The Breath of the Gods Part 57

"I do," said Hagane. "It goes far to exonerate you. Tell me more in detail." Yuki closed her lips. She did not wish to be exonerated, at least by Hagane. This was her one supreme opportunity for full expiation,--for sacrifice. No one should wrest it from her.

"I woke in good time," babbled Pierre, to whose brain the liquor was giving a strange lightness. "I saw the statesmen come and go. They whispered and leaned down. I saw Todd, and Sir Charles,--and Yuki by the window. I saw my Lord Hagane come to her with the great paper in his hand. She was going to betray poor Pierre to him, but first the great lord must have his say. He told her of the paper--and then he made iron love--that old lord. I could hear his joints rasp. 'Yuki, you are my wife! When this time of stress and strain is over I shall teach you something of a brighter hue than duty!' Ah, ha! making love, like any schoolboy! She never kissed you as she has kissed me, Hagane. Oh, she cared for me in the little tearooms. We played we were married. Go there; you will find the cushions, the trinkets strewn around, the broken hairpin."

A dull purple tide rushed upward to Hagane's face and stayed there. No battle-wounds could sting and torture like the mincing mimicry of the Frenchman's words. His control was superhuman. He leaned an instant nearer the fireplace to flip off a cigarette ash, then faced his companions coolly. "I must remember to investigate the scene of romance."

Yuki bowed. If she had craved martyrdom, here were a.s.suring circ.u.mstances. Pierre's thoughtless words, Hagane's pa.s.sionate calm, were prison manacles. They snapped on wrists already scarred. She welcomed the cold compulsion.

"Well," Pierre hurried on, "let us get back to business. To-night, you say? I agree, but where?"

"Should the n.o.ble count permit such base use of it, the most suitable spot would be your Legation," said Hagane.

Pierre gave a hiss. His head was on fire again. He must hurry and have things settled before the full conflagration came. "More melodrama! I feel the sincerity of your suggestion. Shall I summon the n.o.ble count to be asked?"

"Certainly. I shall await him here. Kindly hasten, as the day already wanes."

Pierre fell back a little, half in derision, half in apprehensive credulity, like a harlequin in two shades.

"You really mean it! Well, I shall go. I will get him if he is to be brought. He must come,--I shall be in need of him. It is all a dream, a fever dream. Will you give parole to stay here till I come back,--you and Yuki?" His bright eyes shot suspiciously from one to the other.

There was still so much he did not understand.

Hagane sighed. He a.s.sumed the expression of one who has had an insect light upon him and whose dignity forbids him to brush it off.

"Answer the Frenchman, Yuki-ko."

"We will remain, Monsieur Le Beau," said Yuki.

Left alone, the husband and wife instinctively drew nearer. After gazing for a long moment Hagane suddenly put out his hands. Yuki thrust hers within them and lifted wide eyes. Her face had a look of blurred moonlight. Out of the mystic whiteness her eyes gleamed like deep spiritual wells, where hopes and possibilities, already death-shadowed, drifted in a spectral sheen. Hagane tightened his clasp, and at the same instant let his own soul come full into his face. Yuki shivered. Her lips parted. Virtue flowed in upon her from his touch. She thought, as in a vision, of the Kioto statue worn smooth by the touch of dying men.

What ghostly comfort that image could have held was but a feeble emanation beside the blinding power of this living G.o.d.

"All things are not yet clear to me," said the man. "Something is hidden, and you jealously conceal the hiding-place. Yet you sheltered that spy. You prevented me from following. Speak your whole heart, Yuki."

"If I have a secret, Lord, it is one which aids to purify and consecrate my sacrifice. I long for that sweet hour, Lord. My parched spirit strains toward it."

Hagane's lips twitched once. "Yuki, as to the ear of your ancestral G.o.ds, tell me, should this paper be regained by means less terrible,--are you worthy to be my wife?"

Thinking of her weakness, her great and not ign.o.ble efforts doomed always, it would seem, to failure, and with the knowledge of this man's greatness full upon her, Yuki answered simply, "No." Her very innocence betrayed her and sealed the doom of death.

Hagane had a man's thoughts. Pierre's boast--the disordered rooms of the tea-house--the broken hairpin--lashed him with a fiery hail. He groaned and dropped his face.

"Yuki, Yuki!" came a voice as though from a mangled soul. "Did you not begin to feel it? I love you! From that first instant in Washington--I have loved you more dearly than I ought. The G.o.ds punish me for my infatuation!"

Yuki's cheeks grew faintly tinged. "Once, nay, twice, Lord, my heart bespoke it, but I dared not listen. If a star had slid through the night to my hand, I would sooner believe that I dreamed, awake, than that the heavens had lost a star."

"A soul--a face--a heart like thine, Yuki--to be befouled by a Frenchman's love!" he cried in agony.

"Dear Lord," whispered the girl, "perhaps by suffering greatly in this life--perhaps in my completeness of expiation--I shall, in the next life, be near thee!"

