Читать книгу The Breath of the Gods - Sidney McCall - Страница 4

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Haganè's entrance had broken the receiving line. He became at once the personage, the dominating influence. Guests moved about now, or gathered into little social groups at will. The long apartment filled evenly, a third to the ceiling, with a shifting surface of triangles which were shoulders—white shoulders, black shoulders, pink shoulders, sometimes a military pair of gold-lace shoulders, each pair surmounted by a head. The rooms, emptying ever, were ever filling, as in some well-constructed drinking-fountain—the very walls soaked in the hum and timbre of human voices.

Gwendolen, freed from the thralls of official hostess-ship, gathered to herself young men in passage, as a spray of scented golden-rod gathers bees. She had a smile for all, a witty retort, or an insinuating whisper, followed by a provocative look. Old maids, and mothers with unattractive daughters, were wont to call Gwendolen a heartless coquette. As for the coquetry, it was indefensible; as to the heart, young men held varying opinions with regard to that coveted article.

The social atmosphere, charged with evanescent gayety, intoxicated her. She felt like a flower held under the surface of champagne. Through all the glamour spread a tincture of chrysanthemums. Ever after—sometimes in lands very far away from Washington—the odor of these blossoms had power to bring before her, as in an illuminated vision, the yellow walls, the moving heads, and, clearest of all, the slender, mist-gray figure of Yuki Onda; the delicate, happy face under the great loops of blue-black hair.

As Gwendolen talked and strolled, promising a dance to one, refusing it to another, with unreasoning caprice and the manner of a young empress, her hazel eyes, under their long lashes, shot more than once an undetected glance to a certain corner where, beside a pedestal of drooping fern, stood a lonely guest. This person was young, good to look at in a buoyant, breezy sort of way, and of the sex which (alas, yet beyond contesting!) most keenly interested the fair observer. After such glances she usually fell to fondling her sheaf of orchids, and once pressed it up against her face. At this the brown eyes in the corner gleamed, and took on the alertness of a terrier whose master snaps a playful finger.

Mrs. Todd became solicitous that her guest of honor should be fed, but hesitated to ask him for fear that her "foreign food" might prove unpalatable. This apprehension was finally confided on tiptoe to her lord. "Heavens! Susan," said the unfeeling mate, with the twinkle which she dreaded, "do you suppose a Japanese commissary department has been trotting beside him through Asia, Europe, Boston, and New York? Set him before a mess of caviare, lobster à la Newburg, and extra dry, and see what he does to it. Where did Gwendolen go?"

"She's over there by the punch-bowl, I believe," responded Mrs. Todd, in absent-minded fashion. The good lady still hung, ponderously vague, between her husband's opinion of Haganè's gastronomic culture and her own half-solaced fears.

Todd craned his neck over the crowd. "Oh, there she is, just by the punch-table. The young men are thicker than fleas on a candy kitten. Wonder whether it's Gwennie or the punch."

"A little of both, I presume," said Mrs. Todd, austerely. She often found her spouse unsympathetic.

"I don't blame 'em then—dinged if I do," cried he, with a joyful, premonitory lurch. A firm hand clutched him.

"I'm going for the prince now. He is talking to Yuki. Shall I send her away? She looks as she did on confirmation day, the little idiot. The way these Japanese worship their country and each other is simply ridiculous. What do you think about keeping her with me and the prince, Cy?"

Todd glanced at Yuki. His face softened. She had indeed an upraised, glorified look, as if a beatified vision instead of a very solid living man leaned down to her words.

"Keep her, by all means. She'll know how to wait on her bronze idol," said he, lightly, and dived into the crowd.

