The Breath of the Gods Part 61

"I--I--guess it would be safer to tell it in the private office," said Todd, beginning to fumble for a handkerchief. "To tell you the truth, Gwen,--I'd really like--if you don't mind, my dears,--to turn woman and have one good cry."

"Come on," said Gwendolen; "I'll cry with you. I am so mi-mi-miserable and hap-hap-happy, I just can't--" She broke off in tears.

"I'm in!" said Dodge, pulling out his handkerchief.

Laughing and crying together, with arms around one another, they went in at the tall gate and to the amba.s.sador's little den.

In the big house, in the drawing-room, Mrs. Stunt and Madame Todd exchanged mild confidences and cooking recipes. The latter had refused for once to discuss the affairs either of Pierre or Madame Hagane.

And so the night came in.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Night in j.a.pan, when the day has been all or partly clear, is a deepening mystery, a revelation of purple tones and velvet shadows. In the French Legation garden (designed originally for the delight of a feudal daimyo and afterward given as part of the French concession for official buildings) the soft blurred dusk concealed all but the vaguest suggestions of copse and path and hillock. A wanderer on the dew-drenched gravel might perceive about him, as by instinct, the beauty of line and ma.s.s. The smell of daphne and azalea flowers rose with pungent sweetness. Higher trees and mounds, set with rolling shrubs, rose against the sky-line and the stars like great crouching earth-clouds.

Pierre moved up and down the driveway just below the steps that led down from a balcony on the quiet west side of the house. Ignoring the doctor's orders, he had come a full hour before the appointed time.

Ronsard, seeing his intention, had expostulated vehemently, using both language and gesticulation, but soon shrugged off the obligation with the reviving thought, "Only an hour more, and it will be over!"

So Pierre had walked at will. He drew in heavy breaths of the scented, humid air. He believed himself impervious now to further illness. He would not have listened or believed if one had told him that his present interlude of fict.i.tious strength was like the shade of a upas-tree in a scorching desert. One cigarette after another was smoked and thrown at random among the shrubs, where each in turn lay like a malicious glow-worm, hissing and winking away an acrid spite. In the west a faint shining stirred the advent of the moon.

At ten minutes to eight o'clock Mr. Todd arrived. He was ushered at once, by order, into the small drawing-room where Ronsard sat. His face had new lines of struggle, and was very pale, but self-possession was evident in every gesture. His first act on reaching Ronsard was to draw out the paper, saying, "This, sir, has not left my body, or been touched by any hand but mine, or been referred to by any speech, since the moment, a few hours since, when I left you."

In his long, earnest explanation to Gwendolen and Dodge, Todd had, indeed, carefully refrained from letting them know that he was personal guardian of the doc.u.ment. It might have opened for them another blind trail of argument. During that agonizing interview he had thanked fate a hundred times for the part that Dodge had so opportunely been qualified to play. The clear judgment, intense sympathy, and clever resourcefulness of the young diplomat delighted him even in the midst of tragic exercise. It had taken the utmost skill of both men to overpower Gwendolen's first keen desire to go to her friend, to make the girl see that interference on her part had become impossible. He had left her half-fainting, though still insistent in her belief that G.o.d could not allow such a crime!

Ronsard rose as the guest entered. He, too, had gained a certain fatalistic calm. In reply to Todd's elaborate explanation, he had said simply, "Return the paper to its place, your Excellency. The farce will soon be over. Shall we not join our young imbecile in the garden?"

They paced together wide dimly lighted rooms, and emerged upon the uncovered western balcony. Pierre looked up and, wordless, continued his rapid, nervous strides.

"He'll kill himself, the fool," muttered Todd. "The mist piles in like thin cotton."

"It is too late even for his death to be of a.s.sistance," said Ronsard, with bitter animosity. His small eyes darted loathing after his young compatriot. He thrust pudgy hands deep into pockets below the equator of his belt, and rocked to and fro on his heels. Suddenly the pent-up discomfort, the apprehension, the strain of the situation clutched him anew. "G.o.d!" he cried aloud, and shook himself until the fat trembled.

"As you say, Monsieur, no man is worth all this, nor woman either, least of all that puling hind yonder! Only a great cause is worth it,--the service for one's native land. I have tried to think of France--of France only. My country is to be cheated. I can do nothing; yet still I wallow in this tepid slime! How has it come about? You will give Hagane the paper, if he brings the woman with him!" He broke off, and after a keen look into Todd's unresponsive face began to walk in short, broken steps up and down the stone flooring.

His words had rung out clearly. Pierre must have heard each one; but if so, he made no sign. Pierre had now but one thing to think of,--his price, the woman that would soon be here.

Todd leaned against a corner pedestal, and Ronsard, after a moment, paused in his meaningless exercise, and stood again before his colleague. The two pairs of eyes met and fenced. Todd might have been made of wood. After a long glance Ronsard freed his right hand from its pocket and began pulling at the moist, red underlip. "You will of course, in any case, give up the paper at first appearance of Hagane and Madame?" His voice slid querulously upward with interrogation in the pause.

