Chapter II: Part 2

Then she insisted that she would follow behind him after the manner of a slave; and when he laughed at her, she begged quite humbly and gently that he would condescend to honorably permit her to go with him, and then he was for telling her his whole pretty story, and the surprise he had concocted to please her, when she grew capricious and insisted that she would not stir one little bit of an inch from the house, and that he must go all alone to the city and attend to his great, magnificent business!

He went down to Tokyo, and in his boyish, blundering fashion he purchased silk and crépe and linen sufficient for fifty gowns for her.

She thanked him extravagantly. She could not imagine what she would do with so much finery. Her honorable person was augustly insignificant, and could not accommodate so much merchandise.

"Now," he thought with inward satisfaction, "that ghost of a money question will be laid. She has everything she wants and shall have. I want to do for her, and give her things without being wheedled into it. It is that which irritates me."

But a few days later she came to him breathless and flustered. Lo! some one had stolen all the beautiful goods he had bought her. It was neither their man nor maid. No, no! that was altogether impossible. They were honest, simple folk, who feared the gods. But they were all quite gone--where she could not say. Who had taken them, she could not guess. Perhaps she, her unworthy self, and he, his honorable augustness, had been extremely wicked in their former state, and the gods were now punishing them in their present life. It would be wicked and unavailing to attempt to search for the missing goods. It was the will of the gods. Maybe the gods had been offended at such ruthless extravagance. Ah, yes, that was a better solution of the theft. Of course the gods were angry. What gods would not be? It was sinful to buy so many things at once.

She affected great distress over the loss, and her husband, somewhat bewildered at her elaborate apologies for the thief who had stolen them, tried to comfort her by saying he would buy her double the quantity again, whereat she became very solemn.

"No, no," she said. "Bedder give me money to buy. I will purchase jus' liddle bit each time--to please the gods."

VI

THE ADVENTURESS

The man in the hammock was not asleep, for in spite of the lazy, lounging attitude, and the hat which hid the gray eyes beneath, he was very much awake, and keenly interested in a certain small individual who was sitting on a mat a short distance removed from him. He had invited her several times to reduce that distance, but up to the present she had paid no heed to his suggestions. She was amusing herself by blowing and squeezing between her lower lip and teeth the berry of the winter cherry, from which she had deftly extracted the pulp at the stem. She continued this strange occupation in obstinate indifference to the persuasive voice from the hammock.

"I say, Yuki, there's room for two in this hammock. Had it made on purpose."

She continued her cherry-blowing without so much as making a reply, though one of her blue eyes looked at him sideways, and then solemnly blinked.

"What's the matter, Yuki? Got the dumps again, eh?"

No reply.

"Look here, Mrs. Bigelow, I'll come over and elope forcibly with you if you don't obey me."

She dimpled scornfully.

"Ah, that's right! Smile, Yuki. You're so pretty, so bewitching, so irresistible when you smile."

Yuki nodded her head coolly.

"How you lige me smiling forever?" she suggested.

"That wouldn't do," he said, grinning at her from beneath his tipped hat. "That would be tiresome." "Tha's why I don' smiling to-day."

"Why?"

"All yistidy I giggling."

He shouted with laughter at her.

"Move your mat here, Yuki," indicating a spot close to his hammock. "I want to talk to you."

"My ears are--"

"Too small to hear from that distance," finished her husband. "Come."

"Thangs," with great dignity, "I am quide comfor'ble. I don' wan' sit so near you, excellency."

"Why, pray?"

"Why? Hm! I un'erstan'. Tha's because I jus' your liddle bit slave."

"You're my wife, you little bit fraud."

"Wife? Oh, I dunno." She pretended to deliberate.

"Then you've tricked me into a false marriage, madam," declared her husband, with great wrath.

"Tha's fault nakoda."

"What is?"

"Thad you god me for wife, and," slowly, "servant."

"Fault! Come here, servant, then. Servants must obey."

"Nod so bad master, making such grade big noises," she laughed back daringly. "Besides, servant must sit long way off from thad same noisy master."

"And wife?"

"Oh, jus' liddle bit nearer." She edged perhaps half an inch closer to him. "Wife jus' liddle bit different from servant."

"Look here, Mrs. Bigelow, you're not living up to your end of the contract. You swore to honor and obey--"

She laughed mockingly.

"Yes, you did, madam!"

"I din nod. Tha's jus' ole Kirishitan marriage."

He sat up amazed.

"What do you know of the Christian marriage service?"

"Liddle bit."

"Come over here, Yuki."

"You like me sing ad you?"

"Come over here."

"How you like me danze?--liddle bit summer danze?"

"Come over here. What's a summer dance, anyhow?"

She ran lightly indoors, and was back so soon that she seemed scarcely to have left him. She had slipped on a red-and-yellow flimsy kimono, and had decked her hair and bosom with flaming poppies.

"Tha's summer sunshine," she said, spreading her garment out on each side with a joyous little twirl. "I am the Sun-goddess, and you?--you jus' the col', dark earth. I will descend and warm you with my sunshine." For a moment she stood still, her head thrown back, her face shining, her lips parted and smiling, showing the straight little white teeth within. Then she danced softly, ripplingly, back and forth. The summer winds were sighing and laughing with her. Her face shone out above her lightly swerving figure, her little hands and bare arms moved with inimitable grace.

"You are a genius," he said to her, when she had subsided, light as a feather blown to his feet.

"Tha's sure thing," she agreed, roguishly.