Apart from Yuki, Mrs. Todd found unexpected solution in her task of feeding the lion. His private secretary, Mr. Hirai, was not merely an Oxford graduate, but an accomplished man of the world. He made everything easy. At the hostess's first hint of invitation the Japanese started in a solid body toward the supper-rooms. Several ladies who had met members of the party in Boston or New York adhered, smiling, to the moving group. Yuki fell back with the secretary, and began chattering to him in Japanese, her dark eyes slowly turning to stars, her pale cheeks kindling into rosy fire. All of the company centred about Haganè, as thoughts centre about a master will. The occasion which Mrs. Todd dreaded proved to her one of the pleasantest incidents of the whole successful affair. Haganè, in his enjoyment of the delicate fare, entirely justified his host's prophecy. The true hostess is never quite so happy as when she sees her guests enjoying the good things which she, through anxious hours, has been solicitous in providing.

Meantime Mr. Todd had reached his daughter. The young men drew back a little in deference to the age and relationship of the intruder, but did not get beyond range of allurement.

"It's come, little girl," he whispered, with eyes as young and bright as hers. "It came by wire just a few minutes ago. It's here!" He tapped significantly at the left side of his coat.

"The appointment? Oh! does mother know?"

"Not yet," admitted the senator, with the look of an urchin caught stealing jam. "Perhaps we'd better—"

"You bet we'd better!" She threw back her head and laughed the merriest laugh in all the world. Then she ran her sparkling eyes about the circle of withdrawn, boyish faces. "You must excuse me; dad has a secret, and that means insanity for me if I can't hear it at once. You wouldn't have me go mad—now, would you?—before the first waltz plays!"

"Certainly not!" laughed the chorus.

"But, Miss Gwendolen," ventured a bold swain, "how about that first waltz? For whom are you keeping it?"

"Well," said the girl, pausing, and letting shy archness possess her downcast lids, "I did not want to tell you, but since you force me to it—I am keeping the first waltz for—mother!"

With another laugh, full of bright mockery, she caught her father's arm, and hurried him away. The excitement of the past hour was nothing to what she now felt. Chattering, sparkling, laughing, tossing, gesticulating at times with her sheaf of flowers, she was a slim fountain of youth, with a noon-day sun above it. "You really have the appointment!" she cried to him, when they were well out of hearing. "I knew you must get it, though the President certainly took his time. And we shall sail next spring with Yuki! What! we go before next spring? Oh, how perfectly delicious! And mother doesn't know? Now, dad, I am surprised at you! You must be sure to let mother know first, or her feelings will be hurt. Oh, aren't we a pair of rascals, dad? Such nice rascals! I do like ourselves—now don't you, dad?"

Pierre Le Beau had, a few moments before, abandoned his lonely sentinelship at the conservatory door; but, in the corner where the fern stood, the sturdier watcher, brown of face and square of shoulder, held a tenacious post. A deflection of visual lenses (though to outward appearance his eyes seemed clear enough) kept him from beholding more than one person in the crowded rooms. If she had been aware of the silent challenge, her knowledge was cleverly concealed. Yet now, on her father's arm, she drifted steadily, though with seeming unconsciousness, toward that special nook. The watcher put a hand on a Roman chair beside him, suggestively unoccupied.

Abreast of the little group—the gold chair, great fern, and dim inhabitant—Gwendolen stopped. A smile went forth that lit the shadows, as she said quite clearly, "Thank you, I believe I will. I should like to get a bit of a rest before dancing."

Senator Cyrus C. Todd did not lack intuition. "Ah, there's Skimmer. Very chap I wanted to see!" he mumbled to himself, and hurried off in an opposite direction.

He of the brown eyes leaned confidently down. "You chose my flowers!" he vaunted.

Exultation was not the most desirable note to adopt with Gwendolen. She answered nothing for a moment. She was busy adjusting herself to an "unconscious" pose, as perfect as the bold lines of the chair and her own graceful figure could combine to produce. She looked down upon the orchids with a thoughtful, pensive gaze, then slowly upward to the speaker. "Ah, was it then—you—who sent them?"

"Yes; didn't you know? Was it too cheeky, having met you but a glorious once?"

No reply. Gwendolen lifted the flowers and brushed her soft lips across them. Her companion drew himself erect among the drooping green shadows of the fern, swallowed hard, and asked, in a chastened voice, "Did that bloomin' blot of a florist forget to put my card in, after all I said?"

