Cela!"

"She will marry no j.a.panese," said Pierre, quickly. He felt Ronsard's upward look, but did not meet it. His heart moved a little faster. This was his first bold step upon a bridge too narrow for turning.

"Ah," murmured Ronsard again.

"Yes," repeated Pierre, "she will marry no j.a.panese. I--I--am in a position to know."

"She is already betrothed, perhaps?"

"Yes."

"And not to a j.a.panese?"

"No."

"To an American, I presume. You say she has been educated in that country. _Educated!_ And in America! The thought is droll."

"Not to an American either, your Excellency. To one of your own race,--to a Frenchman."

"Ah," said Ronsard. It was wonderful what expression he could cram into that small, elastic sound. Evidently the intonation on this occasion was far from pleasing to the listener. Pierre's blue eyes flashed and darkened. Fixing them for the first time steadily on his companion he said, "She is betrothed, your Excellency, to me. Do I receive your felicitations?"

His look was a challenge. Ronsard pa.s.sed a fat hand over his mouth before asking, "With her family's consent?"

"Not yet. Our betrothal was in Washington, shortly before sailing, and entered into with the full knowledge and consent of her intimate friends, the Todds. As to the j.a.panese father's consent, we had planned and hoped to gain it immediately upon reaching j.a.pan."

Ronsard's thin eyebrows arched to the very roots of his thin, gray hair.

"You have arrived,--two weeks, is it not? You have not gained?"

"Things went wrong with me from the instant of landing," said Pierre, dejectedly. "I offended in some unknown way that grim image she calls her parent. I do not know yet in what I did wrong; but he keeps us apart, and prevents her even from writing an explanation. The Todds have seen her but once, and learned only the bald fact of her father's opposition. At the banquet last night we both seemed under espionage,--subjects for dissection, in fact. I am bewildered with the misery of it, your Excellency, for I love the girl. My one hope is that I have her promise, and on her loyalty alone I must now rely."

Count Ronsard drew a long, long whiff from his cigarette, and then ostentatiously flipped the ash in air. It dissolved before reaching the floor, a vague little puff of gray nothingness. "That is what the j.a.panese think of such a promise! The true Jehovah in j.a.pan is the composite will of the family. Is it not partly so in France, Monsieur?

If you really desired marriage with this bit of ivory, and--pardon me--so harsh a yoke seems utterly unnecessary, you should have persuaded your inamorata to become a Christian, and, while still in America, have consummated a Christian marriage. Even a j.a.panese, in these enlightened days, would not dare to attack such a bond."

"She is a Christian already," said Pierre. "And for an American marriage I pleaded with a scourged soul. Even Madame Todd advised it; but Yuki-ko would not listen. She must wait, she said, for her family's consent."

"Very proper of Mademoiselle," said Ronsard, gravely. As Pierre made no immediate reply, the count went on with his theme, "The j.a.panese family, my son, is like a large web, or a small solar system. In the midst, as a central sun, or reptile, squats the father. Behind him is the mystery and power of _his_ father, living or dead, and his father's father, back to the visionary era of Jimmu Tenno. All about him, as planets, or flies, are dotted the children, the wife, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins to the tenth branch, the family servants and their connections, the family cat, the family dog, the family ghost, the priests, soothsayers, physicians,--Mon Dieu, down to the very crickets who chirp beneath the family doorstone. In a question of marriage, all these must be consulted. The bride is no more than a gnat caught somewhere in the web, or a very small satellite belonging to a distant world."

"It is of interest, your Excellency," protested Pierre; "but I have no mind to give it. Consider my plight. I am young, madly in love, and touched with despair. I turn to you as a father."

"A father?" echoed the count, with a small gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes, "Mother of G.o.d! It is a name to conjure with. What will you?"

"You have lived here long; you know the country well. Aid me to win the only woman I can ever love."

"In lawful marriage? Shall I a.s.sist you to inclose yourself in that barbed-wire fence of love?"

"There can be no other thought for Miss Onda and me," said Pierre, stiffly.

Count Ronsard shrugged. "You are quixotic. I was so at your age. Such sentiments are, I a.s.sure you, wasted in this place. The j.a.panese themselves prefer the laxer course. They very properly execrate these mixed marriages, especially legal mixed marriages."

The man's voice was so soft, so kindly, so self-controlled, that Pierre, in a sort of wonder, turned again to study his face. The minister met his look with the friendliest of smiles and a little nod. Then, as if to give the student of physiognomy every chance, he modestly lowered his eyes.

It was a face that must have been old even in childhood,--old, and shrewd, and self-indulgent. The unhealthy fat, which gave his body an unstable rotundity, showed here chiefly in the cheeks, sagging them down into loosely filled bags, and drawing long wrinkles in the pull. The forehead, very narrow toward the top, with hair growing downward in a deep point, was as gray as the scant, bristling hair. The whole face, indeed, was gray; its hueless monotony given emphasis by the single note of the underlip which protruded, moist, velvety, and round, like a scarlet fungus from the bark of a rotting tree.

