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            <title>The Honorable Miss Moonlight</title>
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                     <bibl xml:id="bibl154"><author><name ref="pers:WE1">Watanna, Onoto</name></author>.
                     <title level="m">The Honorable Miss Moonlight</title>. New York, <publisher ref="org:Harper">Harper and Brothers</publisher>, <date when="1912">1912</date>.</bibl>
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      <body>
         <head>The Honorable Miss Moonlight</head>
         <opener>
            <byline>By <name ref="pers:WE1">Onoto Watanna</name></byline>
         </opener>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER I</head>

      <p>The day had been long and sultry. It
      was the season of little heat, when an
      all-encompassing humidity seemed suspended
      over the land. Sky and earth
      were of one monotonous color, a dim
      blue, which faded to shadowy grayness at the fall of
      the twilight.</p>
            
      <p>With the approach of evening, a soothing breeze
      crept up from the river. Its faint movement brought
      a measure of relief, and nature took on a more animated
      aspect.</p>
      
      <p>Up through the narrow, twisting roads, in and
      out of the never-ending paths, the lights of countless
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">jinrikishas</foreign> twinkled, bound for the Houses of
      Pleasure. Revelers called to each other out of the
      balmy darkness. Under the quivering light of a
      lifted lantern, suspended for an instant, faces gleamed
      out, then disappeared back into the darkness.</p>
            
            <pb n="2"/>
            
      <p>To the young Lord Saito Gonji the night seemed
      to speak with myriad tongues. Like some finely
      tuned instrument whose slenderest string must vibrate
      if touched by a breath, so the heart of the
      youth was stirred by every appeal of the night.
      He heard nothing of the chatter and laughter of
      those about him. For the time at least, he had put
      behind him that sickening, deadening thought that
      had borne him company now for so long. He was
      giving himself up entirely to the brief hour of joy,
      which had been agreeably extended to him in extenuation
      of the long life of thralldom yet to come.</p>
            
      <p>It was in his sole honor that the many relatives
      and connections of his family had assembled, joyously
      to celebrate the fleeting hours of youth. For
      within a week the Lord Saito Gonji was to marry.
      Upon this pale and dreamy youth the hopes of the
      illustrious house of Saito depended. To him the
      august ancestors looked for the propagating of their
      honorable seed. He was the last of a great family,
      and had been cherished and nurtured for one purpose
      only.</p>

      <p>With almost as rigid care as would have been
      bestowed upon a novitiate priest, Gonji had been
      educated.</p>
            
      <p><q>Send the child you love upon a journey</q>, admonished
      the stern-hearted Lady Saito Ichigo to
      her husband; and so at the early age of five the little
      Gonji was sent to Kummumotta, there to be trained<pb n="3"/>
      under the strictest discipline known to the <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>.
      Here he developed in strength and grace of body;
      but, seemingly caught in some intangible web, the
      mind of the youth awoke not from its dreams. His
      arm had the strength of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>, said his
      teachers, but his spirit and his heart were those of
      the poet.</p>
      
      <p>There came a period when he was placed in the
      Imperial University, and a new life opened to the
      wondering youth. New laws, new modes of thought,
      the alluring secrets of strange sciences, baffling and
      fascinating, all opened their doors to the infatuated
      and eager Gonji. With the enthusiasm born of his
      solitary years, the boy grasped avidly after the
      ideals of the New Japan. His career in college was
      notable. In him professor and student recognized
      the born leader and genius. He was to do great
      things for Japan some day!</p>
            
      <p>Then came a time when the education of the youth
      was abruptly halted, and he was ordered to return
      to his home. While his mind was still engaged in
      the fascinating employment of planning a career,
      his parents ceremoniously presented him to Ohano,
      a girl he had known from childhood and a distant
      relative of his mother’s family. Mechanically and
      obediently the dazed Gonji found himself exchanging
      with the maiden the first gifts of betrothal.</p>

      <p>Ohano was plump, with a round, somewhat sullen
      face, a pouting, full-lipped mouth, and eyes so small<pb n="4"/>
      they seemed but mere slits in her face. She had inherited
      the inscrutable, disdainful expression of her
      lofty ancestors.</p>

      <p>Though he had played with her as a child and had
      seen her upon every occasion during his school vacations,
      Gonji looked at her now with new eyes. As a
      little boy he had liked Ohano. She was his sole playmate,
      and it had been his delight to tease her. Now,
      as he watched her stealthily, he was consumed with a
      sense of unutterable despair. Could it be that his
      fairest dreams were to end with Ohano?</p>
            
      <p>Like every other Japanese youth, who knows that
      some day his proper mate will be chosen and given
      to him, Gonji had conjured up a lovely, yielding
      creature of the imagination, a gentle, smiling, mysterious
      Eve, who, like a new world, should daily surprise
      and delight him. As he looked at Ohano,
      sitting placidly and contentedly by his side, he was
      conscious only of an inner tumult of rebellion and
      repulsion against the chains they were forging inexorably
      about him and this girl. It was impossible,
      he felt, to drag him nearer to her. The very thought
      revolted, stunned him, and suddenly, rudely, he
      turned his back upon his bride.</p>

      <p>The relatives agreed that something should be
      done to offset the gloom of the first stages of betrothal.
      It was suggested that the bridegroom have
      a full week of freedom. As was the custom among
      many, he should for the first time be introduced to<pb n="5"/>
      the life of gaiety and pleasure that lay outside the
      lofty, ancestral walls, the better, later, to appreciate
      the calm and pure joys of home and family.</p>
            
      <p>In single file the <foreign xml:lang="ja">jinrikishas</foreign> had been running
      along a narrow road which overlooked city and bay.
      Now they swerved into shadowy by-paths and
      plunged into the heart of the woods. A velvety
      darkness, through which the drivers picked their
      way with caution, enwrapped them.</p>

      <p>For some time the tingling music of <foreign xml:lang="ja">samisen</foreign> and
      drum close by had been growing ever clearer. Suddenly
      the glimmer of many lights was seen, as if
      suspended overhead. Almost unconsciously faces
      were raised, excited breaths drawn in admiration and
      approval. Like a great sparkling jewel hung in mid-air,
      the House of Slender Pines leaned over its wooded
      terraces toward them.</p>
            
