The Breath of the Gods Part 48

"Humph!" said the matron, suspicion deepening with the sight of the young wife's confusion. "Perhaps Pierre has been here already. Has he been here, Yuki?"

Yuki looked more embarra.s.sed than ever. She hesitated the fraction of an instant. Gwendolen's eyes sent out one hazel gleam. "No, dear Mrs.

Todd," answered Yuki; "Monsieur has not set foot in this house since my first reception, many weeks ago."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Todd again, and closed her lorgnette with a disappointed snap. "Well, there's time for him yet! You had better look out, for if he is found here--" She shut her lips with a snap like the lorgnette-case. Because of avowed sympathy with Pierre, the good lady had a.s.sumed an air of displeasure with Yuki which all the new rank and wealth could not overcome. Yuki, strange to say, liked her the better for it. She hugged the memory of Mrs. Todd's cool looks as a fanatic might have hugged his haircloth s.h.i.+rt.

Gwendolen had turned away. She did not wish either Yuki or her mother to gain a hint of her personal thoughts. At Yuki's last statement, her quick mind had supplemented, "He has not set foot in this house. No--but the garden is wide, the steps and galleries inviting." Yuki hid some gnawing secret, of this she was sure. More carriage-wheels crunched the gravel and Yuki's heart at once.

"Ah," said Gwendolen, coolly, now beside a window, "here's the Emperor come to see you, Yuki!"

Yuki ran forward gasping. Anything might have happened on this reeling day.

"No," laughed the other. "I just teased you. But it is some magnate, I a.s.sure you. My heavens, what a swagger!"

Mrs. Todd, hastening to her daughter's side, drew the window-curtain farther. Her face glowed with satisfaction. "Prince Korin," she announced, "he is a dear man! I shall be pleased to meet him again."

"Come along, mother," said Gwendolen, a little brusquely; "he hasn't called on us."

"I sha'n't do anything of the kind," said the matron, indignantly.

"Prince Korin took me in to dinner last week at the German Legation.

Doubtless he will be as much pleased as I to renew the acquaintance."

"Please do not urge your mother to depart," Yuki flung back over her shoulder as she went toward the door; "I want to speak with you, Gwendolen, on some important matter." Without a qualm she delivered the wondering peer into the outstretched hands of the American lady. Drawing Gwendolen to a corner of the big room she said, in a low and agitated voice, "He--that one we spoke--he is even now asleep in this garden. It is terrible, but I could not send him off. I gave medicine; he was nearly to die of great illness. Make no sound or look of surprise; no one suspects, unless it is the butler, Tora. Perhaps you can help me.

What makes all more dangerous, more terrible, is a secret meeting of state to be held here this very hour. Prince Korin is the first. You and Mrs. Todd must go before Hagane come, or he will feel great anger to me.

Your father is to arrive. Oh, Gwendolen, do you see any way to save?"

"It is the most frightful complication I ever knew in my life," said Gwendolen, awed for once into calm. "Why, of all days, should the meeting fall on this?"

"Some terrible crisis in war. All may depend on this hour,--our very national existence."

"I knew something was up. Dad is cross as a bear, and Dodge struts like a turkey. Yuki, there is but one thing. Your husband must be told the moment he enters this house!"

"Oh, if I could do that!" cried Yuki. "No such tearing thoughts could I have felt. But he has given orders to me not to disturb his mind on anything until this meeting has pa.s.sed."

"Nonsense, you must disobey of course," said the other; "unless I myself could get Pierre out of the garden." Her practical American wits worked rapidly. "I can do it I think. You must have smaller gates to these high walls."

"Yes, yes, on all other days," said Yuki. "But not just for this one day. Everything--everything--for these few hours are bolted. I think it to be karma, Gwendolen. No use to fight for me!"

"Now look here, don't go into despair so soon. You say you gave medicine. Is it a sleeping draught?"

"Yes, first the strong fever-cure; then, half-hour later, a sleeping potion. It is strong. It would keep the j.a.panese asleep for many hours."

"Go to your husband, Yuki. You must do it; never mind disobedience!"

"But if some strange thing that you, not being j.a.panese, cannot foresee should hold me back, do you think there is other chance?"

"Of course," said Gwendolen, "everything is in your favor. He will sleep until after the meeting, and then you can tell your husband. Only the risk--even a tiny risk--is so dreadful I shrink from having you take it."

"Yesterday Hagane said to me, 'A wise man never leaves something to chance,'--only in such way does chance surely serve him."

"You'll come through. Don't you fret, darling. The police would not dare search for him here. Ah, more statesmen!--this time in humble jinrikishas. The prime minister in a street kuruma! It is time for me to get mother away!"