"To be candid, my boy," murmured the minister, still with eyelids drooped, "your penchant for Miss Onda was already known to me. A ship is a huge floating laboratory of social gossip. Touch land, voila, and the germs fly. My attache, Monsieur Mouquin, chanced to witness your meeting with Papa Onda. He saw your rejection, and the manner in which your betrothed was heartlessly abducted. We--that is, Mouquin and myself--have even ventured to speculate upon possibilities, diplomatic possibilities in the interest of France, that may be lying dormant in your continued--er--friendship with the charming Miss Onda. At the axis of each new twig of history, Monsieur, sits the love of a woman."

"I--I trust that I do not clearly understand your Excellency," said Pierre, fighting down, as he spoke, a whole swarm of unsavory intuitions.

The count gave a small, resigned sigh, turned slightly in his chair, and tapped with one white hand his heap of opened letters. "Several of these doc.u.ments suggest the appointment of a certain young Monsieur Le Beau to office in the French Legation at Tokio. The old Duc de St. Cyr is writer of one."

"Monsieur le Duc is my great-uncle, and my friend," said Pierre.

"You will realize that it becomes my duty to acquaint myself with the calibre of such an applicant, of a youth so highly recommended, and especially at a time when relations between our country and j.a.pan are slightly--er--neuralgic."

"I have no previous record in civil service, but I believe I could do something for France."

"Ah, that is just the point!" said the count, with more eagerness than he had yet showed. "To serve France,--that is our whole concern. You have had no training, it is true; yet you have already a weapon that old and tried diplomats might weep for. I refer, as you conjecture, to your friendship with Mademoiselle Onda, daughter of Tetsujo Onda, and ward, in a sense, of his Highness Prince Hagane."

Pierre, in a flash, was upon his feet. Cigarette ashes tumbled from the folds of his waistcoat. He hurled a newly lighted tube into the fire.

"You, sir," he began, with evident effort to control his voice, "you, sir, are experienced, and I am ignorant; you are calm and I am impetuous,--perhaps I should listen courteously to what you wish to say; but I believe it impossible for me to do so. I love this girl as a man loves the woman whom he desires to make his honored wife. In England, where I went to school, I learned ideas, stricter perhaps than Parisian conceptions, of the sacredness and the responsibility of marriage. This girl is a thing of snow. No tie could be too strong, no sacrament too safe, for pledging my fidelity. You see, I could not listen."

The count, as the young man was speaking, gazed steadily into the fire.

His face remained as expressionless as a leaf. Pierre, striding here and there in his agitation, came back at length to the mantel, and stood still. The count spoke slowly.

"It is far better for France and for you that I speak my mind fully; yet, because you are ignorant and impetuous, you cannot, as you say, listen in decent reserve. It is ever so with youth."

The deep sadness of the elder man swept aside Pierre's rising indignation. He looked very old now, huddled in the great chair, his hands spread, palm outward, to the blaze.

Pierre threw himself on an ottoman near. "Pardon my boorishness. I will listen, Monsieur, though your words be fangs. You are my mother's valued friend, and for that alone I should owe you reverence. Speak what you will."

At the re-mention of the word "mother," the same curious look flickered in Ronsard's eyes. He drew a sigh, gathered himself into a more upright posture, and asked of Pierre, in judicial tones, "Let me inquire, Monsieur, whether you and Mademoiselle Onda, or your friends the Todds, have thought out any logical conclusion, should the family of Onda determine that you are to be definitely repulsed?"

Pierre dropped his head to his hands. "No, we can think of nothing,--except elopement, and that, now, is impossible."

"Have you thought for her of a possible forced marriage?"

"To a j.a.panese? Yes, my G.o.d, when have I not thought it! No, Monsieur, I do not think it--I will not; she would accept death sooner than break her troth to me. I have her word, her broken hairpin--"

"A menacing implement--" interpolated Ronsard.

"Can you think it possible, your Excellency?"

"What, the forced marriage?" Ronsard broke off, looked at Pierre, and then, as if in compa.s.sion, removed his gaze.

"Make it not unendurable," muttered Pierre, through whitening lips.

"I make nothing," said Ronsard. "You have begun the train of disaster; I can but trace the map of possible retreat. Yes, I believe truly that the next move in her family will be to marry her off to some eligible suitor,--an old man, probably, one strong enough to keep you and the girl in check. Some worn-out voluptuary, or a War-G.o.d in Pig Iron, like old Hagane himself."

Pierre raised bloodshot eyes. His mouth writhed and opened, but no words came. The old diplomat's voice had been like cut velvet, woven on wires of steel.