      <p>Gay little mousmés, rubbing hands and knees together,
      ran to meet them at the gate, kowtowing and
      hissing in obeisance. The note of a <foreign xml:lang="ja">samisen</foreign> was
      heard; and a thin little voice, sweet, and incredibly
      high, broke into song. <foreign xml:lang="ja">Geishas</foreign>, with great flowers
      in their hair, fell into a posturing group, dancing with
      hand, head, and fan. Gonji watched them in a
      fascinated silence, noting the minutest detail of their
      attire, their expression, their speech. They belonged
      to a world which, till now, he had not been permitted
      even to explore. Nay, till but recently he had been
      rigidly guarded from even the slightest possible con-<pb n="6"/>tact
      with these little creatures of joy. Soon he was
      to be set in the niche destined for him by his ancestors.
      Here was his sole opportunity to seize the
      fleeting delights of youth.</p>

      <p>A laughing-faced mousmé, red-lipped and with
      saucy, teasing eyes that peeped at him from beneath
      veiled lashes, knelt to hold his <foreign xml:lang="ja">sake</foreign>-tray. He leaned
      gravely toward the girl and examined her face with
      a curious wonder; but her smile brought no response
      to the somewhat sad and somber lips of the young
      man, nor did he even deign to sip the fragrant cup
      she tendered.</p>

      <p>An elder cousin offered some chaffing advice, and
      an hilarious uncle suggested that the master of the
      house put his <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> upon parade; but the father of
      Gonji roughly interposed, declaring that his son’s
      thoughts, naturally, were elsewhere. It was so with
      all expectant bridegrooms. His father’s words awoke
      the boy from his dreaming. He turned very pale and
      trembled. His head drooped forward, and he felt an
      irresistible inclination to cover his face with his hands.
      His father’s voice sounded in gruff whisper at his ear:</p>
            
      <p><q>Pay attention. You see now the star of the
      night. It is the famous Spider, spinning her web!</q></p>
            
      <p>As Gonji slowly raised his head and gazed like one
      spellbound at the dancer, his father added, with a
      sudden vehemence:</p>

      <p><q>Take care, my son, lest she entrap thee, too, like
      the proverbial fly</q>.</p>
          
            <pb n="7"/>
            
      <p>A hush had fallen upon the gardens. Almost it
      seemed as if the tiny feet of the dancer stirred not
      at all. Yet, with imperceptible advances, she moved
      nearer and nearer to her fascinated audience. Above
      her flimsy gown of sheerest veiling, which sprang
      like a web on all sides and above her, her face shone
      with its marvelous beauty and allurement. Her
      lips were apart, smiling, coaxing, teasing; and her
      eyes, wide and very large, seemed to seek over the
      heads of her audience for the one who should prove
      her prey. It was the final motion of the dance of
      the Spider, the seeking for, the finding, the seizing
      of her imaginary victim. Now the Spider’s eyes had
      ceased to wander. They were fixed compellingly
      upon those of the Lord Saito Gonji.</p>
            
      <p>He had arisen to his feet, and with a half-audible
      exclamation—a sound of an indrawn sigh—he
      advanced toward the dancer. For a moment,
      breathlessly, he stood close beside her. The subtle
      odor of her perfumed hair and body stole like a
      charm over his senses. Her sleeve fluttered against
      his hand for but the fraction of a moment, yet
      thrilled and tormented him. He looked at the
      Spider with the eyes of one who sees a new and radiant
      wonder. Then darkness came rudely between
      them. The <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>’s face vanished with the light.
      He was standing alone, staring into the darkness, his
      father’s voice droning meaninglessly in his ear.</p>
            
            <pb n="8"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER II</head>

  
      <p>Her real name was as poetical as the one
      she was known by was forbidding and
      repelling. Moonlight, it was; though
      all the gay world which hovers about a
      famous <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, like flies over the honey-pot,
      knew her solely as the <q>Spider</q>.</p>
            
      <p><q>Spider</q> she was called because of the peculiar
      dance she had originated. It was against all classical
      precedents, but of so exceptional a character
      that in a night, a single hour, as it were, she found herself
      from a humble little apprentice the most celebrated
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> in Kioto, that paradise of <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>.</p>
            
      <p>It was a day of golden fortune for Matsuda, who
      owned the girl. She had been bound to his service
      since the age of seven with bonds as drastic as if the
      days of slavery still existed.</p>
            
      <p>Harsh, cunning, even cruel to the many girls in
      his employ, Matsuda had yet one vulnerable point.
      That was his overwhelming affection for the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>
      he had married, and she was afflicted with a malady
      of the brain. Some said it was due to the death of
      her many children, all of whom had succumbed to
      an infectious disease. From whatever misfortune,<pb n="9"/>
      the gentle <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>, as they called her in the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house,
      was at intervals blank-minded. Still she,
      the harmless, gentle creature, was loved by the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>; and, as far as it lay in her power, she was
      their friend, and often saved them from the wrath
      of Matsuda. It was into her empty bosom the little
      Moonlight had crept and found a warm and loving
      home. With a yearning as deep as though the child
      were her own, the wife of Matsuda watched over the
      child. It was under her tutelage that Moonlight
      learned all the arts of an accomplished <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>. In
      her time the wife of Matsuda had been very famous,
      too, and no one knew better than she, soft of
      mind and witless as she was at times, the dances and
      the songs of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house.</p>
            
      <p>Matsuda had watched with some degree of irritation,
      not unmixed with a peculiar jealousy, his wife’s
      absorption in the tiny Moonlight. He did not approve
      of gentle treatment toward a mere apprentice.
      It was only by harsh measures that a girl could
      properly learn the severe profession. Later, when
      she had mastered all the intricate arts and graces,
      then, perhaps, one might prove lenient. It was no
      uncommon thing for a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> to be pampered and
      spoiled, but an apprentice, never!</p>

      <p>However, the child seemed to make happier the
      lot of the beloved <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>, and there was nothing
      to be done about the matter.</p>
            
      <p>Disliking the child, Matsuda nevertheless recog-<pb n="10"/>nized
      from the first her undoubted beauty, the thing
      which had induced him, in fact, to pay an exceptional
      price to her guardians for her. He had little faith
      in her future as a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, however, since his wife
      chose to pet and protect her. How was it possible
      for her to learn from the poor, witless <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>?
      When the latter joyously jabbered of the little one’s
      wonderful progress, Matsuda would smile or grunt
      surlily.</p>
            
      <p>Then, one day, walking in the woods, he had
      come, unexpectedly, upon the posturing child, tossing
      her little body from side to side like a wind-blown
      flower, while his wife picked two single notes
      upon the <foreign xml:lang="ja">samisen</foreign>. Matsuda watched them dumb-smitten.
      Was it possible, he asked himself, that
      the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> had discovered what he had overlooked?
      But he brushed the thought aside. These
      were merely the precocious antics of a spoiled child.
      They would not be pretty in one grown to womanhood.
      There was much to do in the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house.
      The fame of his gardens must be kept assiduously
      before the public. Matsuda had no time for the
      little Moonlight, save, chidingly, to frown upon her
      when she was not in the presence of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>.
      And so, almost unobserved by the master of the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house, Moonlight came to the years of
      maidenhood.</p>
            
