CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE LADY OF THE MANY-COLORED FIRES

The spacious residence of the Minister of Marine that night was a maze of light. All social Tokyo would be at the ball in honor of the Admiral and officers of the visiting Squadron.

It was late when Daunt turned his steps thither through the fragrant evening. The deciphering of a voluminous telegram had kept him at the Chancery till eleven.

All that day he had worked with a delicious exhilaration rioting in his pulses. He had not seen Barbara, but her face had seemed always before him--quiveringly passionate as he had seen it in Ben-ten's cave, hazed with daring softness as it had turned to his on the steps of the railway carriage. There had been moments when some aroma of the spring air made him catch his breath, mindful of the crisp, sweet scent of her hair or the maddening fragrance of her lips. He thought of "Big" Murray and his letter, at which he had bridled--how long ago? He understood now what the complacent old pirate had been talking about! He would have an epistle to write him to-morrow in return! To-night he was to see her! In fancy he could feel her slim hand on his sleeve as they danced--could see himself sitting with her in some dusky alcove sweet with plum-blossoms--could hear her say ...

A hoarse warning from a _betto_ and he sprang aside for a carriage that dashed past through the gateway. He shook himself with a laugh and walked on through the shrubbery. By day it was a place of mossy shadows, of shrubberied red-lacquer bridges and glimmering cascades; now its polished dwarf-pines and twisted cypresses gleamed with red paper lanterns that hung like goblin fruit and quivered, monster misshapen gold-fish, in the miniature lake. Along the drives stood policemen, wearing white trousers and gloves. Each held a paper lantern painted with the Minister's _mon_ or family crest. Farther on carriages became thicker, till the approach was a crawling stream of gleaming black enamel, sweating horses, crackling whips, and shouting _bettos_. Daunt picked his way among these to where a wide swath of electric light beneath the porte-cochère struck into high relief a strip of scarlet carpet.

The interior was dressed with that marvelous attention to minutiæ and artistic _ensemble_ that is characteristically Japanese. The great hall was brilliant _opera bouffe_: a mingling crowd of gold-braided uniforms crossed by colored cordons and flashing with decorations, white necks and shoulders rising from dainty French gowns, gleaming lights, Japanese men in European costume, languorous black eyes under shining Japanese head-dresses, and silken _kimono_ woven in tints as soft as dreams. In the large central room opposite was hung a painting of the Emperor. Japanese who passed it did so reverently. They did not turn their backs. Some of the older ones bowed low before it and withdrew backward. Through a doorway came glimpses of couples on a polished floor swaying to music that swelled and ebbed unceasingly, and down a long vista a pink dazzle of cherry-blooms under a cloth roof. Over all was the exotic perfume of flowers.

Daunt had seen many such affairs where the blending of colors and sounds, the scintillant shifting of forms, had been but a maze. To-night's, however, was wound in a glory. All these decorative people, this scented echo of laughter and music, existed only to form a kaleidoscopic setting for the one woman. He went to search for her with his handsome head erect, his shoulders square and a color in his face.

He passed through several rooms, revealing one oriental picture after another. In one a series of glass-cases reproduced a _daimyo's_ procession in Old Japan: hundreds of dolls, six inches high, fashioned in elaborate detail--coolies with banners; chest-bearers; caparisoned horses; bullock-carts with huge, black lacquer wheels; _samurai_, visored and clad in armor, with glittering swords and lances. In another were cabinets spread with pieces of priceless gold-lacquer that had cost a lifetime of loving labor. A third the host denominated his "ghost-room," since it was lined with quaint pottery unearthed in ancient Korean tombs. These rooms were filled with the social world of the capital, a gay glimmer of urbanity set off against masses of all the blossoms of spring. In the last room the host stood with the visiting Admiral and several Ambassadors. He was a perfect type of the modern Japanese of affairs, a diplomatist as well as a seasoned Admiral. He had been at Annapolis in '75 and his wife was a graduate of Wellesley. He was one of the strongest of the powerful coterie which was shaping the destinies of new Japan. Daunt greeted him and paused to chat a while with his own chief and Mrs. Dandridge. Her gown was gray and silver, with soft old lace that accentuated the youthful contour of her face, and framed the graciousness and charm that made her marked in however charming and gracious an assembly. Barbara was not there.

