The Kingdom of Slender Swords

  CHAPTER XXIV

  A MAN NAMED WARE

  The three-storied front of the Cherry-Moon Tea-House, when Daunt's partyarrived, was glowing with tiers of large round lanterns of oiled-paperbearing a conventionalized moon and cherry-blossoms. At the door satrows of little velvet-lined sandals. Here shoes were discarded, andservants drew on the guests' feet loose slippers of cotton cloth, softand yielding. One other guest was awaiting the party at the entrance.This was Captain Viscount Sakai, of the General Staff, spruce,fine-featured and in immaculate European evening dress. He had a clear,olive complexion, and, save for the narrow, Japanese eye, might havebeen a Spaniard.

  The small second-story _shokudo_ in which they dined was floored in soft_tatame_ edged with black and laid in close-fitting geometrical pattern.Save for a plain alcove at one end, holding a dwarf pine and a single_nanten_ branch with clusters of bright red berries, it was empty. Therewas no drapery. The walls were sliding screens of gold-leaf on whichwere finely drawn etchings of pine-trees covered with snow, the effectsuggested rather than finished. It was brilliant with electric light.

  Tiny square tables of black lacquer were disposed along three sides ofthe room, one for each guest. They were but four inches high and on thefloor behind each lay a thin, flat _zabuton_ or cushion of brocade. Thebowing _geisha_ in wonderful rainbow _kimono_ who awaited them mighthave stepped from the temple stage at Mukojima. These pointed to thetables with inviting smiles:

  "Plee shee down!" they said in unison.

  "I never _could_ 'shee down' gracefully when any one is looking!"complained Patricia, as she tucked her small feet under her on thekneeling-cushion.

  "_Banzai!_" commented Voynich, setting his monocle. "You have practisedbefore a mirror!" He collapsed beside her with a groan. "I shall bereincarnated an accordion!"

  "Count," said Patricia plaintively, "no bouquets, please. I know whenyou are stringing me."

  He looked blank and the Japanese officer hastily produced a lavendernote-book and a gold pencil. "That is a new one," he said. "I must--whatis it?--ah yes! I must _nail_ it. Excuse me. I write it in myswear-album."

  "The Viscount is learning American slang," Patricia informed Barbara."One of these days you must tell him some of the very latest."

  He looked across with gravely twinkling eyes. "I shall be--ah--tickle todie!" he said. "It is my specialty. Nex' year I become Professor inSlang Literature at the Imperial University."

  The meal began merrily. Barbara sat on Daunt's left, with one of the_attaches_ next her. Baroness Stroloff was on Daunt's other hand.Barbara remembered it afterward as a meal of elfish daintiness--of warm,pungent, wine-like liquor in blue porcelain bottles, of food of strangelook and cloying taste, highly colored and seasoned, in a hundred tinyred and black lacquer dishes that carried her back to her doll-days,with covers patterned in gold, served by prostrating _geisha_ whose_kimono_ were woven with violet Fujis, winged dragons and marvelousexotic blossoms.

  Daunt pointed to a dish which had just been set before her. "You musttry the _hasu-no-renkon_," he said. "That's cooked lotos-root. It'snearly as good as it looks."

  "How do you ever remember the names!"

  "Oh, it's quite easy to talk Japanese," he replied recklessly. "Thereare only fifty syllables in the language, and any way you string themtogether it means something or other. It doesn't matter whether it's theright thing or not, if you just bow and smile. There are seventeen waysof drawing in your breath which are a lot more important than what yousay!"

  "What disgraceful nonsense! What is that pink thing?"

  "Raw bonito. The refuge of dyspeptics. Voynich, over there, eats nothingelse at home, they say. The variegated compound is _kuchitori_. It'smade of sugared chestnuts, leeks and pickled fish. May I compliment youon the way you handle your chopsticks? At my first Japanese dinner I bitone in two. Isn't Baroness Stroloff stunning, by the way!"

  The latter was deep in discussion with Patricia, moving her hands inquick, vivacious gestures which clusters of opals made into flashes ofblue fire. "But you must send to Hakodate for your furs," she wassaying. "I will give you the address of my man there. You should getthem now, not wait till fall, when the tourists have bought all thebest."