Ignoring the scandalized side-looks of Prince Korin, Gwendolen stooped to her friend, folded her very closely, and whispered a low torrent of words of love, of encouragement, and of confidence that she did not altogether feel. Fate hung dark banners on the false battlements of Yuki's official home. The great square shadow, creeping now toward the east, gathered dampness. Gwendolen s.h.i.+vered violently as she pa.s.sed under the porte-cochere.

"You needn't have been in such a nervous hurry, Gwendolen," said Mrs.

Todd, with tart asperity. "Prince Korin and I were having a delightful chat."

A beggar, unusual sight for Tokio, crept in through the wide gates toward the fine waiting carriage. The driver leaned over, menacing the intruder with a long whip. Gwendolen stopped him. A sudden impulse made her open and invert her pretty purse. A few silver coins fell into one gloved hand. She leaned down, pressed them on the wondering supplicant, and whispered in English, "You are a j.a.panese. You have a soul in that foul body. Pray for my Yuki!"

Yuki welcomed the new arrivals, repeated her pa.s.sword, and ushered them personally into the office. She stationed herself by a window, now watching and praying that her husband might come soon, and alone. Three more kuruma rattled in,--common street kuruma. In the first two were Sir Charles and a j.a.panese cabinet minister; in the last, Hagane. The three fell into deep speech before the drawing-room could claim them. Hagane led them, as if by instinct, to the office-door. None seemed to perceive the little hostess, clutching at a window-curtain.

"My Lord," she faltered, coming forward swiftly to within a few feet of her husband, "may I speak--"

He turned half-recognizing eyes. "Who already have seats in the inner office?"

She named the two men. "Two more of our countrymen and Mr. Todd to come," he murmured. "That makes the number."

"Cannot I see your Highness a brief instant?" she pleaded.

Two more j.a.panese gentlemen entered on foot. Hagane conducted them to the door of the office. Yuki kept close to him.

"Lord, Lord--my husband!" she cried in desperation.

The note of appeal at last carried. "Any personal matter must wait, my child," he said, not unkindly, but with a decision that blighted hope.

"I thought I instructed you as to this also."

Minister Todd arrived. He appeared both anxious and excited. In his hand he carried a leathern portfolio filled with papers. His nod toward her had absent-minded indirectness. "Oh, Yuki, it's you, is it? I suppose you have been coached. Have the rest come?"

"Yes,--in the office there, where I am to conduct you. May--may I speak a moment, Mr. Todd?"

"Is that the office?" he asked, pointing. "I tell you, little Princess Yuki-ko, big things are doing this day of our Lord. You wish to speak with me?"

Hagane's face appeared between the portieres. "Ah, it is his Excellency of America. Now are all come. This way, if you please, Mr. Todd.

Remember, Yuki-ko, leave not this room until I speak with you again, and, if possible, let no guest enter."

"My husband," cried the girl, "this matter on my heart is no light thing. I must speak!" Both men turned, frowning slightly. "We cannot attend to hearts just now, my child," said Hagane. "You must defer your communication."

"That wasn't like Yuki at all to stop us at such a time," mused Todd, as he followed his host. "Your Excellency," he said to the broad silk-clad back before him, "are you sure that we did well to rebuff that little girl?"

"I am only sure, this hour, that our land is menaced." Salutations from the other statesmen interrupted this personal trend of talk.

They had pa.s.sed into the office together. Yuki, standing alone in the centre of the big room, wan with the new rejection, watched them with a curious external interest, and dwelt in her mind upon the difference of character exhibited in the two vanis.h.i.+ng backs. The hollow bra.s.s rings of the portieres hissed and clashed together. A steady arm drew the wooden panels of the door. She heard a key turn. She was alone on guard.

With a gesture so common to j.a.panese women she put both hands up lightly to her hair, patting abstractedly the s.h.i.+ning loops. A dizziness crept under her eyelids. The ugly walls of the room began slowly to turn on axes of silence. She felt her head droop with the strange drowsiness she had known an hour before; a low moan came from whitening lips.

Staggering to a window she threw up a sash, flung the blinds apart, and, clasping her clenched hands upon the sill, knelt, and let her head rest upon them.

The inrush of the sweet spring winds, and this interval of quiet, following so closely upon a series of bewildering events, brought soon a balm of healing. Yuki had a nature essentially calm and self-contained.

Emotion stirred and sometimes swept her from her feet, but it was an emotion that had no surface-play. Each quiver of her face answered but weakly some fundamental throb of being. She had not the usual girlish terror to bestow on scampering mice and dark corridors. Excitement generally steadied her. The one unruly, uncla.s.sifiable influence in her life had been Pierre,--his strange love-making, his exotic fascination.