Her assurance in herself always tickled him immensely. He threw his hat at her with such good aim that it settled upon her head. She approved his clever shot, laughed at him, and then, pulling it over her eyes, lay down on the mats and imitated his favorite attitude to a nicety. He laughed uproariously. He was in fine humor. They had been married over a month now, and she had not left him save that first time. He was growing pretty sure of her now.

She perceived his good-humor, and immediately bethought herself to take advantage. She put the rim of his hat between her teeth, imitated a monkey, and crawled towards him, pretending to beg for her performance. He stretched his long arms out and tried to reach her, but she was far enough off to elude him.

"You godder pay," she said, "for thad nize entertainments I giving you."

He threw her a sen. She made a face. "That all?" she said, in a dreadfully disappointed voice, but, despite her acting, he saw the greedy eagerness of her eyes. All the good-humor vanished.

"Look here, Yuki," he said, with a disagreeable glint in his eyes, "you've had a trifle over fifty dollars this week. I don't begrudge you money, but I'll be hanged if I'm going to have you dragging it out of me on every occasion and upon every excuse you can make. You have no expenses. I can't see what you want with so much money, anyhow."

"I godder save," said Yuki, mysteriously, struck with this brilliant excuse for her extravagance.

"What for?"

"Why, same's everybody else. Some day I nod have lods money. Whad I goin' do then? Tha's bedder save, eh?"

"I've married you. I'll never let you want for anything."

"Oh, you jus' marry me for liddle bit while."

"You've a fine opinion of me, Yuki."

"Yes, fine opinion of you," she repeated after him.

"There's enough money deposited in a bank in Tokyo to last you as long as you live. If it's ever necessary for me to leave you for a time, you will not want for anything, Yuki."

"But," she said, argumentatively, "when you leaving me I henceforward a widder. I nod marry with you any longer. Therefore I kin nod take your money." This last with heroic pride.

"Boo! Your qualms of conscience about using my money are, to say the least, rather extraordinary."

"When you leaving me--" she commenced again.

"Why do you persist in that? I have no idea of leaving you."

"What!" She was quite frightened. "You goin' stay with me forever!" There was far more fear than joy in her voice.

"Why not?" he demanded, sharply, watching her with keen, savage eyes.

"My lord," she said, humbly, "I could nod hear of thad. It would be wrong. Too grade sacrifice for you honorable self."

He was not sure whether she was laughing at him or not.

"You needn't be alarmed," he said, gruffly. "I'm not likely to stay here forever." He turned his back on her.

Suddenly he felt her light little hand on his face. She was standing close by the hammock. He was still very angry and sulky with her. He closed his eyes and frowned. He knew just how she was looking; knew if he glanced at her he would relent ignominiously. She pried his eyes gently open with her fingers, and then kissed them, as softly as a tiny bird might have done. Gradually she crawled into the hammock with him, regardless of non-assistance.

"Augustness," she said, her arms about his neck now, though she was sitting up and leaning over him. "Listen ad me."

"I'm listening."

"Look ad me."

He looked, frowned, smiled, and then kissed her. She laughed under her breath, such a queer, triumphant, mocking small laugh. It made him frown again, but she kissed the frown into a smile once more. Then she sat up.

"Pray excuse me. I wan' sit ad your feet and talk ad you."

"Can't you talk here?" he demanded, jealously.

"Nod so well. I gittin' dazzled. Permit me," she coaxed. He released her grudgingly. She sat close to him on the floor. She sighed heavily, hypocritically.

"What is it now?"

"Well, you know I telling you about those moneys."

"Yes," he said, wearily. "Let's shut up on this money question. I'm sick of it."

"I lige make confession ad you."

"Well?"

"I god seventeen brudders and sisters!" she said, with slow and solemn emphasis.

"What!" He almost rolled out of the hammock in his amazement.

"Seventeen!" She nodded with ominous tragedy in her face and voice.

"Where do they live?"

"Alas! in so poor part of Tokyo."

"And your father and mother?"

"Alas! Also thad fadder an' mudder so ole lige this." She illustrated, bowing herself double and walking feebly across the floor, coughing weakly.

"Well?" he prompted sharply.

"I god take all thad money thad ole fadder an mudder an' those seventeen liddle brudders an sisters. Tha's all they god in all the whole worl'."

"But don't any of them work? Aren't any of them married? What's the matter with them all?"

"Alas! No. All of them too young to worg or marry, excellency."

"_All_ of them too young?"

"Yes. Me--how ole _I_ am? Oldes' of all! I am twenty-eight--no, thirty years ole," she declared, solemnly.

He nearly collapsed. He knew she was a mere child; knew, moreover, that she was lying to him. She had done so before.

"Even if you are thirty, I fail to see how you can have seventeen brothers and sisters younger than yourself."

She lost herself a moment. Then she said, triumphantly, "My fadder have two wives!"

He surveyed her in studious silence a moment. Her attitude of trouble and despair did not deceive him in the slightest. Nevertheless, he wanted to laugh outright at her, she was such a ridiculous fraud.

"Do you know what they'd call you in my country?" he said, gravely.

She shook her head.

"An adventuress!"

"Ah, how _nize_!" She sighed with envious blissfulness. "I wish I live ad your country--be adventuressesses."

"How much do you want now, Yuki?"

She pretended to calculate on his fingers.

"Twenty-five dollar," she announced.

He gave it to her, and she slipped it into the bosom of her kimono. He watched her curiously, wondering what she did with all the money she secured from him.

All of a sudden she put this question to him.

"Sa-ay, how much it taking go ad America?"