  "I'm dying for an ermine stole."

  "Oh, my _dear_, not ermine! Get sables. One can be so insulting insables!"

  Barbara laughed with the rest. "What a nice lot you are," she said, "allknowing each other, all friendly. I thought diplomatists were alwaysporing over international law books and drawing up musty treaties."

  "It's not all cakes and ale," he asserted. "I worked till three thismorning on a cipher telegram."

  "After the melodrama?"

  "Ah, it was opera!" he protested. "It has left me memories of onlyflowers, and scents and music!"

  "You made most of the music, if I remember rightly."

  "How unkind! I could no more help it than fly."

  "On your Glider?"

  He laughed again. "Don't forget what is to happen one day with that samemachine."

  "What is that?"

  "I am to swoop down and carry you off. It was your own suggestion, youknow."

  "But it was to be at the Imperial Review. That doesn't happen again fora year."

  "I won't wait that long!"

  She turned her head; her eyes sparkled in the caught light. Her fingerswere fluttering a square of red paper that had been rolled about herchopsticks. On it was a line of tiny characters. "What is that writing?"

  "That is a love-poem," he answered. "You know a Japanese poem has onlythirty-one syllables. You find them everywhere and on everything, from ascreen to a fire-shovel. I've seen them printed on tooth-picks. Yourhuckster composes them as he brings the fish from market, and your_amah_ writes them at night by a firefly lantern."

  "Can you read it?"

  He translated: "_I thought my love's long hair drooped down from thegate of the sky. But it was only the shadow of evening._"

  "How delicately pretty!" she exclaimed. "It's written in _kana_, thesound-alphabet, isn't it?"

  "Yes. How much you have learned already!"

  "Haru has begun teaching me. Let me show you my proficiency." She tookhis pencil and wrote:

  [Japanese: Donto]

  "There! who would guess that was Japanese for 'Daunt.' And what animpression you must have made on Haru for her to select your name as myfirst lesson!"

  Across the soft _shoo-shoo_ of spotless, _tabi_-clad feet, the flittingof bright-hued _kimono_, the gay badinage that flew about the lowtables, Daunt felt her beauty thrill him from head to foot like agarment of mist and fire. As she dropped her hand to the cushion it hadtouched his, and for an instant their pulses had seemed to throb intoone. The tiny, lacquered cup she took up trembled in her fingers.

  She started when the young army officer nearest her said: "Speaking ofsailing, give me a steam-yacht like the one that berthed yesterday atYokohama. She belongs to a man named Ware--Austen Ware--a New Yorker, Iunderstand. Perhaps you know him, Miss Fairfax."

  "I have met him," she answered.

  The young army officer looked up quickly--he was an enthusiasticyachtsman. "A beautiful vessel!" he said. "I noticed her to-day, but shewas too far away to make out her name."

  "It is the _Barbara_," said Voynich.

  "Why--" exclaimed Patricia, "that's--" She bit her tongue, caught bysomething in Barbara's face. "Good gracious!" she ended. "My--my foot'sasleep!"

  Barbara had felt her flush fading to paleness. She felt a quick reliefthat none there, save Patricia and Daunt, knew her first name. In thediversion caused by Patricia's helpless efforts to stand up, she stole aglance at Daunt.

  A shadow had fallen on his face. He did not look at her, but in hisbrain the yacht's name was ringing like a knell. She knew Phil'sbrother! Austen Ware's yacht had arrived in Yokohama on the same day asher ship. And it was named the _Barbara_. Yet to-night he haddreamed--what had
he been dreaming? These thoughts mixed themselvesweirdly with the gaiety and nonsense that he forced himself to render.

  Barbara felt this with an aching sense of resentment. What was hethinking of her? And why should she care so fiercely? The coursespassed, but the lightness and blitheness of the scene were somehowchilled. The decorative food: the numberless, tiny cups and trays; thetaper, pink-tinted fingers that poured the warm drink; the _kimono_, themusic and lights,--all palled.

  She was glad when the Baroness decreed the dinner over by repeatingPatricia's experiment of painful unfolding, and calling for her wraps.