Читать книгу The Kingdom of Slender Swords - Hallie Erminie Rives - Страница 12

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She thought no one heard, but out by the azalea hedge, a man was standing, listening to the hushed chords floating through the open window.

From the bungalow on the Yokohama Bluff, Daunt had come back to Tokyo with a sense of dissatisfaction deeper than should have been caused by his jarring talk with Phil. Perhaps, though he did not guess it, his mood had to do with a bulky letter in his pocket, received that day. It was from "Big" Murray, his chum at college, whom he had commonly addressed by opprobrious epithets that covered an affection time had not diminished. Of all the men in his class Daunt would have picked him as the one least likely to marry. Yet the letter had contained a wedding-invitation and a ream of the usual hyperbole. "Going to name me godfather, is he!" Daunt had muttered as he read. "The driveling old horse-thief!" For in some elusive way the intended distinction suggested that he himself was a hoary back-number, not to be reckoned among the forces of youth. Strolling from Shimbashi Station, under the clustered, gaily-colored paper-lanterns, swaying above the rustle and stir of the exotic street, this thought rankled. A vague discontent stirred in him.

Tokyo had been the objective point of Daunt's six years of diplomatic career, and he had found the Kingdom of the Slender Swords a fascinating and absorbing study. He loved its contrasts and its contradictions, its marvelous artistry, the reserve and nobility of its people, and its savage, unshamed, sincerity of purpose. In the absorbing routine of the Chancery and the bright gaieties of the capital's diplomatic circle, the first year had gone swiftly enough. Since then the Glider experiments had lent an added zest.

Even at college, Langley's first aëroplane had interested him and out of that interest had grown a course of reading which had given him a broad technical knowledge of applied mechanics. In Japan he had conceived the idea of the new fan-propeller, worked out in many an hour of study in the little Japanese house in Aoyama, which he had taken because it adjoined the parade-ground where his earliest experiments were made. At first the Corps Diplomatique had smiled at this as a harmless pour passer le temps, to be classified with the Roumanian Minister's kennel of Pomeranians or the Chilian Secretary's collection of daimyo dolls. But week by week the little crowd of Japanese spectators had grown larger; often Daunt had recognized among the attentive brown faces this or that superior military officer whom he knew, albeit in civilian dress. One day his friend, Viscount Sakai, a dapper young officer on the General Staff, had surprised him with the offer from the Japanese War Department of the use of an empty garage on the edge of the great esplanade. Only a month ago, he had awaked to the knowledge that his name was known to the aëro enthusiasts of Paris, New York and Vienna, and that his propeller was an assured success.

Yet to-night he felt that he had somehow failed. The splendid vitality of the moving scene, the thud and click of wooden géta and the whirr of rick'sha—all the many-keyed diapason of the rustling, lanterned vistas stretching under the pale moon-lighted sky—lacked the sense of intimate companionship. The warm still air, freighted with aromatic scents of cedar from some new-built shop, the pungent smell of incense burning before some shadowed shrine, the odors of drenched shrubbery behind the massive retaining wall of some rich noble's compound, came to him with a new sense of estrangement. The murmured sound of voices behind the glimmering paper shoji told him, suddenly, that he was lonely. For the first time in six years, he was feeling keenly his long isolation from the things of home, the pleasant fellowship and the firesides of old friends. In this foreign service which he so loved, he had been growing out of touch, he told himself, out of thought, of the things "Big" Murray had sought and found.

Unconsciously, the "drivel," as he had denominated it, of the letter in his pocket, had infected him with sweet and foolish imaginings, and slowly these took the nebulous shape of a woman. He had often dreamed of her, though he had never seen her face. It was half-veiled now in the bluish haze of his pipe, while she talked to him before a fire of driftwood (that burned with red and blue lights because of sea-ghosts in it) and her voice was low and clear like a flute.

The wavering outline was still before his mind's eye as he trod the quiet road that led to the Embassy, entered its wide gate and slowly crossed the silent garden toward his bachelor cottage on the lawn. And there, suddenly, the vision had seized a vagrant melody and had spoken to him in song. Daunt thrust his cold pipe into his pocket and listened with head thrown back.

It was no brilliant display of technique that held him, for the player was touching simple chords, but these were singing old melodies that took him far to other scenes and other times. He smiled to himself. How long it had been since he had sung them—not since the old college days! That happy, irresponsible era of senior dignities came back vividly to him, the campus and the singing. For years he had not recollected it all so keenly! He had been glee-club soloist, pushed forward on all occasions and applauded to the echo. Praise of his singing he had accepted somewhat humorously—never but once had it touched him deeply, and that had been on commencement afternoon.

He had slipped away from the wavering cheers at the station, because he could not bear the farewells, and, far down one of the campus lanes, had come on pretty Mrs. Claybourne sitting on a rustic bench. Again he heard her speak, as plainly as if it were yesterday: "Why, if it isn't Mr. Daunt! I wonder how the university can open in the fall without you!" He had sat down beside her as she said: "This very insistent young person with me has been heartbroken because we could not get tickets for the Glee-Club Concert last night. She wanted to hear you sing."

He had looked up then to see a young girl, seated on the leaning trunk of a tulip-tree. Her neutral-tinted skirt lay against the dark bark; her face was almost hidden by a spray of the great, creamy-pink blossoms. Some quality in its delicate loveliness had made him wish to please her, and sitting there he had sung the song that was his favorite. Mrs. Claybourne had pulled a big branch of the tulip-tree to hand him like a bouquet over the footlights, but the girl's parted lips, her wide deep brown eyes, had thanked him in a better way!

The music, now floating over the garden, by such subconscious association, recalled this scene, overlaid, but never forgotten. Hark! A cascade of silver notes, and then an old air that had been revived in his time to become the madness of the music-halls and the pet of the pianolas—the one the crowded campus had been wont to demand with loudest voice when his tenor led the "Senior Singing." It brought back with a rush the familiar faces, the gray ivied dormitories with their slim iron balconies, the throbbing plaint of mandolins, and his own voice—