      <p>One night the House of Slender Pines was honored
      by the unexpected advent of most exalted guests.<pb n="11"/>
      The chief <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> were absent at an entertainment,
      and Matsuda was in despair. He was forced, consequently,
      to put the novices into service, and while
      he bit his nails frenziedly at the awkward movements
      of the apprentices, Moonlight slipped to his
      side and whispered in his ear that she was competent
      to dance as beautifully as the chief <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>.
      As he stared at her in wrathful irritation, his wife
      glided to his other side and joined the girl in pleading.
      Gruffly he consented. Matters could not be
      much worse. What mattered it now? He was already
      disgraced in the eyes of the most high. Well,
      then, let this pet apprentice do her foolish dance.</p>
            
      <p>Moonlight seized her opportunity with the gay
      avidity of the gambler who tosses his all upon a
      final chance. At the risk of meeting the fearful
      displeasure of her master, the ridicule, disdain, and
      even hatred of the older <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>, whom it was her
      duty to imitate, the girl danced before the most
      critical audience in Kioto.</p>
            
      <p>Her triumph was complete. It may have been
      the novelty or mystery of her dance, the hypnotic
      perfection of her art; it may have been her own
      surpassing beauty—no one sought to analyze the
      source of her peculiar power. Before the smiling,
      coaxing witchery of her eyes and lips they fell
      figuratively, and indeed literally, upon their knees.</p>
            
      <p>She became the mad furore and fashion of
      the hour. Poets indited lyrics to her respective<pb n="12"/>
      features. Princes flung gifts at her feet. People
      traveled from the several quarters of the empire
      to see her. And at this most dangerous period of
      her career the young Lord Saito Gonji, last of one
      of the most illustrious families in Japan, crossed
      her path.</p>
            
            <pb n="13"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER III</head>


      <p>His honorable mother declared that Gonji
      was afflicted with a malady of the
      stomach. She proffered warm drinks
      and poultices and sought to induce him
      to remain in bed. Now that the long
      and severe years of discipline had passed and her
      son was at last at home with her, all of the natural
      mother within her, which had been repressed so long,
      yearned over her only son. Even her cold and
      somewhat repelling manner showed a softening.</p>
            
      <p>Had he not been at this time absorbed in his
      own dreams, Gonji would have met half-way the
      pathetic advances of his mother; but he was oblivious
      to the change in her. He insisted politely that his
      health was excellent, begged to be excused, and
      wandered off by himself.</p>

      <p>His father, whose mighty business interests were
      in Tokio, abandoned them for the time being and
      remained by his son’s side in Kioto, following the
      young man assiduously, seeking vainly to arouse
      him from the melancholy lethargy into which he
      had fallen. Deep in the heart of the elder Lord
      Saito was the acute knowledge of what troubled<pb n="14"/>
      his son, for afflicted he undoubtedly was, as all the
      relatives unanimously and officiously averred. Such
      a funereal countenance was unbefitting a bridegroom.
      One would think the unhappy youth was
      being driven to his tomb, rather than to the bridal
      bed!</p>

      <p>The parents and relatives vied with each other
      in importuning the unfortunate Gonji, and sought
      to distract him from what were evidently his own
      morbid thoughts. Also they sought to entrap his
      confidence. Gonji kept his counsel, and from day
      to day he grew paler, thinner, more silent, and sad.</p>

      <p><q>Call in the services of the mightiest of honorable
      physicians and surgeons</q>, ordered the Lady Saito.
      <q>It may be an operation will relieve our son</q>.</p>
            
      <p>Her husband, thoughtful, sad, a prey to an uneasy
      conscience, shook his head dumbly.</p>
            
      <p><q>It is not possible for the honorable knife to
      efface a cancer of the heart</q>, said he, sighing.</p>
            
      <p><q>Hasten the nuptials</q>, suggested the uncle of
      Ohano. <q>There is no medicine which acts with as
      drastic force as a wife</q>.</p>
            
      <p>This time the Lord Saito Ichigo was even more
      emphatic in negativing the suggestion.</p>
            
      <p><q>There is time enough</q>, he asserted, gruffly.
      <q>I will not begrudge my son at least the short and
      precious time which should precede the ceremony.
      This is his period of diversion. It shall not be cut
      in half</q>.</p>
            
            <pb n="15"/>
            
      <p>The brusque words of the head of the Saito house
      aroused the ire of the nearest relative of the bride.
      He said complainingly:</p>

      <p><q>It does not seem as if the honorable bridegroom
      desires to avail himself of his prenuptial privileges.
      He does not seek the usual diversions of youth at
      this time. Is it not unnatural to prefer solitude?</q></p>
            
      <p><q>It is a matter of choice</q>, contended the father
      of Gonji, with curt pride.</p>
                  
      <p><q>But if it injure his health, is it not the duty of
      the relatives to assist him?</q></p>
      
      <p><q>The gates of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">saito</foreign> are wide open. My son
      is not a prisoner. He is at liberty to go whithersoever
      he pleases. It is apparent that his pleasures lie not
      outside the ancestral home of his fathers</q>.</p>
            
      <p><q>That</q>, said the uncle of Ohano, suavely, <q>is
      because he still stumbles in the period of adolescence.
      It is necessary he be instructed</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>The father of Gonji pondered the matter somberly,
      pulling with thumb and forefinger at his
      lower lip. After a moment he said, with sudden
      determination:</p>
                  
      <p><q>You are right, Takedo Isami. Your superior
      suggestion is gratefully received. Since my son
      will not seek the pleasures of youth, let us bring
      them to our house. It is necessary immediately to
      arouse him from a youthful despair which may
      tend to injure his health</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>He looked up and met the cunning eye of his<pb n="16"/>
      prospective kinsman regarding him with a peculiar
      expression. Ichigo added, gruffly but sturdily:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It would be an excellent programme to secure the
      services of the honorable Spider of the House of
      Slender Pines. I pray you undertake the matter
      for me. See Matsuda, the master of the house.
      Spare no expense in the matter</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>The expression on Takedo’s face was now enigmatic.
      He emptied his pipe slowly and with deliberation,
      as if in thought. Then solemnly he
      bobbed his bald head, as if in assent. The two old
      men then arose, shaking their skirts and hissing
      perfunctorily. Their bows were formal, and the
      words of parting the usual friendly and polite ones;
      but each met the eye of the other, and both understood;
      and, strangely, a sense of antagonism arose
      between them.</p>
            