"How much? Oh, not much. Depends how you go. Four hundred, or five hundred dollars, possibly."

She groaned. "How much come ad Japan?"

"The same."

She sighed. "Sa-ay, kind augustness, I wan' go ad America. Pray give me money go there."

"I'll take you some day, Yuki."

She retreated before this offer.

"Ah, thangs--yes, some day, of course." Then, after a meditative moment: "Sa--ay, it taking more money than thad three-four hundled dollar whicheven?"

"Yes; about that much again for incidentals--possibly more."

She sighed hugely this time, and he knew she was not affecting.

A few days later, poking among her pretty belongings, as he so much liked to do--she was out in the garden gathering flowers for their dinner-table--he found her little jewel-box. Like everything else she possessed, it was daintily perfumed. At the top lay the few pieces of jewelry he had bought for her on different occasions when he had taken her on trips to the city. He lifted the top tray, and then he saw something that startled him. It was a roll of bank-bills. He took it out and counted it. There was not quite one hundred and fifty dollars. He calculated all he had given her. It amounted to a little over twice this sum. She had been saving, after all! What was her object?

And, his suspicions awakened by this discovery, he searched uneasily further through her apartments, and discovered, rolled like a huge piece of carpet and covered over by a large basket, the crépe and silks she had protested were stolen.

VII

MY WIFE!

The second time his wife left him, Jack Bigelow was very wretched. He missed her exceedingly, though he would not have admitted it, for he was also very angry with her.

When she had gone away that first time, so soon after their marriage, he had not felt her absence as he did now, for then she had not become a necessity to him. But she had lived with him now two whole months, and had become a part of his life. She was not a mere passing fancy, and he knew it was folly to endeavor so to convince himself, as in his resentment at her treatment he was trying to do.

The house was desolate without her. Everywhere there were evidences of his little girl. Here a pair of her tiny sandals, some piece of tawdry kanzashi for her hair, her koto, samisen, and little drum; in the zashishi, in her own little room, and all over the house lingered the faint odor of her favorite perfume, so subtle it made the young man weak.

He grew to hate the silence of the rooms. Their household had always been small, with just a man and maid to wait on them; and now only one presence gone from it, and yet how painfully quiet the place had grown! He realized what all her little movements had become to him. He stayed out-doors as much as he could, only to return restlessly to the house, with a faint hope that perhaps she was hiding somewhere in it, and playing some prank on him, as she was fond of doing, bursting out from some unexpected place of hiding. But there was no trace of her anywhere; and when the second day actually passed, the realization that she was indeed gone forced itself home to him, leaving him stupid with rage and despair.

He was bitterly angry with her. She had no right to leave him like this, without a word of explanation. How was he to know where she had gone or what might happen to her? And the thought of anything dire really overtaking her nearly drove him distracted. He hung around the balconies of the house, wandered down into the garden, and strayed restlessly about. And all the time he knew he was waiting for her, and in the waiting doubling his misery.

She came back in four days, slipped into the house noiselessly and ran up to her room. He heard her, knew she had returned, but checked his first impulse to go to her, and threw himself back on a couch, where he assumed a careless attitude, which he relentlessly changed to a stern, unapproachable, forbidding one.

Suddenly he heard her voice. It came floating down the stairs, every weird minor note thrilling, mocking, fascinating him. "Toko-ton-yare ron-ton-ton!" she sang. Then the voice ceased a moment. She was waiting for him to call her. He did not move. He was certainly very angry with her. He would not forgive her readily.

She began beating on her drum. He heard her making a great noise in the little room up-stairs, and understood her object. She was trying to attract him. Suddenly she whirled down the stairs and burst in on him with a merry peal of laughter.

He ignored her sternly. She ceased her noise and laughter, and, approaching him, studied him with her head tilted bewitchingly on one side.

"You angery ad me, excellency?" she inquired with solicitude.

No reply.

"You very _mad_ ad me, augustness?"

Still no reply.

"You very _cross_ ad me, my lord?"

Jack regarded her in contemptuous silence.

She shouted now, a high, mocking, joyous note in her laughter.

"Hah! You very, very, very, very _affended_, Mister Bigelow?"

"It seems to please you, apparently," said Jack, scathingly, wasting his sarcasm, and turning his eyes from her.

She laughed wickedly.

"Ah, tha's so nize."

"What is?" he demanded, sharply.

"Thad you loog so angery. My! You loog like grade big--whad you call thad?--toranadodo." She knew how to pronounce "tornado," but she wanted to make him laugh. She failed in her purpose, however. She tried another way.

"_How_ you change!" She sighed with beatific delight.

Jack growled.

"Dear me! I thing you grown more nize-loogin," she said.

Jack got up and walked across to the window, turning his back deliberately on her, and whistling with forced gayety, his hands in his pockets. She approached him with feigned timidity and stood at his elbow.

"You glad see me bag, excellency?"

"No!" shortly.

This emphatic answer frightened her. She was not so sure of herself, after all.

"You wan' me go 'way?" she asked, in the smallest voice.

"Yes."

She loitered only a moment, and then "Ah-bah" (good-bye) she said softly.

He felt, for he would not turn around to see, that she was crossing the room slowly, reluctantly. He heard the shoji pushed aside, and then shut to. He was alone! He sprang forward and called her name aloud. She came running back to him and plunged into his arms. He held her close, almost fiercely. The anger was all gone. His face was white and drawn. The dread of losing her again had overpowered him. When she tried to extricate herself from his arms, he would not let her go. He sat down on one of the chairs, and held her on his knee. She was laughing now, laughing and pouting at his white face.

