The Kingdom of Slender Swords

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  ON THE KNEES OF DELILAH

  The room where Phil sat was softly bright with _andon_, through whosethin paper sides the candle-light filtered tranquilly.

  It had been furnished in a plain, half-foreign fashion; a book-rack anda French mahogany desk sat in a corner, an ormolu clock ticked on itstop, and beside it was a lounge piled with volumes from the shelves. Ona bracket sat three small carvings in dark wood, replicas of the famousmonkeys of the great Jingoro the Left-Handed, preserved in Iyeyasutemple at Nikko. With their paws one covered his eyes, another his ears,the third his mouth, representing the "I see not--I hear not--I tellnot" of the ancient wisdom.

  The place, however, to which these had given a suggestion of quaint andextraordinary art, was now touched with a certain tawdriness. It wouldhave affected a Japanese almost to nausea. The severity of beauty of itsetched and paneled walls, the plain elegance of its satinwood fittings,were cheapened with a veneer of vulgarity. A row of picture postcards incolors was pinned on the wall--the sort the tourist buys for ten _sen_on the Ginza, too highly tinted and with much meretricious gilding--anda photograph hung in a silver-gilt frame of interlocked dragons. Itshowed a girl in abbreviated skirts and exaggerated posture; on themount was printed: "Miss Cissy Clifford in _Gay Paree_." The air wasfull of the sickly-sweetish smell of Turkish cigarettes. The desk was aconfusion of pipes, ivory _nets'ke_, cigarette-boxes and what not, and aman's cloth cap and a gauntlet were tossed in a corner, beside an opengold-lacquer box heaped with gloves.

  Phil, however, felt no qualm. The room fitted him as a scabbard fits itssword. He had discarded his heavier outer clothing and donned a loose,wide-sleeved robe of cool silk, tied with a crimson cord.

  "Give me the whisky-and-soda," he said to the grizzled servant, in thevernacular, "and I shan't want you again to-night."

  The bottle the Japanese left at his elbow was becoming Phil's constantcomforter. Alone with his thoughts, he fled to it as the _hashish_ eaterto his drug, because it banished his dread and bolstered the couragethat he longed for. To-night, as he sat with the intoxication creepinglike dull fire in his blood, he was thinking of Haru, with her softsmooth skin, her perfect neck, her lithe, graceful limbs, her eyes thatheld caught laughter like moss in amber.

  His thought broke off. He had heard a sound outside. It seemed to be alight tapping on the grill of the outer door. Could it be Bersonin? Hadanything gone wrong? He went hastily into the anteroom and opened thegrill.

  For an instant he stared unbelievingly at the figure standing there, thegay _kimono_, the rouged cheeks, the sparkling eyes. He took a stepforward.

  "Haru! Is it really you, little girl?" he cried.

  She laughed--a high, clear, flute-like note. "Such an astonish!" shesaid. "You not know my _mus'_ come ... after ... after those kiss? Can Inot to come in, Phil-lip?"

  With a laugh that echoed her own--but one of ringing triumph--he caughther hand, drew her into the lighted room and closed the _shoji_. Hislook flamed over her.

  "I couldn't believe my eyes!" he cried. "I don't half believe them yet!Why, your hands are as cold as ice. We'll have a drink, eh!"

  He went into an outer room, came back with a bottle of champagne andknocked off its neck against the mantel.

  "Yes, yes!" she said. "My mus' drink--so to be gay, Phil-lip!" She drankthe bubbling liquor at a draft. "What are the use of to be good? _Ne?_"

  "You're right, little girl! The pious people are the dull ones!" He cameto her unsteadily--he had noticed the reversed _obi_. "So you'll trainwith me, eh? Well, we'll show them a trick or two! How would you like tohave plenty of money, Haru--as much as you can count on a _soroban_?Would you think a lot more of me if I got it for you?"

  "You so--much clever!" she laughed. "No all same Japan man. He ve-reestupid! My think you mos' bes' clever man in these whole worl', to goin'find so much money--_ne?_"

  With a savage elation he drew her close in his arms. The great spiral ofher headdress drooped under his caresses, and the blue-black hair fellall about the white face.