            <pb n="17"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER IV</head>

  
      <p>So it was in the honorable house of his
      father, and of the hundred august ancestors
      whom they accused him of dishonoring,
      that Gonji again saw the
      Spider.</p>
                  
      <p>Into the houses of the most exalted the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>
      flutters with the free familiarity of a pampered
      house pet. No festivity, however private, is considered
      complete without her. She is as necessary
      as the flowers that bedeck the house, the viands,
      and the <foreign xml:lang="ja">sake</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p>Upon a humid night in the season of greatest
      heat, and in the glow of a thousand fireflies, the
      Spider danced in the gardens of the house of Saito.
      Her <foreign xml:lang="ja">kimono</foreign> was vermilion, embroidered with dragons
      of gold. Gold too were her <foreign xml:lang="ja">obi</foreign> and her fan, and
      red and gold were the ornaments that glistened
      like fire in her hair. Yet more brilliant, more
      sparklingly, gleamed and shone the eyes of the
      dancer, and her scarlet lips were redder than the
      poppies in her hair, and held an hypnotic allure
      for the Lord Saito Gonji, watching her in a breathless
      silence that fairly pained him.</p>
            
            <pb n="18"/>
                  
      <p>Every gesture, every slightest flutter of her sleeve,
      her hand, her fan, every smallest turn or motion
      of her bewitching head, was directed at the guest
      of honor, the son and heir of the house of Saito.
      For him alone she seemed to dance. To him she
      threw her joyous smiles, and, in the end, when the
      dance was done, it was at his feet she knelt, raising
      her naïvely coy, half-questioning glance. Then,
      very softly and with gentle solicitation:</p>
      
      <p><q>At your sole honorable service, noble lord</q>, she
      said. <q>What is your pleasure next?</q></p>
      
      <p>He said, like one awakening from some strange
      dream or trance:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is my pleasure, <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, that you look into
      my eyes</q>.</p>
            
      <p>She glanced up timidly, as if troubled and surprised.
      A wistfully joyous light came into her dark
      eyes; then they remained unmovingly fixed upon
      his. Very softly, that those about them might not
      hear, he whispered:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I saw your face dimly in the firefly-light. I was
      possessed with but one ambition—to look into your
      eyes!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Her pretty head drooped so low that now it touched
      his knee. At the contact he trembled and drew
      sharply away from her. Alarmed, fearing she had
      unwittingly offended him, she raised her head and
      looked at him with a mutely questioning glance.
      There was a cloud, dark and very melancholy, upon<pb n="19"/>
      the face of the one she had been ordered to entertain.
      She thought of the instructions of Matsuda:
      that it should be her paramount duty to beguile
      and distract the Lord Saito Gonji. Her fortune for
      life might be made by succeeding in arousing him
      to a joyous mood. But, lo! the one she sought to
      please drew back from her, gloomy, troubled.</p>
      
      <p>Her rapid rise to fame had not brought to the
      Spider the peculiar joy she had anticipated. Fame
      carries ever with it its bitter savor, and, although
      she had not alone become the darling of the celebrated
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house, but had brought fame and
      fortune to her master, many of the things she had
      most cared for she had been obliged to forego in
      her new position as star of the House of Slender
      Pines.</p>
                  
      <p>No longer was it possible for her to be shielded
      by the loving arms of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>. Out into the
      broadest limelight even the delighted <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> had
      pushed her, and this blinding light entailed a thousand
      duties of which she had only vaguely heard
      from the patronizing elder <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>. She had ceased
      to be the cuddled and petted little Moonlight, loved
      and stroked and tossed about by the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>, because
      of her beauty and ingenuous wit. Suddenly
      she had become the Spider! It was a new and
      fearful name that terrified her.</p>
                  
      <p>Matsuda, proud of her success, and at last completely
      won over, surrounded her with every luxury.<pb n="20"/>
      So far he had forced upon the girl none of the odious
      exactions often demanded of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> by their
      masters, even though the law had defined the exact
      services to which he was legally entitled.</p>
                  
      <p>A thousand lovers a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> might have, said the
      unwritten law, but to possess one alone was fatal!
      She must place a guard of iron before her heart! A
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> must sip at love as the bee culls the honey
      from the blossom, lingering but a moment over each.
      The rivers and the many pits of death were filled
      with the bodies of the hapless ones who had gone
      outside this law, who had dared to permit the passionate
      heart to escape beyond the prescribed bounds.</p>
      
      <p>Moonlight, with all the witching arts of the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> at her finger-tips, with a beauty as rare and
      mysterious as though she were a princess of some
      new world, had found it thus far an easy task to
      follow the rules laid down for her class. Like a
      fragile flower that must not be touched lest its
      bloom be soiled, the master of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house
      jealously protected his star from all possible contamination.
      She was held out as a lure to captivate
      and draw to his house the rich and noble ones; but,
      like some precious jewel in a casket, she was but
      to be seen, not touched! Matsuda was determined
      to save his most precious possession for the highest
      of bidders. Now his patience had met its due reward.
      The most illustrious head of the house of
      the exalted Saito solicited his services!</p>
            
            <pb n="21"/>
      
      <p>So, while Matsuda gloated over the rich reward
      to be reaped surely from his lordly patron, the
      Spider was looking with frightened eyes into those
      of the Lord Saito Gonji, and she trembled and
      turned very pale under his somber glance. All her
      gay insouciance, her saucy, quick repartee, the
      teasing, witching little graces for which she now
      was noted, seemed to have deserted her. It troubled
      her that she was unable to obey the command of
      her master and make his most noble patron smile.
      Within the piercing eyes which sought her own she
      seemed to read only some tragic question, which,
      alas, she felt unable to answer.</p>
      
      <p><q>I desire to please you, noble sir</q>, she said, plaintively,
      and added, with an impulsive motion of her
      little hands: <q>Alas! It is my duty!</q></p>
                  
      <p>For the first time a faint smile quivered across
      the young man’s lips; but he did not speak. He
      continued to regard her in that musing fashion, as
      though he studied every feature of her face and
      drank in its loveliness with something of resignation
      and despair.</p>
                  
      <p>His curious silence affected her. Was it not
      possible to arouse the strange one, then, to some
      animation and interest? Timidly she put out her
      hand—a mute, charming little gesture—then rested
      it upon his own. As though her touch had some
      electric power which stirred him to the depths, he
      leaned suddenly toward her, inclosing her hand<pb n="22"/> in
      a close, almost painful grip. Now hungrily, pleadingly,
      his look enveloped her. His voice trembled
      with the emotion he sought vainly to control.</p>
                  
