above him. He did not wish them yet. Now, in his bewilderment, he needed the advice of a man,--a man's supplementary thought. "I should be glad to speak," he burst out impulsively, "only, dear sir, if you love me, give not that tonic of your worldliness at full strength. I am hurt with life almost to the point of flinging it aside!"

Ronsard kept himself from shrugging. "Tut, tut," he said humorously.

"Had perplexed lovers the modic.u.m of existences attributed to that interesting animal, the cat, then might they listen to all these small gusty impulses to suicide. And, by the way, where is my Zulika, my soft, blue-tinted amorette? Fast in the sun, I'll wager. Ah, Zulika, core of my heart, come, warm me, while I hear of love!"

At his words the great blue Persian who was sleeping near the fire in a spot further cheered by the full light of the morning sun, stirred drowsily, opened a reluctant eye, and closed it. She moved again, with a shrug not unlike her master, gained her feet, stretched her back upward, opened a mouth lined with pink coral, and, with a last reluctant gaze toward the warm spot she was quitting, approached her smiling master. He drew her into the chair by his side, touched her whiskered lips with a finger first dipped into sweetened coffee, shook himself and her into smoother lines of placidity, and turning again directly to Pierre, said, "Now, my son, thy father confessor is at peace. Speak what you will."

The episode of the cat did not please Le Beau. Indeed, he loathed all cats, but this one in particular, in spite of its beauty.

"Your Excellency," he began in an uncertain tone, "I find the thing difficult, perhaps unnecessary to impart. It has become already beyond the power of any one in office to advise."

Ronsard showed interest. He tucked the cat farther out of sight, and said, "If you cannot tell, permit me to hazard a guess. Already Mamselle Onda has received important propositions?"

Pierre nodded. He rose to his feet and began a restless walking. "You are far-seeing, your Excellency," he cried bitterly. "It is marriage offered from the worn voluptuary of your suggestion,--from Prince Sanetomo Hagane!"

"Hagane!" echoed the other in a low, tense voice. "Though I said that name, Pierre, I scarcely thought it. He is no voluptuary--Mon Dieu!--but a cone of granite! As a parti for that girl, the mere daughter of a rusty samurai, the offer is brilliant, unprecedented! Of course the Onda family--"

He paused in a sustained note of interrogation.

"As you remark--her family!" sneered the other. "They will coerce her to the point of torture."

Ronsard drew his fat lids closer about the brightening eyes. "How long has this been known to you?"

"Since yesterday morning. I receive messages from my betrothed through Miss Todd."

"Your betrothed is broken-hearted, of course, at the thought of severance from you?"

"My betrothed a.s.sures me of her _faith_," said Pierre, with a defiant glance.

"Ah, she will try it! Poor little devil!"

"Monsieur, do not make me repent already." Pierre was angrily beginning, when Tsuna's voice at the door announced, "A letter for M. Le Beau."

Ronsard answered. "Bring it in. Shut the door. Where is the chit-book?"

"No chit-book or messenger came, your Excellency. It was brought in person by Sir Onda Tetsujo."

"Ah! Does he wait?"

"No, your Excellency. He turned very quickly. There is no answer."

"Give it into the hands of Monsieur Le Beau and depart."

"Brought by Onda, in person. It will throw light," murmured Ronsard.

Pierre was fumbling and fidgeting at the top of the long, thin j.a.panese envelope. In an excess of childish impatience he tore it with his teeth.

The cat lifted its head at the noise, but was pressed down instantly by the firm hand of its master. It sneezed indignantly, and went to sleep.

Pierre, after two flashing readings, burst into a harsh laugh, threw the missive toward Ronsard, and then hurrying to a window, leaned his forehead to the cold gla.s.s.

The note was in English, written on very thin j.a.panese rice-paper, six inches wide and perhaps a yard in length. A j.a.panese writing brush had evidently been used, for in the slow, painful composition the writer had lingered, sometimes for the following word or letter, and where the brush rested a small round blot had spread. It was dated that morning.

It contained but one long sentence, built up of participial and relative clauses, as in all j.a.panese construction.

"MR. PIERRE LE BEAU,--My daughter Onda Yuki-ko having last night become by her own will no force the affianced [affianced held three blots] wife of Prince Sanetomo Hagane Minister of War Daimyo of Konda for great honor to her family and service to her native land we respectfully desire you your honorable body from our neighborhood remove entirely or trouble will become,

ONDA TETSUJO."