"My crashes!" she cried. "You loog lige ole Chinese priest ad the temple." She pulled a long face, and drew her pretty eyes up high with her finger tips; then she chanted some solemn words, mocking mirthfully her ancestors' religion.

But her husband was grave. He had not the heart to find mirth even in her naughtiness.

"Yuki," he said, "you must be serious for a moment and listen to me."

"I listenin', Mr. Solemn-Angery-Patch!" She meant "Cross-patch." "You loog lige--"

"Where did you go?"

"Oh, jus' liddle bit visit."

"Where did you go?" he repeated, insistently.

"Sa-ay, I forgitting."

"Answer me."

She pretended to think, and then suddenly to remember, sighing hypocritically the while.

"I lige forgitting," she said.

"Forgetting what?"

"Where I been."

"Why?"

"Tha's so sad. Alas! I visiting thad ole fadder an' mudder ninety-nine and one hundled years ole, and those seventeen liddle brudders an' sisters. You missing me very much?" she changed from the subject of her whereabouts.

"No!" he said, shortly, stung by her falsity.

"I don' sing so!"

"Where were you, Yuki?"

"Now, whad you wan' know for, sinze you don' like me whicheven?"

"Did I say so?"

"You say you don' miss."

"I lied," he said, bitterly. "Where were you?"

"Jus' over cross street, see my ole friend ad tea-garden."

"I thought you said you were visiting your people?"

She was not at all abashed.

"Sa-ay, firs' you saying you miss me; then thad you lie. Sa-ay, you big lie, I jus' liddle bit lie."

"Yuki, listen to me. If you leave me like this again, you need never come back. Do you understand?"

"Never?"

"I mean that."

"Whad you goin' do? Git you nudder wife?"

He pushed her from him in savage disgust. She laughed with infinite relish.

He sat down a little distance from her, and put his face wearily between his hands. Yuki regarded him a moment, and then she silently went to him, pulled his hands down, and kissed his lips.

"I have missed you terribly," he said, hoarsely.

She was all compunction.

"I very sawry. I din know you caring very much for poor liddle me, an p'raps I bedder nod come bag ad you."

"Why did you come, then?" he asked, gently.

"I coon' help myself," she said, forlornly. "My feet aching run bag ad you, my eyes ill to see you, my hands gone mad to touch you."

She had grown in a moment serious, but also melancholy.

After a pause she said, more brightly, "I bringin' you something--something so nize, dear my lord."

"What is it, Yuki, dear?" He was reluctant to let her go even for a moment.

"Flowers," she said--"summer flowers."

He released her, and she brought them to him, a huge bunch of azaleas. She buried her delightful little nose in them. "Ah," she said, "flowers mos' sweetes' thing in all the worl', an' all them same flowers for you, for you."

"Where did you get them, dear?" he asked, taking her hands instead of the flowers, and drawing her, flowers and all, into his arms. She faltered a little, and then said, with the old daring smile flashing back in her face: "Nize Japanese gents making me present those flowers."

He caught her wrists in a grip of iron. "What do you mean?" he demanded, fiercely, wild jealousy assailing him.

She pulled herself from him, and regarded the little wrists ruefully.

"Ain' you shamed?" she accused.

"Yes!" He kissed the little wrists with an inward sob. "Tell me all, my little one. Please do not hide anything from me. I can't bear it."

"Thad Japanese gent wanter marry with me," she informed him, calmly smiling, and dimpling as if it amused her, and then making a face to show him her feelings in the matter.

"My! How he _adore_ me!" she added, vividly.

"Marry with you! What do you mean? You are my wife."

"Yes, bud _he_ din know thad," she said, consolingly; "an' see, I bring his same flowers unto you."

He took them from her arms. They were all crushed now, and it distressed her. No Japanese can bear to see a flower abused. She fingered some of the petals sadly; then she sighed, looking up at him with tears in her eyes.

"Tha's mos' beautiful thing' in all the whole worl'," she said, indicating the flowers--"so pure, so kind, so sweet."

"I know something more beautiful and sweet, and--and pure."

"Ah, whad?" she said, her face shining, the pupils of the blue eyes so large as to make them look almost black.

"My wife!" he breathed.

VIII

YUKI'S HOME

Every day, all unknown to Yuki, her husband looked in her little jewel-box. The pile of bills grew larger. He no longer refused her requests for money. The fund was quite large now. The last time he had counted it there were four hundred dollars. He took a whim to make it five hundred, and that same day gave her a clear hundred dollars.

She had given him a solemn promise never to leave him again without his knowledge and consent, and for a whole month she had kept steadfastly at home. It was the happiest month in his life, a month that spelled naught else but joy and sunshine.

But the day after he had given her the hundred dollars she came to him and begged very humbly to be permitted to visit her old father and mother and seventeen little brothers and sisters. She still kept up this deception. He refused her almost gruffly. He had grown selfish and spoiled under her care. All the day, however, he watched her suspiciously, fearful lest she should slip away. And he was right. In the evening, when she had left him for a moment, he saw her leaving the house. He took his hat, and, keeping at a good distance from her, but never losing sight of her for a moment, he followed her.

Twilight was falling. Softly, tenderly, the darkness swept away the exquisite rays of red and yellow that the departing sun had left behind, for it was crossing the waters, until, far in the distance, it dipped deep down as though swallowed up by the bay.