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Geisha</foreign>, if it were possible—if we belonged in
      another land—if it were not for the customs of the
      ancestors—I would tell you what is in my heart!</q></p>
      
      <p>Like a child, wondering and curious, she answered:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I pray you, tell me! To keep a troubled secret
      is like carrying a cup brim full!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>I will ask you a question</q>, he said incisively.
      <q>Wilt thou be my wife for all the lives yet to
      come?</q></p>
      
      <p>As he spoke the forbidden words the Spider
      turned very pale. She sought to withdraw her
      trembling hands from his, but he held to them with
      a passionate tenacity. She could not speak. She
      could but look at him mutely, piteously; and her
      lovely, pleading gaze but added to the man’s distraction.</p>
            
      <p><q>Answer me!</q> he entreated. <q>Make me the
      promise, beautiful little mousmé!</q></p>
      
      <p>His vehemence and passion frightened her. She
      tried to avert her face, to turn it aside from his
      burning gaze; but he brought his own insistently
      close to hers. She could not escape his impelling
      eyes. At last, her bosom heaving up and down
      like a little troubled sea, she stammered:</p>
      
      <p><q>You speak so strangely, noble sir. I—I—am
      but—a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> of the House of Slender Pines. Thou<pb n="23"/>
      art as far above my sphere as—as—are the honorable
      stars in the heavens</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Her voice had a quality of exquisite terror, as
      though she sought vainly to thrust aside some
      hypnotic force to which she yearned to yield. It
      aroused but the ardor of her lover.</p>
      
      <p><q>It is not possible</q>, he murmured, <q>for one to
      be above thee, little <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>. Thou art lovelier than
      all the visions of the esteemed Sun Lady herself. I
      am thy lover for all time. I desire to possess thee
      utterly in all the lives yet to come. Make me the
      promise, beautiful mousmé, that thou wilt travel
      with me—that thou wilt be mine, mine only!</q></p>
            
      <p>She drew back as far from him as it was possible,
      with her hands jealously held by his own. Her
      wide, frightened eyes were fixed in terror upon his.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I cannot speak the words!</q> she gasped. <q>I
      dare not speak them, august one!</q></p>
                  
      <p>For a moment his face, which had been lighted
      by excitement and passion, darkened.</p>
                  
      <p><q>You cannot then return my love?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Ah! They are not words for a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> to speak.
      It is not for such as I to make the long journey with
      one so illustrious as thou!</q></p>
                  
      <p>A sob broke from her, and because she could no
      longer bear to meet his burning gaze she hid her
      face with the motion of a child against their clasped
      hands.</p>
                  
      <p>For a long moment there was silence between<pb n="24"/>
      them. Louder, noisier, rose the mirth of the revelers
      about them. A dozen <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> pulled at the
      three-stringed instruments. As many more swayed
      and moved in the figures of the classical dance.
      Like great, gaudy butterflies, their bright wings
      fluttering behind them, the moving figures of the
      tea-maidens passed before them. Almost it seemed
      as if they two had been purposely set apart and
      forgotten. No one approached them. With concerted
      caution, all avoided a glance in the direction
      of the guest of honor and the famous one who
      had been chosen to beguile and save him. How well
      she had performed her task one could see in the
      beaming face of Matsuda, the uneasy face of the
      elder Lord Saito, and the somewhat scowling one of
      the uncle of Ohano.</p>
                  
      <p>The Lord Gonji saw nothing of the relatives. He
      was oblivious indeed of everything save the shining,
      drooped little head upon his hands. Scarcely he
      knew his own voice, so superlatively gentle and
      wooing was its tone.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I pray you, give me complete happiness with
      the promise, beloved one</q>, he entreated.</p>
                  
      <p>She raised her head slowly; and gravely, wistfully,
      her eyes now questioned him. Dimly she realized
      the effect of such a union upon his haughty family
      and the ancestors.</p>
                  
      <p>She was but a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, a cultivated toy, educated
      for the one purpose of beguiling men and making<pb n="25"/>
      their lot brighter. Like the painted and grotesque
      comedian who tortured his limbs to make others
      laugh, so it was the duty of a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> to keep ever
      the laugh upon her lips, even though the heart
      within her broke. It was not possible that to her,
      a mere dancing girl, one was offering the entrancing
      opportunity of which lovers whisper to each
      other. Her face was very pinched and white, the
      eyes startlingly large, as she answered him:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I dare not speak the words, noble sir. I do not
      know the way. The <foreign xml:lang="ja">Meido</foreign> is very far off. We
      meet but once. Your honorable parents and the
      ancestors would turn back one so humble and insignificant
      as I</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>The honorable parents</q>, he gently explained,
      <q>can but point our duty in the present life. In
      the lives yet to come we choose our own companions.
      If I could—if it were possible—how gladly would
      I take thee also for this present life</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>She drew back, puzzled, vaguely distressed.</p>
                  
      <p><q>You—you do not wish me <hi style="font-style:italic">now</hi> also?</q> she stammered,
      and there was a shocked, dazed note in her
      voice. He saw what was in her mind, and it startled
      him.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Do you not know why they have summoned
      you here to-night?</q> he questioned.</p>
                  
      <p><q>At—at the command of my master</q>, she faltered.
      <q>I am here to—to please thee, noble sir.
      If it please thee to make a jest—</q></p>
            
            <pb n="26"/>
                  
      <p>She broke off piteously and tried to smile. Her
      hands slipped from his as he arose suddenly and
      looked down at her solemnly, where she still knelt
      at his feet.</p>
                  
      <p><q>You are here</q>, he said, <q>to celebrate my honorable
      betrothal to Takedo Ohano-san</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>She did not move, but continued to stare up at
      him with the dumb-stricken look of one unjustly
      punished. Then suddenly she sobbed, and her
      little head rested upon the ground at his feet.</p>
                  
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Geisha!</foreign></q> He called to her sharply, commandingly,
      and yet with a world of pleading emotion.
      Matsuda, hovering near, turned and looked loweringly
      at the girl on the ground. Her face was
      humbly in the dust at the feet of the Lord Saito
      Gonji. It was a position unworthy of a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, and
      Matsuda moved furiously nearer to them. This
      was the work of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>, inwardly he fumed.
      Now when the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> was put to the greatest test
      she was found wanting. At the feet of the man
      when he should have knelt at hers.</p>
      
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Geisha</foreign>!</q></p>
                  
      <p>This time there was nothing but tenderness in
      his voice. He was conscious of the fact that
      the girl at his feet was suffering. He loved her,
      and was sure that life without her would be both
      intolerable and worthless. He had begged her to
      travel with him upon the final <q>long journey</q>. She,
      in her simple innocence, believed he had asked her<pb n="27"/>
      in marriage for this life also. Now, humiliated, she
      dared not look at him.</p>
                  