He entered a veranda where people sat at little tables eating ices frozen in the shape of Fuji, under fairy lamps whose tiny bamboo and paper shades were delicately painted with sworls of water and swimming carp. From one group the Baroness Stroloff waved a hand to him, but Barbara was not there. Beyond, through a canopied doorway, hung the cherry-blooms. He paused on the threshold. It was a portion of the garden walled in with white cloth, and roofed with blue and gold. The space thus inclosed was set with cherry-trees from whose every gray twig depended the great pink pendants. It was floored with soft carpeting, in the center a fountain tinkled coolly, and the roof was dotted with incandescents. In this retreat the violins of the ball-room wove dreamily with the talk and laughter, tenuous and ghost-like, soft as the music of memory. She was not there. Daunt turned back, threaded the hall and entered the ball-room.

There, through the shifting crowd, over flashing uniforms and diamonded tiaras, he saw her. Beside her stood a little countess, one of the noted court beauties, lotos-pale, bamboo-slender, in a _kimono_ of Danjiro blue, with woven lilies. In the clear radiance, Barbara stood almost surrounded. Her white satin gown shimmered in the light, which caught like globes of fire in the gold passion-flowers with which it was embroidered. A new sense of her beauty poured over him. She had always seemed lovely, but now her loveliness was touched with something removed and spiritual. In the blaze of light she looked as delicately pale as a moon-dahlia, but a spot of color was on either cheek and her eyes were very bright. Daunt stood still, feasting his gaze.

The Baroness Stroloff paused beside him, chatting with the Cabinet Minister and the representative of the Associated Press. They watched the forms flit past in the swinging rhythm of the _deux-temps_, _kimono_ weaving with black coats and uniforms, varnished pumps gliding with milk-white _tabi_ and velvet pattens. "Pretty tinted creatures," she said. "How do they ever keep on those little thonged sandals?"

"Ah, their toes were born to them," the journalist answered.

The statesman shrugged his shoulders. "Waltzing in _kimono_ with men is very, very modern for our Japanese ladies," he said. "I myself never saw it until two years ago--when the American Fleet was here. That established it as a fashion. Some of us older ones may frown, but--_shikata-ga-nai!_ 'Way out there is none,' as we say in our language. It's a part of the process of Westernization!"

Daunt started when Patricia's fan tapped his arm.

"You're frightfully late," she said, as her partner, the German _Chargé_, bowed himself away. "Father will give you a wigging if you don't look out."

"I saw him a few moments ago," he answered. "He didn't seem very fierce."

"Was he still looking at those spooky curios? I can't see what anybody wants such things for! I always feel like saying what Mark Twain's man said when they showed him the mummy: 'If you've got any nice fresh corpse, trot him out.'"

Daunt's smile was a mechanism. She knew that he had ceased to listen. As she looked at his side-face with her clear, kind eyes, a shadow came to her own. Her loyal heart was troubled. After her drive that afternoon, Barbara had kept her room on the plea of rest for the evening; she had not come down to dinner and had appeared only at the moment of starting. At the first glance, then, Patricia had noticed the change. The Barbara she had always known, of flashing impulses and girlish graces, was gone; the Barbara of the evening had seemed suddenly older, of even rarer beauty, perhaps, but with something of detachment, of unfamiliarity. Riding beside her to the ball, Patricia had felt, under the eager, brilliant gaiety, this chilly sense of estrangement, and it had puzzled her. Later she had come to connect it with the man of whose coming Barbara had told her, the man with handsome, bearded face who had seemed, since his greeting in the moment of their entrance, to take unobtrusive yet assured possession of such of her moments as were not given to the great. Withal, he had lent this an air of the natural and habitual which, nicely poised and completely conventional as it was, seemed to convey a subtle atmosphere of proprietorship. So now, as she saw Daunt's gaze, Patricia was a little sad. There had fallen a silence between them which he broke with a sudden exclamation.

"No wonder!" he said.

"No wonder what?"

"That she is a success."

"Success! I should think so. She's danced with three Ambassadors and Prince Hojo sat out two numbers with her. Just look at the men around her now!"

The music had drifted into a waltz and the group about Barbara was dissolving. A dark face was bending near. Its owner put his arm about her and they glided into the throng. Ware, like all heavy men, danced perfectly and the pair seemed to skim the mirroring floor as easily as swallows, her red-bronze hair, caught under a web of seed-pearls, glowing like a net of fire-flies. Heads turned back over white shoulders and on the edges of the room people whispered as they passed. Floating lightly as sea-foam, the shimmering gown drew near, passing so close that Daunt could have touched it. The lovely white face, over her partner's shoulder, met Daunt's. For a fraction of a second Barbara's eyes looked into his--then swept by as if he had been empty air. It was as if a clenched hand had struck him across the face.

