The Breath of the Gods Part 52

Gwendolen, interested in spite of her anxieties, stood still to watch them. Dodge, unperceived, leaned against a kiri tree at the edge of the lawn, with eyes only for her.

Their blue backs with a white ideograph bore the unanimity of a pack of cards. "I feel just like Alice in Wonderland," thought the girl. "Oh, I know I am Alice. They have been painting all the dandelions white. Was this done by order of the d.u.c.h.ess?" she asked aloud, and touched a snowy flower with her foot.

The little dame nearest sent up a shy, sparkling glance, "Hek! hai!

Udzukushii tampopo gozaimasu!" (Ha, yes, unusually fine dandelion honorably is!) She flushed crimson, and went feverishly to work again in the shadow of the tall golden one.

Gwendolen watched them for a few moments longer. She seemed again to be undecided, for she looked first toward the house, then outward, to the far end of the garden, where a clump of young sugi trees made a fragrant, shadowy retreat. "That awful Mrs. Stunt must be gone by this.

I believe I will go in and let Chopin make me more wretched still," she was thinking. She looked more wistfully toward the far corner. "No, I'll just go over there and have out one big, good cry, with no one to bother me. If I cry in the house, mother will bring me aromatic spirits of ammonia." Acting on the latter impulse, she started, running now toward the trees.

"Ara! it runs well!" whispered one of the gra.s.s-cutters to a neighbor.

"These foreigners all have big, strong legs."

"I never can tell the foreign men from the foreign women," remarked another.

"_D[=o]_-mo! you simpleton!" retorted the first. She was the one to whom Gwendolen had spoken directly, and though covered with confusion at the moment, now vaunted herself upon the incident, and prepared herself to take precedence in all comments concerning the strange doings of "I-i-jin." "_D[=o]_-mo! it is easy to observe. The men have upper bodies square, like a box, and this box is tightly covered with woollen cloth.

From the lower corners of the square come two stiff legs, like posts.

Now the women show no legs at all, but the middle of the body is shrunken very small, like a sake gourd about which a string has been tied when it is green. Poor things, it must surely hurt them to be so bound. It is a practice more strange than that of encasing feet, used by Chinese women."

"They all look alike to me, I say," repeated the first, unimpressed by this erudition. Perhaps the boastful breath of the speaker awoke a small coal of obstinacy. "The children are small in size, so I know them to be children; but all faces are alike, as the faces of cows, pigs, and horses are alike, and all are hideous!"

"That one, now, was not so frightful of aspect," ventured a kindly third, and pointed her sickle to the spot where Gwendolen, having climbed a low hillock, just disappeared beyond.

"That one would have been almost good to look at, but for its nose!"

"The noses of all are like these sickles," said the dogmatic first.

"Buddha teaches us to be content with what cannot be changed. Perhaps to the foreigners themselves the sharp noses are even beautiful!" said the gentler critic.

A chorus of hisses and low laughs greeted this unheard-of generosity.

The little speaker flushed under the shower of raillery, but did not abandon her humane position. Something in the American girl's face had flashed excitement, a new interest, a feeling almost like recognition, into her narrow vista. She hoped she would be called to work often in this huge garden, where the bright-haired o jo san might wander.

Upon the hillock which rose in front of the little sugi grove, corners of rough stone stuck out, and shrubs had been planted, chiefly of azalea. Mingled with the many-colored blossoms, there curved long wands of yama-buki, that most golden flower, the gorse of the Far East. For once Gwendolen pa.s.sed these waves of beauty by. Down there, over among the tree-trunks where the ground was winter-strewn with fragrant brown shreds of leaves, one could sit and cry to one's heart's content.

Deliberately she held back the fast-rising sobs until the haven was gained, and then, hurling herself to earth, gave vent to her grief and prophetic fears. "Oh, my poor little Yuki! What are those hard men saying to you now? What will they do if they think you wrong? And I can't help you! I can do nothing! Oh, I wish we hadn't come to this place! Will any of us ever be happy again? I have my own grief, but I hide it, ashamed, before your peril! Oh, my little sister, my only little sister! If I could only catch you up like a drifting petal, and hide you in my heart, and run away with you back to our other home, back to schooldays, and happiness! But we'll never be young again, we'll never be happy. Oh--oh--oh, my heart will break!"

The azaleas stared down in stately dignity; the yama-buki tossed dissent. On a sugi limb quite near, a row of sparrows placed themselves, slowly puffing out their feathers in unison, like so many buns in a warm oven. They c.o.c.ked their heads suspiciously toward the prostrate girl, and gossiped about her, saying she had stolen her hair from the sun.

Dodge, half ashamed of himself, but led on by something stronger than conventionality, pa.s.sed the nodding group of weeders, answered their salutation in an absent-minded fashion, and continued a slow but unswerving route toward the sugi trees. At the hillock he paused. A curious sound on the other side drew him upward. His brown head pushed a way through the yama-buki limbs. Gwendolen was crying. He stared, not half believing his senses. Gwendolen, the gay, insouciant, defiant, enchanting Gwendolen, weep like this! Sooner should the stars send down beams of soot!

A big something that partook of the physical nature of a hedgehog burrowed upward in his throat. Something sweet and unaccustomed stung his lids.

"Oh, my heart will break!" sobbed the girl once more. "There 's n.o.body to help me! There's n.o.body to listen!"

With a single bound Dodge had cleared the hillock and was on his knees beside her. A startled, upward look met him,--expectation, a wild joy, new bitterness,--these flashed in turn across her expressive face. With a wide movement of resistance, she turned away from him and buried her tear-stained face upon her knees.