      <p>Down he knelt beside her; but when he sought to
      put his arms about her, she sprang wildly to her
      feet. Not for a moment did she pause, but like
      some hunted, terrified thing fled fleetly across the
      garden.</p>
                  
      <p>He started to follow, but stopped suddenly,
      blinded by the sudden excess of madness and rage
      that swept over him. For, as she ran, her master,
      Matsuda, doubled over in her path. His face was
      purple. His wicked little eyes glittered like one
      gone insane, and his great thick lips fell apart,
      showing the teeth like tusks of some wild beast.
      Gonji saw the shining doubled fists as they rose in
      the air and descended upon the head of the hapless
      Spider. Then he sprang forward like a madman,
      leaping at the throat of Matsuda and tossing him
      aside like some unclean thing.</p>
                  
      <p>She lay unmoving upon her back, her arms cast
      out like the wings of a bird on either side. Gonji
      caught her up in his arms with a cry that rang out
      weirdly over the gardens. It stopped the mirth of
      the revelers and brought them in a hushed group
      about the pair. Now silence reigned in the gardens
      of the Saito.</p>
                  
      <p>On the upper floor of the mansion the walls had
      been pushed entirely out so that an open pavilion,
      flower-laden, made a charming retreat for the<pb n="28"/>
      <q>honorable interiors</q>, the ladies of the family, who
      might not, with propriety, join their lords in the
      revelry. Here, unseen, these <q>precious jewels of
      the household</q> might watch the celebration; but
      it was the part of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> to entertain their lord.
      Theirs the lot to receive him when, weary and worn,
      he must eventually return for rest.</p>
                 
      <p>Now, from their <foreign xml:lang="ja">sake</foreign>-sipping the ladies were
      aroused by that cry of Saito Gonji. Over the
      lantern-hung, flower-laden trellis they leaned, their
      shrill voices sounding strangely in the silence that
      had fallen upon the entire company. Some one
      lighted a torch and swung it above the group on
      the ground. Under its light the mother of Gonji,
      and his bride, Ohano, saw the form of the Spider;
      and beside her, enveloping her in his arms, whispering
      to and caressing her, was the Lord Saito
      Gonji.</p>
                  
      <p>Japanese women are trained to hide their deepest
      emotions. All the world tells of their impassive
      stoicism; but human nature is human nature, after
      all. So the bride shrieked like one who has lost
      his mind, but the cry was strangled ere it was half
      uttered. When the Lady Saito’s hand was withdrawn
      from the mouth of the bride, the pallid-faced
      Ohano slipped humbly to her knees, and,
      shaking like a leaf in a storm, stammered:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I—I—b-but laughed at the antics of the comedians.
      Oh, d-d-d-did you see—</q></p>
            
            <pb n="29"/>
                  
      <p>Here she broke off and hid her face, with a
      muffled sob, upon the breast of the elder woman.
      Without a word the latter led the girl inside, and
      the maidens drew the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign> into place, closing the
      floor.</p>
            
            <pb n="30"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER V</head>

      <p><q>Omi! Omi! Are you there? Wretched
      little maiden, why do you not come?</q>
      The Spider peered vainly down through
      the patch in her floor. Then, at the
      faint sound of a sliding foot without,
      she slapped the section of matting into place again
      and fell to work in panic haste upon her embroidery.</p>
                  
      <p>A passing <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> thrust in a curious face through
      the screens and wished her a pleasant day’s work.
      The Spider responded cheerfully and showed her
      little white teeth in the smile her associates knew
      so well. But the instant the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> had glided out
      of sight she was back at the patch again. She called
      in a whisper: <q>Omi! Omi! Omi-san!</q> but no answering
      treble child-voice responded.</p>
                  
      <p>For a while she crouched over the patch and
      sought to peer down into the passage below. As
      she knelt, something sharp flew up and smote against
      her cheek. She grasped at it. Then, hastily closing
      the patch and, with stealthy looks about her, pausing
      a moment with alert ears to listen, she opened
      at last the note. It was crushed about a pebble,
      and was written on the thinnest of tissue-paper.</p>
            
            <pb n="31"/>
                  
      <p>Moonlight drank in avidly the burning words of
      love in the poem. Her eyes were shining and brilliant,
      her cheeks and lips as red as the poppies in
      her hair, when Matsuda thrust back the sliding
      screens and entered the chamber. He said nothing
      to the smiling <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, but contented himself with
      scrutinizing her in a calculating manner, as though
      he summarized her exact value. Then, with a jerk
      or nod apparently of satisfaction, he left the room,
      and the girl was enabled to reread the beloved epistle.</p>
                  
      <p>A few moments later the screens which Matsuda
      had carefully closed behind him were cautiously
      parted a space, and the thin, impish, pert, and precocious
      face of a little girl of thirteen was thrust in.
      She made motions with her lips to the Spider, who
      laughed and nodded her head.</p>
                  
      <p>Omi—for it was she—slipped into the room. She
      was an odd-looking little creature, her body as
      thin as her wise little face, above which her hair
      was piled in elaborate imitation of the coiffure of
      her mistress and preceptress. She fell to work at
      once, solicitously arranging the dress and hair of
      the Spider and complaining bitterly that the maids
      had neglected, shamefully, her beloved mistress’s
      toilet.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Although it is not the proper work for an apprentice-<foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign></q>,
      she rattled along, <q>yet I myself
      will serve your honorable body, rather than permit
      it to suffer from such pernicious neglect</q>.</p>
            
            <pb n="32"/>
                  
      <p>She smoothed the little hands of her mistress,
      manicured and perfumed them, talking volubly all
      the time upon every subject save the one the Spider
      was waiting to hear about. At last, unable to bear
      it longer, Moonlight broke in abruptly:</p>
      
      <p><q>How you chatter of insignificant matters! You
      tease me, Omi. I shall have to chastise you. Tell
      me in a breath about the matter</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Omi grinned impishly, but at the reproachful look
      of her mistress her natural impulse to torment even
      the one she loved best in the world gave way. She
      began in a gasp, as though she had just come hastily
      into the room.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Oh, oh, you would never, never believe it in the
      world. Nor could I, indeed, had I not seen it with
      my own insignificant eyes</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Yes, yes, speak quickly!</q> urged the Spider,
      eagerly hanging upon the words of the apprentice.</p>
                  
      <p>Omi drew in and expelled her breath in long,
      sibilant hisses after the manner of the most exalted
      of aristocrats.</p>
                  