Yuki was walking rapidly towards Tokyo. It was only a short distance, but nevertheless the thought of her little tender feet treading it alone, and at such an hour, unnerved her husband. Whatever her mission, wherever she was going, he would follow her. She belonged to him completely. She should never escape him now, he told himself.

She seemed to know her way, and showed no hesitation or fear when once in Tokyo, but bent her steps quickly and with assurance, until finally they were before the great terminal station at Shimbashi. They had now come a long distance. The girl looked tired: weary shadows were under her eyes, as she passed into the railway enclosure and bought a ticket for a town suburb a short distance from Tokyo.

Her husband went to the window, inquired where the girl was going, and bought a ticket for the same place.

Then began the long journey in the uncomfortable train, where there were no sleeping accommodations whatever. Yuki found a seat, and sat very quietly staring out at the flying darkness. After a time she put her head back against the seat and, despite the jolting of the train, fell asleep.

Her husband was close to her now--in the next seat, in fact. He could have touched her, as he so longed to do, but would not for fear of disturbing or frightening her.

When they reached the little town, the banging of the doors, the blowing of whistles, and shouts of the conductors awakened her. She came to life with a start, gathered her little belongings together, and left the train, her husband still following her.

It was a refined and beautiful little town they had arrived at, apparently the home of the exclusive and cultivated Japanese. Its atmosphere was grateful and pleasing after the crowded city of Tokyo, with its endless labyrinth of narrow streets and grotesque signboards, and ceaseless noises.

Yuki had not far to walk. Only a few steps from the little station, and then she was before one of those old-fashioned, pretentious palaces once affected by the nobles. There were signs of neglect about the house and gardens, which had fallen out of repair. No coolies or servants were in sight. At the garden gate Yuki paused a moment, leaning wearily against it, ere she opened and passed through, up the garden walk, and disappeared into the shadows of the palace.

Her husband stood for a long time as though rooted to the spot. Then very slowly he retraced his steps to the railway station, bought his ticket, and returned to Tokyo. He felt sure she would come back to him.

And she did, hardly two days later. He was very gentle to her this time. There were no more questions asked, and she vouchsafed no explanation.

But she came back to him strangely docile and submissive. All the old mockery and folly had vanished. She was angelic in her sweet tenderness and solicitude. But once he found her in tears. She protested they had come there because she had laughed so hard. Another time, when he offered her money, she refused passionately to accept it. It was the first time since she had lived with him. Thereafter she refused to take even the regular weekly allowance agreed upon. He looked in her little jewel-box, and found the money all gone.

Her docility and gentleness strengthened his confidence in her. He was sure she would never leave him again. He even told her of this belief, and she did not deny it. But her eyes were tearful. With boyish insistence he teased her.

"Tell me so--that you will never leave me again."

"Never?" she said, but the word slipped her lips as a question.

"Repeat it after me," he demanded.

"Say: 'I--shall--never--never--leave you again.'"

"Ah, you makin' fun ad me," she protested, begging the question.

But he still persisted, and made her repeat slowly after him, word by word, that she would remain with him till death should part them.

One day he found her laboriously occupied at her small writing-desk. Her little hand flew down the page, rapidly drawing the strange characters of her country's letters.

"What are you doing? You look as wise and solemn as a female Buddha."

Yuki carefully blotted and covered her letter. She did not answer him. Instead she held up her little stained fingers, to show him the ink on them. He sat down beside her, kissing the tips of her fingers.

"To whom were you writing, fairy-sage?" he said.

"To whom? My brudder."

"Your brother! Ah, you have a brother, have you? And where is he?"

She still hesitated, and he watched her keenly.

"He live ad Japan," she said, after a long moment.

"Japan is quite a big place," remarked her husband, suggestively. "He has rather large quarters for one fellow, don't you think?"

"Japan liddle bit country," she argued, trying to change the subject. "America, perhaps, grade big place, big as half the whole worl'--"

"Not quite," interposed her husband, smiling.

"Well, big's one-quarter of the worl', anyhow," she declared. "Bud Japan! Mos' liddle bit insignificant spot on all the beautiful maps."

"What part of Japan does your family live in?"

"Liddle bit town two hundled miles north of Tokyo."

"Indeed."

She had spoken the truth, he knew.

"Why doesn't your brother come to see you?"

Now that he had commenced it, he stuck to his catechism doggedly.

"He don't know where I live," she said.

"Don't know! That's strange. Why doesn't he?"

"I 'fraid tellin'."

"Afraid of what?"

"Afraid he disowning me forever."

"Why should he do that?"

He was getting interested. He disliked wringing her secrets from her in this wise. He wanted her confidence unsolicited; but his curiosity had the better of him. "Why should he disown you?" he repeated.

"Because I marrying--" she paused, somewhat piteously, holding one of his hands closely between her own small ones, and entreatingly pressing it as though begging him not to pursue his questions.

"Well?" he said--"because you married--"

"You," she finished.

"Oh!" His ejaculation was rueful. Then he laughed, and squared his shoulders, and shook his finger at her.

"What's the matter with me? Am I not good enough?"

"Too honorably good," she declared, humbly.

"Then why does your family object to receiving me into its bosom, eh?"

"Because you jus' barbarian," she said, apologetically, and then swiftly tried to make amends. "Barbarian mos' nize of all. Also _I_ am liddle bit barbarian. I god them same barbarous eyes an' oogly hair--"

"Loveliest hair in the world," he said, stroking it fondly. "But never mind, dearie. Don't look so distressed. It's not your fault, of course, that your people disapprove of me."