Dodge stood instantly. "Do you mean that I am to go?" he asked.

Sobs alone answered him. She could not drive him away. His presence, his nearness, were appallingly sweet. Neither could she yield tamely where she had promised herself a policy of condescension.

Despairing of further verbal instruction, and glad in his heart that the repulse had not been more vehement, he walked off a few paces, and seated himself against a tree. Gwendolen held her breath until he was safely on the earth again. She could not have borne his instant desertion. All he had to do now, Dodge was well aware, was simply to wait, and be still. The one thing impossible to Gwendolen was indefinite silence. Even before he began to expect them, the hysterical words came fluttering, as on broken wings, to his ear. "I suppose you are glo--glo--_glo_ating on this scene of my--agony! You li--li--like to see me hideous, with red-rimmed eyes and a gar--gar--_gar_net nose!" Again the head went down, and the tiny lace ball of a handkerchief came into requisition.

"I can't see your eyes, Gwendolen, or your nose, either. I am not looking for them. But if they were emerald green it wouldn't phase me.

You are in trouble. I didn't know you could cry like this. I wish I could be of some aid, some little comfort to you."

Never before had he called her "Gwendolen" in this grave a.s.sured tone.

No mere love-sick boy could have done it. The voice was that of a man, with a man's power and mastery and self-respect. The woman in her put up a protecting hand, but the deeper nature responded with smiles. Reason, instinct, affection; clamored, like insistent children, for the boon of grace. Her heart leaned down to them. "Recognize him,--confide in him,--win him now, forever," cried the voices. "Nothing can help you, in a time like this, as his love might help. You need him, foolish one,--why not admit it and have peace?" But Vanity and Pride put on horrid masks, and frightened the pet.i.tioners. She kept her eyes hidden.

"Well, shall I go or stay?" asked Dodge, calmly. The young man listened in admiring wonder at his own smooth tone. How could his thumping heart and brain direct that tranquil flow?

"You are wel--wel--welcome to stay if you care to. I don't own the grove," said the girl.

Dodge picked a bit of leaf from the earth and began to shred the frail, brown lace. "I was awfully sorry, Miss Todd, not to be able to tell you this morning where the Minister had gone. I am only a servant, you know, and must obey orders."

"Oh, it's no matter," said Gwendolen, airily. She was elated to find her spirits, her self-confidence, returning in a tide. "I know all about it now,--a good deal more, I dare say, than you yourself."

"I know nothing, except the place where Mr. Todd was to go and the purpose of the meeting. He was about to tell me the result of it, when you came in and carried him off in triumph!"

"Not in triumph,--good heavens, not in triumph. This is the most awful day of my life!" She lifted her head now, throwing it backward to the slight wind, and drawing deep breaths. She expected him to urge her confidence, to ask, at least, what trouble had come to her. Already she had more than half decided to tell him all. He was a safe confidant,--one of whom her father would approve,--and--she must admit that, at times, he had clear judgment. He kept an irritating silence.

Gwendolen began to fidget.

"Well, don't you care whether I suffer or not? I thought you said you wanted to help me!"

"I want it more than I want anything else in the world, except one thing," said Dodge, and moved two trees nearer.

"Well, well," cried the other, nervously, "I shall tell you. I have been simply dying to tell somebody. To bear a suspense like this all alone is like keeping your fist in a water d.y.k.e,--or barring a door with your arm, or some of those dreadful heroic things." Hampered at first by a constantly recalled determination to maintain her dignity, she began the exciting history of the day, starting from the moment when she heard of Pierre's escape, and ending with the visit of her father and herself to the deserted Hagane mansion.

Dodge listened to all with an interest that a barometer might feel. He was silent, except for a very few terse, direct questions. Not an exclamation escaped him, and not a point. As she neared the end, Gwendolen's voice gave way, and the little handkerchief was raised.

Dodge moved a tree nearer.

"Now tell me what you think, tell me truly. I have buried my own thoughts in the earth, and sit here on their grave."

"Let my thoughts go there with yours, dear," said her companion, mournfully. "The affair is as bad as it could well be. Luck alone is going to save your friend, and from what I have seen and known of Miss Yuki, she doesn't seem marked out by good luck."

She did not resent his hopelessness. Apparently she had foreseen it. The telling of her story had eased while it had wearied her. She gave a long, sobbing sigh, like a child, and let her head droop.

Before she knew it Dodge's arm was around her. "I'd give my life to keep this and all other sorrows from you, Gwendolen. But all I can offer now is--myself. Come to me, darling, put your poor tired little head against me, and let me try to comfort you."

The girl began to tremble piteously. In her nervous state, the br.i.m.m.i.n.g tears soon overflowed. "No--no--" she whispered, trying to push him off.

"It is not me you love,--you are Car-car--_car_-men's! She said so. You belong to Car-Carmen!"

"I belong to Carmen's cat!" cried Dodge. "What am I to Carmen or Carmen to me?"

"Then you de--ceived her!"

"Pshaw! I'll make Carmen a sugar man in my image. She'll like that lots better. I love only you--only you, you beautiful, golden, tormenting angel of a girl! If you hadn't kept me on pins and needles, I wouldn't say it! I love _you_, I say. How could any man in his senses ever love any other woman after once seeing you?"

Gwendolen tried to be stern. "No," she said again, "you don't love, you don't respect me. You were horrid that day! You defied me to my face.

You wouldn't apologize. Will you apologize now?"

"Indeed I won't," he cried with a ring of victory. "I'd be a mucker and a sneak to do so, and you would never want to look at me again. Deny it,--and deny that you love me,--oh, Gwendolen, Gwendolen!"