Gwendolen's upraised eyes were now those of a commiserating dove. "I'm sorry, but I did not see any card among the flowers."

The fern had a short ague and stood still. "I'll take a surgeon along when I go to see that florist."

"I wouldn't," said the girl, pityingly. "It was the loveliest sheaf I ever saw. He deserves something better than broken bones for arranging it."

"Yes, they were jolly. They must have pleased you," said the young man, with a wintry gleam of resignation. "I was bent on finding something that really looked like you. I went all over Washington, New York, and Philadelphia in person. But I was so careful of the card! I told the foo—the man, over and over again, to be sure and enclose it. It was printed out in full—'T. Caraway Dodge, First Secretary of American Legation, Tokio, Japan.'"

"You think you have found something that looks just like me?" asked the girl, slowly, ignoring the latter half of his speech. Her face was full of deprecating interest. She daintily drew forth a single strange blossom, and held it, poised for contrast, against the dark leaves of the fern. Thus detached, it bore an unfortunate resemblance to a ghostly spider.

"Oh, not stuck off on a cork, like that!" cried the tortured donor. "All in a lump, don't you know—beaten up like the whites of eggs, with gold-dust sprinkled over, and parsley around the edges!"

"All in a lump—beaten up like eggs—parsley around the edges," began Gwendolen, gravely, when suddenly she tripped and fell against her own laughter. Her pretty shoulders quaked. She bent far over for control, and tried to hide the treacherous mirth.

But Dodge had seen enough for him. "By Jiminy! you've been jollying me all the time! And I swallowed it like a bloomin' oyster!" He came around to the front, drew up a stool, flung himself upon it, and looked up with grins that bespoke a renewed zest for life. "Now honest, Miss Todd, you owe me something for this. Didn't you know who sent them? Didn't you really find that card in the box?"

"No, I didn't—honest—but—m-mother did!" confessed Gwendolen, now half-stifled with laughter.

"And you didn't resent it? And you thought them pretty from the very first moment?" cried the youth, on a high note of satisfaction. He reached up now boldly, took the single flower from her hand, pinched off the end of a long fern-leaf to back it, and deliberately arranged himself a button-hole.

Gwendolen wiped the tears of merriment from her bright eyes. "Pretty?" she echoed. "It is too tame a word. I thought them a dream—an inspiration—a visual ecstasy!"

"Yes, I said they were like you," returned the impudent Dodge, as well as he could for the distorted countenance bent above the process of pinning in his flower. "There," he said, anent this finished operation, "it's in. I think it becomes me. I didn't run my finger to the bone but once. Now tell me what ma-ma thought of the flowers and the card?"

In spite of her usual self-possession, the girl was stricken dumb. To add to her confusion, a deep embarrassing blush rose relentlessly to her throat and face, and would not be banished.

"You won't repeat it!" cried the terrible youth. "You don't dare to—but I will. Mama said—lifting her lorgnettes (here he deliberately mimicked the air of a middle-aged grande dame)—'T. Caraway Dodge! Who is T. Caraway Dodge? Oh, I see—a snip of an attaché!'"

A look into the stupefied face above him showed that his bold guess had been true. Intoxicated by success, he ventured another toss.

"If you say the word, I come pretty near repeating your answer."

Behind the astonishment, then the consternation of the girl's face, a harder something flashed. She was not accustomed to have the lead so rudely taken. This young person must be disposed of on the instant. His impudence would have given points to Jonah's gourd. She now rose to her feet, held her chin unnecessarily high, and, with the air of a young Lady Macbeth, drawled out—"I will spare you the trouble, Mr. T. Caraway Dodge. Much as I dislike to be rude, the words I said were these—" She paused. Dodge rose too. The brown eyes and the hazel were nearly on a level. He was laughing. "Well?" he reminded at length.

His unconsciousness of offence gave the last flare to her indignation.