He whitened. Patricia felt a sudden sting in her eyelids. She slipped her hand through his arm, and saying something about the heat (it was deliciously cool), drew him down the corridor. She chatted on airily, fighting a desire to cry. But when they came to the entrance of the cherry-blooms, he had not spoken a word.

"I see mother still in the spook room," she said. "I must go back to her--no, please don't come with me! Thank you so much for bringing me so far."

She left him with a nod and a bright smile that he did not see. He was in a painful quicksand of bewilderment. The cherry-garden was almost empty and the fountain tinkled in a perfumed quiet. He sat down on a bench in its farthest corner. What did it mean? Why, it had been like the cut direct! From her?--impossible! She had not seen him! He had been mistaken! He would go to her--now! He sprang up.

A page came into the garden. He was a part of the Minister's establishment; Daunt had often seen him in that house. He carried a tray with a letter on it.

"For you, sir," he said.

Puzzled, Daunt took it and the boy withdrew. It bore no address. He tore it open. It contained some folded sheets of paper. A tense whiteness sprang to his face as he unfolded them. It was his letter--the only love-letter he had ever written--torn across.

Now he knew! It had been true--what he had imagined of the yacht! The cherry-trees seemed to writhe about him, bizarre one-legged dancers waving pink draperies, and a tide of resentment and grief rose in his breast as hot as lava. Had she been only playing with him, then? When she had lain panting in his arms in Ben-ten's cave--when her lips had quivered to his kisses--had it all been acting? Was this what she really was, his "Lady of the Many-Colored Fires?" He, poor fool! had deemed it real, when it had been only a week's amusement. He had almost guessed the truth that night at the tea-house, and how cleverly she had fooled him! His jarring laugh rang out across the tinkle of the fountain. Then, Austen Ware's telegram! It was he who had danced with her to-night, no doubt--Phil's brother. For her the little play was over. The curtain had to be rung down, and this was how she did it.

Dim thoughts like these went flitting through the gap of his racked senses. He dropped on the bench and bowed his head between his hands. It had been real enough to him. Painted on his closed eyelids he seemed to see, with a chill, numb certainty, his future unrolling like a gray panorama, incoherent and unwhole, its colors lack-luster, its purpose denied, its meaning missed. Pain lifted its snake-head from the shadows and hissed in his ear, like the jubilant serpent that coiled its bright length by the gate of Eden when the flaming sword drove forth the first man to the desert of despair.

Daunt did not know that Patricia, pausing in the corridor, had seen the letter delivered and opened. She went back to her mother with a slow step.

"You look worn, dear," said Mrs. Dandridge, as they entered the ball-room. "Are you tired?"

"Yes," she said. "I think I won't dance any more, mother."

The host had entered before them and now stood at the end of the room with the Admiral of the Squadron and the Ambassador of the latter's nation. Suddenly a young man pushed hastily through the press. He handed his chief a telegram. The Ambassador scanned it, changed color, and held it out to the Admiral with shaking hand. The Secretary who had brought it said something to the Foreign Minister, who turned instantly to give a quick order to a servant. The orchestra stopped with a crash.

There was a dead hush over the brilliant room-full, broken only by the movement of the Squadron's officers as they came hurriedly forward beside their Admiral. All looked at the white-haired diplomatist who stood, his eyes full of tears, the pink telegram in his hand.

He addressed the grave group of naval men. "Gentlemen," he said, in a low voice, "I have the great grief to announce the sudden death to-day of His Majesty, the King."

He bowed to his host, and, followed by the Admiral and his officers, left the house. The Ambassadors and Ministers of the other powers, in order of their precedence, each with his glittering staff and their ladies about him, followed. The gaiety was over; it had ceased at the far-away echo of a nation's bells, tolling half a world away.

* * * * *

The great house was almost emptied of its guests when the solitary figure that had sat in the cherry-garden passed out along the deserted corridors. Daunt went utterly oblivious that its bright pageantry had departed. A feverish color was in his cheek and his eyes were dulled with a painful apathy.

Count Voynich was lighting a cigarette in the cloak room as he entered. "_Sic transit!_" he said. "This calls a quick halt on the plans of the Squadron's entertainment, doesn't it!"

There was no answer. Daunt was fumbling, from habit, for the lettered disk of wood in his pocket.

"If the King could have lived a few weeks longer," said Voynich, "we'd have heard no more talk of trouble with Japan. He was a great peacemaker. The new regent may be less circumspect. What do you think?"

No reply. He spoke again sharply.

"I say, Miss Fairfax seems to be making a tremendous walkover, eh?"

There was only silence. Daunt did not hear him. Voynich looked at his face, whistled softly under his breath, and went quietly away.