"They don' dis'prove," she interrupted him, her distress deepening. "They don' never seen you even."

"But I thought you said--"

"I jus' guess. Tha's why I don' tell thad brudder. Mebbe he dis'prove you when he see you grade big barbarian. Tha's bedder nod tell unto him."

"But where does he think you are all the time?"

"He?" She lost her head a moment. "Likewise," she continued, "he also travel from home. Perhaps he also marrying with beautiful barbarian leddy. Tha's whad I dunno."

"I don't quite understand," said her husband. "But never mind. If you don't like the subject, and it's plain you don't, you sha'n't be bothered with it."

"Thangs," she said, gratefully.

On another day, as she sat opening his American mail with her small paper-knife, a picture of a young American girl fell from the envelope. Yuki picked it up, and regarded it with dilated eyes and lips that quivered. It was the first shock of jealousy she had experienced. One of his own country-women then must love him. No Japanese girl would send her picture to any man save her lover.

Her first impulse was to tear the picture across. She did not want him to see it. Perhaps even the pictured face might win him back, she thought jealously. But she did not destroy it. She hid it in the sleeve of her kimono, and for a whole week she tortured herself with drawing it forth from its hiding-place and studying the face whenever she was alone a moment, comparing it with her own exquisite one in her small mirror.

Then conscience, or perhaps natural feminine curiosity to know who her rival was, prompted her to make humble confession to her husband of her theft.

He took the matter gayly, and seemed exuberantly happy at the idea of her being jealous, for she could not well hide this fact from him. He gloated over this apparent evidence of her love for him.

"Isn't she lovely?" he asked, enthusiastically, pointing to the picture, and then pretending to hug it to him.

"No," said Yuki, proudly. "Mos' oogly girl in all the whole worl'. Soach silliest things on her haed. I don' keer tha's hat or nod. Flowers, birds, beas', perhaps, an' rollin' her eyes this-a-way--"

"This is my sister," said Jack, gravely. "I am sorry you don't like her, Yuki. She'd be just the sort of girl to love you."

Her little spurt of temper flickered out pitifully.

"Ah, _pray_ forgive me," she implored. "I mos' silliest _mousmè_ in all Japan. She jus' _lovely_, mos' sweet beautiful girl in all the whole worl'. Jus' like you, my lord."

IX

THE MIKADO'S BIRTHDAY

The mellow summer was gone. With the dawn of the autumn the languor of the country seemed to increase. Now that the weather was cooler, however, they made frequent trips to the city, visiting the chrysanthemum shows, loitering through Uyeno park, the Shiba temples, and bazaars. And one day Jack shook gayly before her eyes a really awe-inspiring document. It was, in fact, an invitation, written in fine French, from a Japanese person of high rank, inviting him to attend a very important function, which was to be given at the Hôtel Imperial on the Mikado's birthday, which function was to be honored by the presence of "les princes et les princesses."

"We are going, of course," he told her. "It will be a change, and, besides, I want to show you off to my friends. There'll be hosts of them there, you know."

But she protested. First she set forth as excuse the fact that she was only an honorably rude and insignificant humble geisha girl, who would be out of place in so great and extraordinary an assemblage.

Then her husband quite seriously reproved her, and reminded her forcibly that she was anything but an insignificant geisha girl. She was, in fact, a very important person--his wife.

Ah, yes, she admitted that she had indeed grown in caste since her marriage with him; nevertheless, they had lived so honorably secluded together that she had forgotten all the polite mannerisms of society, which she had never been acquainted with at all, being only a crude girl of humble parentage. She would surely disgrace not only both of them by her behavior, but doubtless the whole assemblage. She would not know how to act, how to look, and when to speak.

Then Jack insisted, with affected selfishness, that she should look at and speak to no one but himself. He would commit hari-kari, or joshi, or any old kind of Japanese suicide, otherwise. And as for her manners, they were lovely, perfect, just right.

"Ah, bud you--" she deprecated. "You don' understan', you big barbarian. Those same honorable monsters, Japanese princes, whad, before all the gods, they goin' to thing of me?"

"That you are absolutely adorable. How could they help thinking so, unless they are stone blind. Besides, this isn't a Japanese affair at all. It's at a European hotel, and there'll be all sorts and conditions of people there. I was lucky to get the invitations. They aren't for every one, you know. This is a big thing."

"_You_ so big," she said, proudly.

"Well, no. It had really nothing to do with my size. You see, I have a half-Jap friend in America, and of course it's through him I'm favored."

"Ah, thad half-Jap, he was very high-up man ad Japan, perhaps?"

"Well, he was connected with some of the big families, though he was quite poor."

"Thad," said Yuki, with sudden vehemence, "is no madder ad Japan. Money! Who has thad money? Nod the ole families, the flower of the country; jus' the shop-keepers and the politicians."

Her husband was startled at her outbreak. He was astonished at her knowledge of existing conditions in her country. But she did not pursue the subject, saying she disliked it.

And the ball? What about that?

Well, she would not go with him. He must go to that all alone, for the million big reasons she had given him. Moreover, all the ladies would wear Parisian toilettes. It would be a disgrace for his wife to go in a kimono.

Again he was astonished at her. How did she know that on such occasions the ladies, Japanese included, dressed in European gowns?

Apparently she knew more concerning such matters than he had imagined. It was becoming plainer to him every day that his wife was of no ordinary family. And then the memory of the old rambling palace, doubtless her home, in the exquisite, aristocratic little town where he had followed her, supported this idea. Who was his wife, after all? Who were her people, and why had none of them come near her during all these months? What was the meaning of the mystery in which she had surrounded herself ever since he had known her. And now, when there was scarcely a doubt left in his mind of her love for him, why had he failed to win her confidence?