"I said to those present, 'The sending of so costly a bouquet by Mr. Dodge is a little—er—pushing, and the sender must be told so; but since, by accident—the flowers just happen to suit my gown—'"

"Nonsense!" laughed the rash Dodge, "you never talked that way in your life, unless you deliberately made it up. That's your stunt now, of course. Any one could see it. What is more likely, you said—what I planned for you to say was—'Oh, here are the flowers I have been waiting for! I think I'll have to marry the person who sent me these!—There's the music of the first waltz! It's a peach! Come—you haven't promised it, have you? Everybody is waiting for the hostess to begin. Let us start the ball rolling!"

In sheer incapacity to resist, a weakness wrought of a benumbing conflict of anger, mirth, and amazement, Gwendolen leaned to him—and her débutante ball opened with her, joyous, whirling in the arms of Mr. T. Caraway Dodge.

After this initial favor, he was rigidly, even scornfully, ignored; but little cared Dodge for that. He had had his day. The impetus given could carry him smiling on through hours of cold neglect. He was determined to be the gayest of that circling round of joy, and succeeded. Stout matrons, lean old maids, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Peruvian, Pole—just so it wore skirts and could move its feet, all were food for his new mill of ecstasy.

Gwendolen danced oftenest with Pierre. He was literally a perfect dancer, and to-night he said that the champagne all went to his heels. Yuki, in her decorous Japanese draperies, wound about by stiff brocades, did not attempt foreign dancing.

Haganè and the older members of the suite left early. Hirai, the secretary, remained, evidently charmed by the long eyes of his young countrywoman. During the time she was not talking to him or Pierre, Yuki remained near Mrs. Todd, delighting the soberer friends who came to speak with them by her beauty and intelligence. In the pleasure of seeing this enjoyment of her Oriental protégé, Mrs. Todd forgot to scold about the affair of the Russian minister, and made only one remark about Yuki's undignified and un-American "kow-tow" to the prince.

"I was just pushed down, Mrs. Todd," protested Yuki, earnestly. "Some hand from my own land pressed me before I knew. So was I taught to greet our feudal daimyo when I was the very little girl; so all in Nippon, of old customs, greet him now. I will try never again to do such a thing in America."

"Well, well, that's all right!" said the matron, patting her slim shoulder. "You are a good little girl, if you did kow-tow. There's Gwendolen with Pierre again! Doesn't she look well to-night?"

"Well!" echoed Yuki, as her eyes followed the flying shapes. "'Well' is so faint a little word. To me Gwendolen looks beautiful—beautiful—like the Sun Goddess in our land. She is like a bush of yama-buki in the wind! I never saw nobody at all so beautiful as our Gwendolen!"

"And to think she must give up this brilliant social success, and go to a heathen country for four years!" mused Mrs. Todd, gloomily. She had, of course, been told the great news.

If Yuki heard the muttered words, she did not show resentment. The smile of intense affection had not left her face as she said aloud: "Anywhere that Gwendolen goes, I think she will find happiness. She has in her eyes the light of a happy karma. Evil and sorrow cannot stay with her long."

"Well, and what of you, my little Japanese daughter?" asked Mrs. Todd, touched by the unselfish words.

"Oh, me!" said Yuki, becoming instantly grave. "I do not think about my karma—each person cannot see his own, or know of it; it clings about him too close. But if I should think—No, I cannot! I am afraid! Ah, here comes back the sunshine. It is Gwendolen, fanning! Ah, so hot a little sunshine is Gwendolen! Sit here, and let me make the fan go fast for you, Gwendolen—your wrists—your throat—that will make coolness quicker than just your face!"

Both girls laughed now, and talked together; Pierre joined them; Dodge ventured near; the senator came up. It was a sparkling group, with the centre always Gwendolen; yet even to Mrs. Todd's unimaginative eyes, the loneliness of the little gray figure, the strange blue-black hair, and pointed, faintly tinted face, struck a note of mystery—of something very near to sadness.