"Yes," said Todd, distinctly. "I conceive it to be my part to return the paper at that moment."

"Er--had we not better pause to see whether Madame tends to prove after all--recalcitrant?"

"The bargain said nothing of that. Pierre gets his price,--the person of Yuki, so they always worded it; Hagane gets the paper. It is simple enough. We don't need a lightning-calculator."

"Hark!" said Pierre, pausing, stricken, just beneath them. "Is it not the sound of--wheels?"

All became silent, alert, intent. The faint, low crackle and clatter of a kuruma on gravel, a vehicle slowly drawn, came apparently from the far end of the garden, just under the spot where the moon rose.

From the battlements of the white house beside them, the great pale house standing upright like an opened volume in the night, a queer flutter came, swart wings went beating against the stars, and a crow laughed aloud with raucous joy.

"A crow at night! It means, among these people, death!" said Ronsard.

Pierre started violently, and dropped his last cigarette. "d.a.m.n the flying fiend!" he cursed aloud.

The crunching of wheels drew near. They moved with increasing sluggishness. Each click had a sound of protest. To Pierre's tortured hearing, all noises crawled backward.

By this the moon was in the tops of enoki, camphor, and tall camellia trees. Where its light touched curves of sh.e.l.led and smoothly gravelled paths, the s.p.a.ces were of snow.

Out from the great red paG.o.da of Shiba temple, not half a mile away, came the first stir, the throb, the murmur of a great bell struck tentatively by its swinging cedar beam, before receiving in full strength the initial stroke of eight. "One!" the great bronze pendant boomed. "Two!" came more slowly and on a higher note, sending swifter ripples to overtake the first scurrying elves of sound. "Three!" "Four!"

It swung majestically until the last stroke, piling echoes deep, filled the whole sh.e.l.l of night with discontent, and sank, a dew of sound, on listening leaves.

With the first tone, the jinrikisha wheels had stopped. The great crow, shaken from his height, had fled. Pursued far off by melodious echoes, he flapped his wings and screamed. A cricket near the steps awoke, jarred from his winter sleep by vibrant summons. The needle of his shrill, incongruous song pierced to the listeners' hearts.

"Mother of G.o.d!" cried Pierre, smiting his clammy forehead, "how is it that I live at all?"

Around a curved hillock directly bordering a path, straight into unhindered light, came the white hat and stooping shoulders of a coolie.

Behind him dragged the dark bulk of a covered vehicle. Pierre half fainted against the steps. "She has come alone--alone--" he cried in exultation. Regaining his feet he wheeled to the two men watching from the balcony. "Gentlemen," he cried with a gesture, "may I entreat you to leave,--for these first moments?"

The coolie came on like a heavy machine.

Ronsard, at Pierre's question, transferred his weight from one foot to the other, and then looked at Todd. The latter deliberately walked down the shallow steps and stood on the gravel beside Pierre. The white hat of the coolie fronted them like a silver shield. Pierre scowled upon the American, and gave a sound of anger.

"I'm sorry," said Todd, calmly. "But I promised to be present during just these first moments. Prince Hagane has my word."

"Prince Hagane!" echoed Pierre, with a hoa.r.s.e laugh that was kin to the crow's. "Where is Prince Hagane? Backed out at the last, as I thought he would--like the coward and bully that he is! There has no Hagane come, don't you see? Only Yuki--my darling--my poor little love. I see her white dress yonder!"

The coolie straightened himself, flung the wide hat sideways with a single fierce sweep of arm, and turned to the wondering observers the set, livid face and burning eyes of Hagane.

"Prince Hagane is here," he said quietly, and tried to smile.

His peasant hat, skimming along the gravel, touched now and again with a hissing sound the surface of small stones. At length in a small patch of moonlight it came to rest, and lay rocking slightly, and gaping upward like a mendicant's bowl.

Pierre cowered. Ronsard nearly fell. "Prince Hagane in coolie's garb!

What new horror is this?"

"Suppose we call it--delicacy," suggested Hagane. "Could any secrecy be too great for such a meeting?"

Todd narrowed his lids. Hagane kept a hand close upon one shaft of the little vehicle, conserving the upright posture. The black hood, bent far over to the front, completely concealed the occupant; but the dazzling white of a gown with pale embroideries, and the faint odor of flowers and of sandalwood now stealing upon the night air, should, in any case, have betrayed her s.e.x.

"Yuki--Yuki, you have really come!" cried Pierre, and would have rushed to her but for the obstruction of Hagane's arm.

"First, the paper," said Hagane.

Todd jerked out the doc.u.ment. Ronsard held him.

"Wait; there is something d.a.m.nable in that still white thing there in the rickshaw. Wait and see whether it is really Madame la Princesse, or a subst.i.tute."