      <p><q>There are six of them at the gates, not to count
      the servants and runners down the road!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight looked at her incredulously, and Omi
      nodded her head with vigor.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is so. I counted each augustness</q>. She
      began enumerating upon her fingers. <q>There was
      the high-up Count Takedo Isami, Takedo Sachi,<pb n="33"/>
      Takedo—there were four Takedos. Then the Lord
      Saito Takamura Ichigo, Saito—</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Do not enumerate them, Omi. Tell me instead
      how you came, in spite of the watchful ones, in
      spite, too, of Matsuda, to reach his lordship</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>As she spoke the last word reverently, a flush
      deepened in her cheeks and her eyes shone upon
      the apprentice with such a lovely light that the
      adoring little girl cried out sharply:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is true, Moonlight-san! Thou art lovelier
      than <foreign xml:lang="ja">Ama-terasu-o-mi-kami</foreign>!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Hush, foolish one, that is blasphemy. Indeed I
      should be very unhappy did I outshine the august
      lady of the sun in beauty. But no more digressions.
      If you do not tell me—and tell me at once—exactly
      what happened—how you reached the side of his
      lordship—how he looked—just how! What was
      said—the very words—how he spoke—acted. Did
      he smile, or was he sad, Omi? Tell me—tell me,
      please!</q> She ended coaxingly; but, as the pert little
      apprentice merely smiled tantalizingly, she added,
      very severely:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It may be I will look about for a new understudy.
      There is Ochika—</q></p>
                  
      <p>At the mention of her rival’s name Omi made a
      scornful grimace, but she answered quickly:</p>
                 
      <p><q>The <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> helped me. She pretended an
      illness. Matsuda was afraid, and remained by her
      side, chafing her hands and her head</q>. She laughed<pb n="34"/>
      maliciously, and continued: <q>I slipped out by the
      bamboo-hedge gate. Omatsu saw me—</q> At the
      look of alarm on the Spider’s face: <q>Pooh! what
      does it matter? Every servant in the house—ah!
      and the maids and apprentices—yes, and the most
      honorable <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> too—know the secret, and they
      wish you well, sweet mistress!</q></p>
                  
      <p>She squeezed Moonlight’s hands with girlish fervor,
      and the latter returned the pressure lovingly,
      but besought her to continue.</p>
                  
      <p><q>The main gates were closed. Just think! No
      one is admitted even to the gardens. Why, ’tis like
      the days of feudalism. We are in a fortress, with
      the enemy on all sides!</q></p>
      
      <p><q>Oh, Omi, you let your imagination run away
      with you, and I hang upon your words, waiting to
      hear what has actually happened</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I am telling you. It is exactly as I have said.
      Matsuda dares not offend the powerful family of the
      Saito, and it is at their command that the gates
      of the House of Slender Pines are closed rigorously
      to all the public. No one dare enter. No one dare—go
      out—save—I!</q> and she smiled impudently.
      <q>It is said</q>—lowering her voice confidentially—<q>that
      Matsuda has been paid a vast sum of ‘cash’ to keep
      his house closed. Mistress, there are great notices
      in black and white nailed upon the line of trees
      clear down the road. ‘The House of Slender Pines
      is closed for the season of greatest heat!’<pb n="35"/> And
      just think</q>, and the little apprentice-<foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> pouted,
      <q>not a <foreign xml:lang="ja">koto</foreign> or a <foreign xml:lang="ja">samisen</foreign> is permitted to be touched!
      Who ever heard of a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house as silent as a
      mortuary hall? It is very sad. We wish to sing and
      dance and court the smiles of noble gentlemen; but
      you have made such a mess with your honorable love
      affair that every <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> and every apprentice is being
      punished! We are not permitted to speak above a
      whisper. Our lovers must stand beyond the gates
      and serenade us themselves. It is—</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Oh, Omi, you wander so! Now tell me, sweet
      girl, exactly what I am perishing to know</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I will, duly! You preach patience to me so
      often</q>, declared the impish little creature; <q>now
      you must practise it also. I resume my narrative.
      Pray do not interrupt so often, as it delays my
      story</q>. With that she leisurely proceeded.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Mistress, the entire gardens of the House of
      Slender Pines are <hi style="font-style:italic">patrolled</hi>—yes, and by armed
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Samourai</foreign>! You speak nonsense. There is no
      such thing to-day as a <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>. Swords, moreover,
      are not permitted. Omi, you are tormenting me,
      and it is very unkind and ungrateful. You will
      force me to punish you very severely, much as I
      love you!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>It is as I have said. I speak only the truth.
      The ones who guard our house are exalted ones—<foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>
      by birth at least, relatives of his lordship.<pb n="36"/>
      They do not permit even the smallest aperture to
      be unwatched, whereby his lordship might slip
      into the gardens, and from thence into my mistress’s
      chamber—</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Omi!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>—for it has gone abroad through all the Saito
      clan that the peace of the most honorable ancestors
      is about to be imperiled</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight’s color was dying down, and as the little
      girl proceeded her two hands stole to her breast
      and clung to where the love poem was hidden.</p>
                  
      <p><q>As the relatives cannot by entreaty force his
      lordship from your vicinity, loveliest of mistresses,
      they are bent upon guarding him, in case by the
      artful intrigues known only to lovers</q>—and the
      little maiden shook her head with precocious
      wisdom—<q>he may actually reach your side despite
      the care of Matsuda</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight now seemed scarcely to be listening.
      She was looking out dreamily before her, and her
      fancy conjured up the inspired face of her lover.
      She felt again the warm touch of his lips against
      her hair, and heard the ardent, passionate promise
      he had made in the little interval when she had
      come to consciousness within his arms there in the
      gardens of his ancestors. <q>If it is impossible to
      have you—ay, in this very life—then I will wed no
      other. No! though the voices of all the ancestors
      shout to me to do my duty!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="37"/>
                  
      <p>Now she knew he was very near to her. For
      days they had been unable to induce him to leave
      the vicinity of her home. Outside the gates of the
      closed <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house he had taken his stand, there
      to importune the implacable Matsuda and try
      vainly, by every ruse and device, to reach her side.</p>
                 
      <p>Though she knew that never for a moment would
      the watchful relatives permit him to be alone, still
      at last he had eluded them sufficiently to send her
      word through the clever little Omi. Now she listened
      with tingling ears, as Omi glibly and with exaggeration
      told how, as she flew by on her skipping-rope,
      he had slipped the note into her sleeve. Only
      this acute child could have outwitted Matsuda in
      this way. A few moments of hiding in the deserted
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">ozashiki</foreign>, a chance to toss the note aloft to her mistress,
      and then to await her opportunity when the
      lower halls should be clear and slip upstairs! Apprentices
      were not permitted to be thus at large,
      and Omi knew that, if caught, her punishment would
      be quite dreadful; but she gaily took the risk for
      her beloved mistress.</p>
                  