Hagane could only groan. The black spider busied itself about them. A strange stillness fell on Yuki. She put up a hand to her husband's shoulder, drawing him closer. "My soul is like a quiet pool, my husband.

Gaze in, softly, and see your own face there. Nay, break not the shining by thy tears. You must help me to suffer greatly. Let no interference come. This last treachery to the weak boy who has loved me is part of the pain. He will forgive me and forget. He will even be happier than for me to live on as your wife--your loved wife! That is too heavenly a thing for one so frail as I. Let me die, Lord, as you and I, though without speech, have agreed upon. At last I shall serve. Will you promise to befriend me to that hour, my husband?"

"To that hour and beyond!" groaned Hagane. A moment after, he said, "Do you realize, my Yuki, what may be the power of a soul freed like yours,--shot suddenly from the bowstring of a fixed purpose? It is a thunderbolt of the G.o.ds! Not only in your body's death, but through your free soul, after, shall you aid Nippon!"

The wonder in her wide gaze grew. A dawn, it spread circling to outer rims of darkness. Currents of unseen force seemed to whirl in the air about them.

"Soul of my Yuki, I shall summon you to fields of death. Stand near me in perplexing hours, cleave to him who is to be thy mate in a n.o.bler rebirth! Breathe your power through me in moments of despair, lift up your voice when a thousand guns roar death, when ghosts spring up like flames, and the commander sobs to hear the cry of 'Victory!' So shall you be worthy!"

"Lord! Lord! Already art thou a G.o.d, and I thy chosen comrade! Wield my freed spirit to our country's need! At last I shall be strong. Into thy hands--Lord--"

Things of the flesh flared up and blew back forever, like sc.r.a.ps of burnt moor-gra.s.s. The white flint of her soul had struck from him its spark of immortality!

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Pierre's visible return was preceded by a great chatter of his voice, now in English, again in French. Evidently he had more than one companion. Hagane and Yuki drew apart. Pierre stood at the door which, with a wide French gesture, he had flung open. The tall figure of Minister Todd entered, followed closely by Count Ronsard. It was the latter who saw to the careful closing of the door.

"Mr. Todd!" Yuki faltered, under her breath. Here was a new and terrible trial. Hagane gave her a glance. He saw her slight figure stiffen, and her face grow still again. The light upon his stern countenance was almost as beautiful as her own.

Pierre began a hurried and vaporous explanation. "Mr. Todd was here, your Highness, as you were already aware. He desired greatly to come, and his Excellency, the count, wished it!"

"Entirely unofficial," Ronsard hastened to add. "It is a personal misunderstanding, nothing more. I have been a.s.suring Mr. Todd that it is utterly unofficial!"

Todd raised his thin hand. Rea.s.surance had already come to him. Yuki was safe, and Hagane had the look of an altarpiece. No personal harm, at least, was to be done. "Before this goes one step further I want to say for myself, that unless Prince Hagane is quite willing to have me, I leave at once. I don't pretend to understand what has happened, but I have full faith in Yuki and her husband. There, your Highness! I am through with my little stunt. Shall I strike roots, or reverse the throttle?"

"Unless against the wishes of Madame la Princesse, I desire you to remain."

"Madame la Princesse!" mocked Pierre, angrily, under his breath.

Yuki's dignity equalled that of her husband. "Kindly remain, Mr. Todd,"

she murmured, with a slight bow.

"Your Highness," said Todd, still addressing Hagane, "now tell us how many grains of wheat are in this chaff of foolishness Pierre is giving us! Something about your going to send my little Yuki off like a piece of broken china, for him, Le Beau, to patch together at his leisure.

Pshaw! Of course the boy is out of his head!"

Hagane thought deeply before he made reply. His sobriety and deliberation gave unusual weight to speech always impressive. Each word was a nail driven straight into the lid of an abandoned hope.

"Madame la Princesse has offended in a way peculiarly j.a.panese,--difficult, I think,--too difficult even for your sympathy and kindness to comprehend. There is no need to dwell upon it. She leaves me of her own free will. She and I understand each other perfectly. That is all! We shall detain you two gentlemen but a moment."

"Entirely unofficial, your Excellency will observe," whispered Ronsard, nervously, to the American.

"Yes, yes, I made that much out for myself," said Todd to Hagane. "If you intend to separate, it is deplorable, but clearly none of my business. It's the other heinous suggestion, that of handing her over to another man, that makes me hot in the collar. Don't tell me I must believe this of your Highness!"

Neither Hagane's eyes nor voice faltered. "The man, Monsieur Le Beau, has a service to perform for j.a.pan. He asks a certain price. Yuki alone can pay that price."

"It is simple enough, Mr. Todd," Pierre burst in. The discussion went in a direction distasteful to him. He did not wish the matter of the paper, and its means of acquirement, laid bare. "I can do the prince a service.

For it, Yuki becomes my own, as from the beginning she should have been.

This little talisman merely rights the mistakes of Fortune." He held out the doc.u.ment, shaking it to attract attention.