The Kingdom of Slender Swords

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  [Japanese: Donto]

  Through the thin paper pane, parted by his moistened finger, Ware's hot,hollow eyes saw the Japanese girl come into the room. She had not waitedto shut the _shoji_ behind her. She drew quick sobbing breaths and hereyes had the desperate look of a hunted animal. She ran into thesleeping apartment and closed its _shikiri_.

  Barbara had halted at the doorway. As she stood looking in, her eyesfell on the mauve _kimono_ with its silver camelias. It was the robeHaru had worn the first evening she came to her. If she had doubted, alldoubt was now gone. An instant she hesitated, then, with suddenresolution, knocked on the grill and stepped across the threshold.

  The man who watched could not solve the puzzle, but in that instant thesick suspicion he had harbored became a cold and lifeless thing in hisbreast. A sense of shame rushed through him as he saw her gaze wanderabout the interior with its veneer of the foreign: to the disordereddesk--the lounge and its litter of books--the photograph on thewall--the open panel with its champagne bottles. In her glance distastehad grown to a quick question. The coarse suggestions of the place werewelling over her. Whose house was this? Had Haru seen her and was shehiding from her?

  Suddenly she saw the man's cap and gauntlet in the corner. Her cheeksrushed into flame. She seemed to see Haru's innocent face smiling at herover the throbbing _samisen_ and through its tones to hear again theecho of a ribald laugh before the gilded cages of the Yoshiwara.Something in her cried out against the inference. All at once she tookan abrupt step forward. She was looking at the round glass lantern justoutside the doorway, painted with three characters:

  [Japanese: Donto]

  She chilled as if ether had been poured in her veins. The name theystood for had been her first lesson in Japanese--_which Haru had taughther_! She snatched up one of the volumes from the chair. It wasLillienthal's _Conquest of the Air_. She opened it to the title page.

  Ware, watching, saw with surprise that she was trembling violently. Shehad grown pale to the lips. The book slipped from her fingers andcrashed on to the _tatame_. It lay there, open as she had held it, andhe saw what was written across the white leaf. It was Daunt's name.

  His thought leaped as if at the flick of a lash. Daunt's book! What wasshe thinking? The piteous pallor that swept her face like an icy waveanswered him. Why she was there--her interest in this Japanese girl whofled from her--he could not guess. But it was clear that she had notknown the house was Daunt's, and that with the knowledge, she was faceto face with what must seem a damning complicity. Perhaps some hint ofthis retreat had come to her--he knew how gossip feathered itsshafts!--some covert allusion, some laughing _oui-dire_, to which hercoming had now given such verity. Phil was the _deus ex machina_ of thesituation. His Japanese _amour_ she was now laying at Daunt's door! Allthis flashed through his mind in an instant. He watched her intently.

  Over Barbara was sweeping a hideous chaos of mocking voices, bits ofrecollection barbed with agony. The little house near Aoyamaparade-ground--the carriage had passed the great empty plaza a fewmoments ago--that he had kept from "sentiment"! The house she had askedhim to show her, when he had evaded the request. And Haru! A feeling ofphysical anguish like that of death came to her; a dull pain was in hertemples and the floor seemed to be rising up with her toward theceiling. Daunt? He whose lips had lain on hers, whose letter was in herbosom--it burned her flesh now like a live coal! "There has never beenanother woman to me, Barbara. There never will be!" The words seemed tolaunch themselves from the air, stinging like fiery javelins.

  Behind the _shikiri_, a weird, malevolent clamor was shouting throughWare's brain. He stood alone with his temptation. What had he to do withDaunt, or with her belief in him? She had accepted his own advances,beckoned him half around the world--for what? To discard him for thisman whom she had known but a handful of days! Chance had arranged this_mise en scene_. Was he to tell her the truth--and lose her? The key tothe situation was in his hand. He had only to keep silence!

  At that moment he felt crumble down in some crude gulf within the fabricof his self-esteem--the high-built structure of years. Something colder,formless and malignant, came to sit on its riven foundations. A savageelation grew in him.

  Suddenly a _shikiri_ was flung aside. Haru stood there, her face deathlypale, her hands wrenching and tearing at her sleeves. She laughed, ahigh, gasping, unnatural treble.

  "So-o-o, _Ojo-San_! You come make visiting--_ne_? The shrill voice rangthrough the silent room. "My new house now, an' mos' bes' master. Nomore Christian! My bad--oh, ve-ree bad Japan girl!" With another peal oflaughter she pointed to the knot of her _obi_. It was tied in front.

  Barbara ran down the garden path as if pursued. She stepped into thecarriage blindly. The _Fox-Woman_! Votary of the Fox-God, at whosecandle-lighted shrine she had refused tribute!

  This, then, was the end. It came to her like the striking of a greatbell. To-morrow the streets would lie as vivid in the sunlight, thebuglers would march as blithely, the bent pines would wave, thelotos-pads in the moat glisten, the gorgeous _geisha_ flash by: shealone would know that the sun had died in the blue heaven!

  "Home, Taka," she said, and leaned back and closed her eyes.

  * * * * *

  Behind her Haru's laughter had broken suddenly. She rushed into thelittle sleeping-room and threw herself on the _tatame_ before the tinyimage of Kwan-on, in a wild burst of sobbing.

  Ware opened the _shikiri_ softly, and with noiseless step, passed out ofthe house.