The Kingdom of Slender Swords

  CHAPTER X

  IN A GARDEN OF DREAMS

  In the garden the moon's faint light glimmered on the broad, satinyleaves of the camelias and the delicate traceries of red maple foliage.At its farther side, amid flowering bushes which cast long indigoshadows, stood a small pagoda, brought many years before from Korea, andtoward this Daunt and the girl whom he had held for a breathless momentin his arms, strolled slowly along a winding, pebbled path tremulantwith the flickering shadows of little leaves. The structure had a smallplatform, and here on a bench they sat down, the fragrant garden spreadout before them.

  He had remembered that a guest had been expected to arrive that day fromAmerica, and knew that this must be she. But, strangely enough, it didnot seem as if they had never before met. Nor had he the least ideathat, since that short sharp scene, they had exchanged scarcely a dozenwords. In its curious sequel, as he stood listening to the echo ofBersonin's strange laughter, he had momentarily forgotten all about her.Then he had remembered with a shock that he had left her perched, inevening dress, on the high railing of the arbor.

  "I wonder if you are in the habit," she had said with a little laugh,"of putting unchaperoned girls on the tops of fences, and going away andforgetting all about them."

  Her laugh was deliciously uneven, but it did not seem so from fright. Hehad answered something inordinately foolish, and had lifted her downagain--not holding her so closely this time. He remembered that on thefirst occasion he had held her very tightly indeed. He could still feelthe touch of a wisp of her hair which, in his flying leap, had fallenagainst his cheek. It was red-bronze and it shone now in the moonlightlike molten metal. Her eyes were deep blue, and when she smiled--

  He wrenched his gaze away with a start. But it did not strayfar--merely to the point of a white-beaded slipper peeping from theedge of a ruffle of gauze that had mysteriously imprisoned filmysprays of lily-of-the-valley.

  He looked up suddenly, conscious that she was laughing silently. "Whatis it?" he asked.

  "We seem so tremendously acquainted," she said, "for people who--" Shestopped an instant. "You don't even know who I am."

  In the references to her coming he had heard her name spoken and now, bya sheer mental effort, he managed to recall it.

  "You are Miss Fairfax," he said. "And my name, perhaps I ought to add,is Daunt. I am the Secretary of Embassy. I hope, after our little effortof to-night, you will not consider diplomacy only high-class vaudeville.Such comedy scarcely represents our daily bill."

  "It came near enough to being tragedy," she answered.

  "It was so uncommonly life-like, I was torn with a fear that you mightnot guess it was gotten up for your especial benefit."

  "How well you treat your visitors!" she said with gentle irony. "Had youmany rehearsals?"

  "Very few," he said. "I was afraid the boy might misread the stagedirection and slip the dog-chain too soon. But I am greatly pleased. Ihave always had an insatiable longing to be a hero--if only on thestage. I aspire to Grand Opera, also, as you have noticed." He laughed,a trifle shamefacedly, then added quickly: "I hope you liked the finaldisappearance act. It was rather effective, don't you think?"

  She smiled unwillingly. "Ah, you make light of it! But don't think Ididn't know how quickly you acted--what you risked in that one minute!And then to run back a second time!" She shuddered a little. "You couldhave done nothing with that piece of wood!"

  "I assure you," he said, "you underrate my prowess! But it wasn't to beused--it was only the dog's cue."

  "Poor brute!" she said. "I hope he will injure nobody."

  "Luckily, the children are off the streets at this hour," he answered."He'll not go far; the police are too numerous. I am afraid our veryefficient performer is permanently retired from the company. But Ihaven't yet congratulated you. You didn't seem one bit afraid."

  "I hadn't time to be frightened. I--was thinking of something else! Thefright came afterward, when I saw you--when you left me on the railing."She spoke a little constrainedly, and went on quickly: "I really am adesperate coward about some things. I should never dare to go up on anaeroplane, for instance, as Patsy tells me you do almost every day. Shesays the Japanese call you the 'Honorable Fly-Man'."

  "There's no foreign theater in Tokyo, and no winter Opera," he saidlightly. "We have to amuse one another, and the Glider is by way ofcontributing my share of the entertainment. It is certainly an upliftingperformance." He smiled, but she shook her head.

  "Ah," she said, "I know! I was at Fort Logan last summer the dayLieutenant Whitney was killed. I saw it."

  The smile had faded and her eyes had just the look he had so oftenfancied lay in those eyes he had been used to gaze at across the burningdriftwood--his "Lady of the Many-Colored Fires." He caught himselflonging to know that they would mist and soften if he too should someday come to grief in such sudden fashion. They were wholly wonderfuleyes! He had noted them even in the instant when he had snatched herfrom the piazza--from the danger into which his cavalier singing hadcalled her.