"I want to know just who you are, my little wife," he suddenly said. "I do not believe that tale about your people. I know you are not a geisha girl. You are not, are you?"

"No," she said, very softly.

"Then tell me. Who are your people? It is only right I should know this."

She looked up at him with intense seriousness. Then her eyes fluttered, and she went rambling into one of her fairy tales of nonsense.

"My people? Who they are? My august ancestors came from the moon. My one hundled grade-grandfathers fight and fight and fight like the lion, and conquer one-half of all Japan--fight the shogun, fight the kazoku, fight each other. They were great Samourai, cutting off the haeds of aevery humble mans they don' like. So much bloodshed displeased the gods. They punishing all my ancestors, bringin' them down to thad same poverty of those honorable peebles killed by them. Then much distress an' sadness come forever ad our house. All pride, all haughty boasting daed forever. Aeverybody goin' 'bout weepin' like ad a funeral. Nobody habby. What they goin' do git bag thad power an' reeches ag'in? Also one ancestor have grade big family to keep from starving, an' one daughter beautiful as the moon of her ancestors. He weep more than all the rest of those ancestors, weep an' weep till he go blind like an owl ad day-time. Then the gods begin feel sawry. One of them mos' sawry of all. He also is descendant of the Sun. Well, thad sun-god he comin' down ad Japan, make big raddle an' noise, an' marrying with thad same beautifullest daughter of thad ole blind ancestor. Thad sun-god my fadder. Me? I am the half-moon-half-sun offspring."

She had promised to accompany him, at all events, to see the review from the American-legation tent, but at the last moment she backed out. She had seen it many times before, she declared. She was tired of it.

At first he swore he would not go without her. Why, the "show," he declared, would be nothing to him without her to see it with him. Half the pleasure--nay, all of it--would be gone. He was really keenly disappointed, but she coaxed and wheedled and petted around him, till, before he knew that he was aggrieved at her backsliding, he was well on his way.

The streets were thronged with a motley crowd of people. Jinrikishas were scurrying hither and thither, and little bits of humanity, in the shape of small men, small women, small children, and small dogs and cats, were colliding and jostling against the many ramshackle vehicles in the road. Gay flags and bunting were displayed everywhere, and the town presented a gala appearance.

Jack got out of his jinrikisha and pushed his way through the crowd until he came up to the parade-grounds. He found his way to the proper tent, and, with a half-score of former acquaintances about him, he was soon drawn into the babble and gush of small talk and jokes that tourists meeting each other in foreign lands usually indulge in.

Once on the parade-grounds, where infantry, cavalry, and artillery were forming themselves, it seemed as if he had suddenly left Japan altogether, and was once more in the modern Western world, of which he had always been a part.

There was nothing Oriental in this brave display of the imperial army. There was nothing Oriental in this bustling, noisy crowd of foreigners, each trying to outdo the other in importance and precedence. Only the skies and the little winds, and, in the distance, the sinuous outlines of the mountains and forests beyond, and the disks on the national flag displayed everywhere, were Japanese. And after his long seclusion in the country the glitter dazzled him.

There were seven thousand men in the field, and the Mikado, surrounded by his generals, body-guard, outriders, and standard-bearers, reviewed the troops; and then, amid a great flourish, and hoarse cheering drowning the national hymn, which was being played by all the bands at once, he left the grounds.

Jack did not return after the parade to his home, much as he would have liked to do so. Some acquaintances who had crossed on the same steamer with him on his way to Japan carried him off triumphantly to their hotel, and that night he went with them to the imperial ball.

It was very late when he went home to Yuki. There was a faint light burning in the zashishi, and he wondered with some concern whether she were sitting up waiting for him. He did not see her at first when he entered the room, for the light of the andon had fluttered down dimly, and it was more the grayness of the approaching dawn which saved the room from complete darkness. Crossing the room, he came upon her. She had fallen asleep on the floor. She was lying on her back, her arms encircling her head. He was suddenly struck with her extreme youth. She seemed little more than a tired child, who had grown weary and had fallen asleep among her toys, for beside her on a tiny foot-high table was the little supper she had prepared for him, and which was now quite cold. On the other side of her were her tiny drum and samisen, with which she had been attempting doubtless to pass the evening by pulling from the strings some of that weird music he knew so well now.

For a long time her husband looked at her, and a feeling of intense isolation about her came over and suddenly possessed him. Why had he never been able to bridge that strange distance which lay like a pall between them, the feeling always that she was not wholly his own, that she had been but a guest within his house, a tiny wild bird that he had caught in some strange way and caged--caught, though she had come to him, as it were, for protection? Just as, when a boy, he remembered how a robin had beaten at his shutters, and he had saved it from an enemy, and afterwards how he had caged it, and how it had pined for its freedom.

The thought that he might yet lose Yuki caused him such anguish of mind it almost stunned him. He knelt down beside her, and drew her up in his arms, and then, as gently as a mother would have done, he carried her up the queer spiral stairway which led to their little up-stairs room.

The next day she questioned him anxiously. Were there many ladies more beautiful than she at the ball? Had he enjoyed himself largely with them, and how could he live away hereafter from such mirth and gayety? Why had he come back to little, insignificant her?

