Chapter XXV: Jones

Jones! He had watery gray eyes and thick lips. He stooped a trifle and was not so shockingly firm in his gait as most Americans are. Yet he would smile betimes, and then his mouth seemed armed with yellow fangs.

"Like the dragon on Hanayama," breathed Hoshiko, shivering herself into Arisuga's arms the night after she had gone for inspection. "He smiled at me."

"A smile is good," said Arisuga.

"You did not see that smile! It was not good!"

"Hereafter I shall watch it," laughed Shijiro.

For Jones's maiyi, or "look-at-meeting," as they called it in their own language, Hoshiko had dressed her hair anew, put her best kanzashi into it, brought out that worn but still beautiful kimono in which she had been married, full still of the flower perfume of her maiden-hood, put her feet into the tall, ceremonious geta of her own land, and so went, quite in oriental state (Shijiro would have it so), in a hansom to Mr. Moncure Jones. No wonder he stared and put on his glasses. In all his sordid life Jones had not had so fresh a sensation as this. In all his life he had seen no creature at once so dainty and fragile and splendid.

When they were home again, came that shuddering of which I have spoken. And since Hoshiko did not at once take to his plan, but shuddered anew whenever it was mentioned, Arisuga let her wait, putting Jones off, until he could convince her rather than command her. For more than ever it, presently, became necessary for her to go to Jones. Now, strangely, since that day of the look-at-meeting Arisuga did not often win. On the contrary Jones did, until there was not only nothing for the passage being put aside, but a huge debt which appalled Arisuga. So that, in the end, the only argument he used to Hoshiko was of Jones's wealth.

"I shall win yet--Jones-Sama says so--all I have lost and more in one great stake. It is always so, therefore it is lucky to lose. I am not downcast."

"But, O beloved, that smile!" pleaded the girl.

"Nevertheless Jones is rich," said Arisuga.

"Yet a dragon!" cried the girl.

"And I kill dragons which frighten little wives," laughed her husband, without fear. "Besides," he said, "it is well to remember that otherwise we shall not have the money for the passage when my call comes! You will go? Yes, you will go. Let us make a friend of this Jones."

Suddenly Hoshiko saw the hand of the gods in this, also, and went to Jones. Was not this a part of the way she had prayed to be shown? And she had impiously rebelled! Because of her rebellion she went with a certain alacrity.

Jones smiled often at Hoshiko. So often that Arisuga could not but notice it.

"The yellow dragon of Hanayama covets the dove of Arisuga," he laughed. "Yet doves are not good for dragons. This will be better."

He handed her the small toilet sword which Japanese women carry.

"I have heard," said Jones to Shijiro one day, "that Japanese husbands often rent their wives to pay their debts."

"That is true, lord," bowed his little butler.

"For a year, don't you know, or six months, or something like that?"

"It is true, lord," repeated the butler.

"And that the wives really like it?"

"True, lord," answered Arisuga.

"They don't lose caste after the--er--debt has been paid, but go back to their husbands?"

"True, lord."

"Well, that's a pretty sensible arrangement. You Jap chaps are always sensible; and"--the yellow fangs came out--"I am your creditor for a couple of thousand dollars. Arisuga, I am willing to be so paid and to pay you a couple more thousand than you owe me! Then your passage will be safe. I don't believe, now, it will be otherwise. I have got you in too deep a hole."

Jones laughed hoarsely at his own cunning.

Arisuga received the suggestion as he would have received an unimportant business proposition.

"I will consider and let the enlightened eijinsan know," he said. This, also, as if it were the mere oriental courtesy of bargaining--the sloth which is polite.

"I guess it will be all right," laughed Jones. "Take your time. No one is proof against the blandishments of American gold. Even oriental virtue yields to it. Don't you think it will be all right?"--a bit anxiously.

"Let the honorable American lord so think," said Arisuga. "I will consider."

"I shan't be niggardly, understand. If you are not satisfied with a couple of thousands, we'll make it a quartette. She is about the dearest little morsel I have ever seen."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Arisuga, with American politeness, this time.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Jones.

And Hoshiko, taking her cue, laughed too, out of the palest face she had ever had. For she was present--though she was not thought to know English enough to understand what was said.

But that night Jones was awakened by something strange at his throat. It was a steel blade--and an ominous Arisuga. In one hand he had a candle. In the other Hoshiko's sharp little sword--close against his skin.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Arisuga.

Jones was in no laughing mood.

"Laugh!" said Arisuga.

Then Jones brought forth a sickly cachinnation which stopped at the first note; for it made the sword to penetrate his skin.

"Lie still--quite still!" admonished the Japanese, with deadly quiet, and Jones did not move a muscle for a moment, which seemed years.

Then the light went out and Jones expected death. But nothing happened. He waited long. The sweat poured out until his bed was wet. He was certain that he felt that blade still at his throat--and the little stream of blood from it. But there was no more. He was not dead. At last he cautiously put his hand out. It encountered nothing. Then he raised it to his throat. Nothing was there. He leaped out of bed on the other side. Nothing further happened. He did not even call for the police.

So the opportunity which Jones had seemed to offer for preparation to return to Japan when the call came vanished, leaving only the vain thing he had taught Arisuga--his little skill at cards. This he still tried to use. But though he sometimes won, he more often lost. Yet he played on, certain of the great luck which would not only recoup all in one night, but establish his circumstances far beyond what they had ever been. It was the old, old gambler's lust. It was the old, old consequence. Luck seemed cruelly delayed, and they fell into desperate poverty.

And, worse than all, this--the gambler's fetish--was now the thing which possessed him. But though he loved the life of chance for itself, he never lost sight of the more and more frenzied necessity of providing for his return. For, rumors of war began to hover in the air. Hoshiko saw less and less of him. And he often forgot her for days together. If he were mad, for another reason, in Japan, he was mad equally in America.

Yet nothing was saved; always such pittances as he could raise, or she, were spent upon the small gambling devices in which the city abounded, no matter whether he had food or not. Presently his life was that and no more: a vain search for luck. But miserable as it was, there was hope in it, and a certain exhilaration. He was like one who has no doubt of ultimate good fortune, and wakes daily with the uplifting thought that this may be the grateful day. And his hope and happiness in it brought hope and happiness, in the brief whiles it reigned, to Hoshiko, where happiness came of late not often. Nor hope.

THE "TSAREVITCH"