  "How brazen you must have thought it!" he exclaimed. "My impromptu solo,I mean. I hardly know how I came to do it. I suppose it was themoonlight (it does make people idiotic sometimes, you know, in thetropics!) and then what you played--that dear old song! I used to singit years ago. It reminded me--"

  "Yes--?"

  "Of the last evening at college. It was a night like this, though not solovely. I sang it then--my last college solo."

  "Your _last_?" She was leaning toward him, her lips parted, her eyesbright on his face.

  "Yes," he said. "I left town the next day."

  Her eyes fell. She turned half away, and put a hand to her cheek. "Oh,"she said vaguely. "Of course."

  "But it _was_ brazen," he finished lamely. "I promise never to do itagain."

  The breath of the night was coolly sweet. It hovered about them, mingledof all the musky winds and flower-months of Eden. A dulled, weird soundfrom the street reached their ears--the monotonous hand-tapping of asmall, shallow drum.

  "Some Buddhist _devotee_," he said, "making a pious round of holyplaces. He is stalking along in a dingy, white cotton robe with redcharacters stamped all over it--one from each shrine he has visited--andhere and there in a doorway he will stop to chant a prayer in return fora handful of rice."

  "How strange! It doesn't seem to belong, somehow, with the telegraphwires and the trolley cars. Japan is full of such contrasts, isn't it?It seems to be packed with mystery and secrets. Listen!" The deep,resonant boom of a great bell at a distance had throbbed across thenearer strumming. "That must be in some old temple. Perhaps the man withthe drum is going there to worship. Does any one live in the temples?The priests do, I suppose."

  "Yes," he answered. "Sometimes other people do, too. I know of aforeigner who lives in one."

  "What is he? European?"

  "No one knows. He has lived there fifteen years. He calls himselfAloysius Thorn. I used to think he must be an American, for in theChancery safe there is an envelope bearing his name and the directionthat it be opened after his death. It has been there a long time, forthe paper is yellow with age. No doubt it was put there by some formerChief-of-Mission at his request. He has nothing to do with otherforeigners; as a rule he won't even speak to them. He is something of acuriosity. He knows some lost secret about gold-lacquer, they say."

  "Is he young?"

  "No."

  "Married?"

  "Oh, no! He lives quite alone. He has one of the loveliest privategardens in the city. Sometimes one doesn't see him for months, but he ishere now."

  She was silent, while he looked again at the white toe of the slipperpeeping from a gauzy hem. The silence seemed to him an added bondbetween them. The moon, tilting its slim sickle along the solemn rangeof western hills, touched their jagged contour with a shimmeringradiance and edged with silver the vast white apparition towering,filmily exquisite, above them, a solitary snowy cone, hoveri
ngwraith-like between earth and sky. The horizon opposite was deep violet,crowded with tiny stars, like green-gilt coals. In the quiet a drowsycrow croaked huskily from the hillside. Barbara looked through dreamyeyes.

  "It can't always be so beautiful!" she said at length. "Nothing could, Iam sure."

  "No, indeed," he agreed cheerfully. "There are times when, as mynumber-one boy says, 'honorable weather are disgust.' In June the_nubai_, the rainy season, is due. It will pour buckets for three weekswithout a stop and frogs will sing dulcet songs in the streets. In Julyyour head feels as if a red-hot feather pillow had been stuffed intoyour skull and everybody moves to Chuzenji or Kamakura. If it weren'tfor that, and an occasional dust-storm in the winter, and thecentillions of mosquitoes, and a weekly earthquake or two, we wouldn'thalf appreciate this!" He made a wide gesture.

  "Yet now," she said softly, "it seems too lovely to be real! I shallwake presently to find myself in my berth on the _Tenyo Maru_ with Japantwo or three days off."

  He fell into her mood. "We are both asleep. That was why the dogvanished so queerly. Dream-dogs always do. And I don't wonder at mysinging, either. People do exactly what they shouldn't when they areasleep. But no! I really don't like the dream version at all. I wantthis to be true."

  "Why?"

  Her tone was low, but it made him tingle. A sudden _melee_ of daring,delicious impulses swept over him. "Because I have dreamed too much," hesaid, in as low a voice. "Here in the East the habit grows on one; wedream of what all the beauty somehow misses--for us. But to-night, atleast, is real. I shall have it to remember when you have gone, as I--Isuppose you will be soon."

  She leaned out and picked a slender maple-leaf from a branch that camein through the open side of the pagoda, and, holding it in her fingers,turned toward him. Her lips were parted, as if to speak. But suddenlyshe tossed it from her, rose and shook out her skirts with a laugh.Carriage-wheels were rolling up the drive from the lower gate.

  "Thank you!" she cried gaily. "But no hint shall move me. I warn youthat I intend to stay a long time!"

  In the lighted doorway, as Patricia and her mother stepped from thecarriage, she swept him a curtsey.

  "Honorably deign to accept my thanks," she said, "for augustly saving myinsignificant life! And now, perhaps, we can be properly introduced!"