And he told her that never in all his life before had he longed so ardently for any one as he had for her that previous night. That the day had been endless; the noise and show, the brassy merriment and cheer, were abhorrent to him, for she had not been there to rob it of its vulgarity with the charm of her sweet presence. That he had been rude in his efforts to escape it, had bullied the jinrikimen because they had seemed to creep, and that happiness and peace had only come back to him again when he had crossed his own threshold and had taken her in his arms.

Still the wistful distress in her misty eyes was only in part dispelled.

"Last night," she said, "I broke my liddle jade bracelet. It is a bad omen."

"I will buy you a dozen new ones," he said.

"One million dozens cannot mend jus' thad liddle one," she returned, sadly, shaking her head. "It is a bad omen. Mebbe a warning from the gods."

Of what did they warn her? That she could not say, but she had heard that such an accident usually preceded the sorrows of love. Perhaps he would soon pass away from her, and, like the ghost of the fisher-boy Urashima, who had left his fairy bride to return to his people, he too would pass out of her life, back into that from which he had come.

X

A BAD OMEN

It was late in November. The parks were dropping their autumn glories and taking on the browner hues and hints of hoar-frost, black-and-white vestments, the sackcloth and ashes of winter. The recessional of the birds was dying away into silence. Soon the final, long-drawn amen of the north-wind would be breathed out over the deserted woods, where the anthem of praise had rung out to the worshipping air all through the golden days and silver nights of summer.

The still beauty of the autumn evening was piercingly melancholy, and, even with a loving sunset still lingering in the skies, a silken, gentle rain was falling, as though the gods were weeping over the death of the autumn, were weeping hopeless tears--the most tragic of all.

The little house that stood alone on the hill faced to the west, its wet roofs and shingles sparkling and glistening in the rays of the dying sunset that enveloped it.

Yuki opened a shoji (sliding paper door) of her chamber, and looked out wistfully at the city of Tokyo, that in the autumn silence was shining out like a gem, with its many strange lights and colors. She stole softly out on to a small balcony, and stepped down into the tiny garden as the night began to spread its mantle of darkness. A few minutes later her husband called to her:

"Yuki! Yuki!"

He drew her into the room, and closed the shoji behind her.

"You have been crying again!" he said, sharply, and turned her face up to the light.

"It is the rain on my face, my lord," she answered in the smallest voice.

"But you mustn't go out in the rain. You are quite wet, dear."

"Soach a little, gentle rain," she said. "It will not hurt jus' me. I loogin' aeverywhere 'bout for our liddle bit poor nightingale. Gone! Perhaps daed! Aeverything dies--bird, flowers, mebbe--me!"

He put his hand over her mouth with a hurt exclamation.

"Don't!" he only said.

The maid brought in their supper on a tray, but before she could set it down Yuki had impetuously crossed the room and taken it from her hands.

"Go, go, honorable maid," she said. "I will with my own hands attend my lord's honorable appetite."

She knelt at his feet, geisha fashion, holding the tray and waiting for him to eat, but he took it from her gravely, and put it on the small table beside them, and then silently, tenderly, he took her small hands in his own.

"What is troubling you, Yuki? You must tell me. You are hiding something from me. What has become of my little mocking-bird? I cannot live without it."

"You also los' liddle bird?" she queried, softly--"jus' lige unto my same liddle nightingale?"

"I have lost--I am losing you," he said, suddenly, with a burst of anguish. "I cannot make you out these last few weeks. What has come over you? I miss your laughing and your singing. You are always sad now; your eyes--ah, I cannot bear it." His voice went suddenly anxious. "Tell me, is it--do you--want--need some more money, Yuki? You know you can have all you want."

She sprang to her feet fiercely.

"No, no, no, no!" she cried; "naever any more for all my life long, _dear_ my lord."

"Then why--"

"Ah, _pray_ don' ask why."

"But why--"

"Then listen unto me. I nod any longer thad liddle bit geisha girl you marrying with. I change grade big moach. Now you see me, I am one wooman, mebbe like wooman one hundled years ole--wise--sad--I change!"

"Yes," he said. "You are changed. You are my Undine, and I have found your soul at last!"

* * * * *

One oppressive afternoon, when a nagging, bleating wind out-doors had prevented their going on their customary ramble through the woods or on a little trip to the city, Jack had fallen asleep. Long before he had awakened he had felt her warm, soothing presence near him, but with the pleasure it afforded him was mingled a premonition of disaster and a dread of something unhappy about her? He awoke to find her standing by him, her face white and drawn with a despair he could not comprehend.

"What is it?" He started up fearfully. "Your eyes are tragic! You look as if you were contemplating something frightful."

She sank down to his feet, and, despite his protests, knelt and clung to him there, sobbing with passionate abandon.

"Don't! Don't! I can't bear you to do that. What is it, Yuki?"

"Oh, for liddle while, jus' liddle bit while, bear with me," she said.

"Little while! What do you mean?" he demanded.

She tried to regain her composure. Her laughter was piteous.

"I only liddle bit skeered," she said. "I--" she stammered--"I skeered 'bout thad liddle foolish jade bracelet, all smashed and broken."

"Is that all?"

"It is soach a bad omen! The gods trying to separate us, mebbe."

"Separate us?" His suspicions were growing. "How can they do that? It lies between you and me, such a--such a fate. The gods--ah, you are talking nonsense."

"The gods see inside," she said.

"Inside what?"

"Our hearts." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"And what can they find there to distress you?" he asked, almost fiercely. She was hurting him with her failure to confide in him.

"The bracelet--" she began. "It is broken, an' love, too, mus' die--an' break!"