      <p>She sat back now on her heels, having finished
      her recital. She watched Moonlight, as the latter
      read and reread her love missive. Much to the
      disappointment of the little maiden, her mistress
      did not read it aloud. The sulky pout, however,
      soon faded from the girl’s lips, as her mistress put
      her cheek against Omi’s thin little one. With arms<pb n="38"/>
      enclasped, the two sat in silence, watching the falling
      of the twilight; and in the mind of each one solitary
      figure stood clearly outlined. His features were
      delicate, his arched eyebrows as sensitive as a poet’s,
      his lips as full and pouting as a child’s. His eyes
      were large and long and somewhat melancholy, but
      there were latent hints within them of a stronger
      power capable of awakening. Upon his face was
      that ineffaceable stamp of caste, and it lent a charm
      to the youth’s entire bearing.</p>
                 
      <p>A maid pattered into the apartment and lit the
      solitary <foreign xml:lang="ja">andon</foreign>. Its wan light added but a feeble
      gleam in the darkened room. Presently she returned,
      bearing the simple meal for the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> and
      her apprentice. When this was finished, with the
      aid of Omi she spread the sleeping-quilts and snuffed
      the <foreign xml:lang="ja">andon</foreign> light. It was the orders of Matsuda that
      the house should be darkened at the hour when
      previously it was lighted most gaily. There was
      nothing left for them to do save go to bed. Yet for
      some time, in the darkened chamber, with its closed
      walls, the two remained whispering and planning;
      and once the watchful maid upon her sleeping-mat
      outside the screens heard the soft, musical laughter
      of the famous <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, and the servant sighed uneasily.
      She did not like this work assigned her by
      Matsuda.</p>
                  
      <p>In the middle of the night Omi, turning on the
      quilts, missed her mistress at her side. Arising, she<pb n="39"/>
      felt along the floor beside her. Then, alarmed, she
      slipped out from under the netting. It was a clear
      moonlight night, and a golden stream came into the
      room through the widely opened <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>. Leaning
      against it, with her dreamy head resting upon the
      trellis, was her mistress. By the light of the moon
      she held the shimmering sheets of tissue-paper,
      and over these she still pored and wept.</p>
            
            <pb n="40"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER VI</head>

  
      <p>Of the once flourishing and numerous
      family of the Saito, there were but two
      male members living, Saito Gonji, and
      his father, Saito Ichigo. The relatives
      of the Lady Saito were, however, numerous,
      and, like the mother of Gonji, they possessed
      stern and domineering dispositions. In contrast,
      her husband was easy-going and genial, and it had
      been an easy matter, in consequence, thus far, for
      the relatives to rule the head of the illustrious
      house. Lord Ichigo had even followed their counsel
      in the matter of the education of his boy, although it
      had cut him to the heart to resign his cherished son
      at so tender an age to the severe tutors chosen for
      him by his wife’s relatives.</p>
                  
      <p>When Ohano had been selected as a wife for the
      youth, the father of Gonji had offered no objection.
      In fact, there was little that he could have found to
      object to in this particular matter. The girl was of
      a family equally honorable; her health was excellent;
      she had shown no traits of character objectionable
      in a woman. Indeed, she appeared to be an honorable
      and desirable vehicle to hand down the race of<pb n="41"/>
      Saito of imperishable fame. And that, of course,
      was the main idea of marriage. It was a matter of
      duty to the ancestors, and not of desire of the individuals.
      So the peace-loving elder Lord Saito believed,
      at the time of the betrothal, that he had safely
      disposed of a most vexing problem.</p>
                  
      <p>He was dumbfounded, panic-stricken, at the turn
      events had taken. On all sides, harangued by that
      insistent lady, his wife, and also by her many relatives,
      he found it, nevertheless, impossible to turn
      a deaf ear to the impassioned pleading of the young
      man himself. Day and night Gonji desperately beset
      his father, ignoring utterly all other members of the
      family.</p>
                  
      <p>His vigil of many days before the gates of the
      House of Slender Pines had but strengthened the
      young man’s resolve. At any cost—yes, at the sacrifice
      of the ancestors’ honor even—he was determined
      to possess the Spider. Since he was assured
      that his passion was returned—and the assurance
      came through the lips of the little Omi, who had
      screeched the words impishly in his ear, as if in derision,
      that those about them might not suspect—Gonji
      determined to marry the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> not alone in
      the thousand vague lives yet to come, but in the
      present one, too. He must have her now. It was
      impossible to wait, he told his father. If the cruel
      laws forbade their union, then they would go to
      the gods, and the less harsh heart of the river would<pb n="42"/>
      receive them in a bridal night that would never
      pass away.</p>
                  
      <p>It is not an easy matter for a youth in Japan to
      marry without the full consent of his parents. Every
      possible obstacle had been thrown into the path of
      the despairing Gonji. Even his revenue was cut off
      completely, so that, even had he been able to move
      the stony heart of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-keeper from the position
      he had taken at the behest of the powerful
      family, Gonji had not the means to purchase the
      girl’s freedom from her bonds. There was nothing,
      therefore, left for the unfortunate Gonji save to focus
      all his energies upon his father; and day and night
      he besieged the unhappy Ichigo.</p>
                  
      <p>The latter had listened, without comment, to the
      law as laid down by Takedo Isami, the uncle of
      Ohano. He had listened to the urgings of the many
      other relatives of his wife that he remain firm
      throughout the ordeal they realized he was passing
      through. He had given an equally attentive ear to the
      besieging relatives and to the stern Lady Saito, who
      was confident of the powerful influence of the tongue
      upon her lord. Then he had hearkened in silence,
      with drawn, averted face, to the desperate pleading
      of his only son, the one creature in the world that
      he truly loved.</p>
                  
      <p>While the father miserably debated the matter
      within himself, Gonji suddenly ceased to importune
      his parent. Retiring to his own chamber, he closed<pb n="43"/>
      and fastened the doors against all possible intruders.</p>
                  
      <p>The relatives regarded this latest act of their
      fractious young kinsman as an evidence that at last
      his impetuous young will was breaking. They congratulated
      themselves upon their firmness at this
      time, and advised Lord Saito Ichigo to retain an
      unbending attitude in the matter.</p>
                  
      <p>The abrupt retirement of his son, however, had
      a strange effect upon Ichigo. He could think of
      nothing save the youth’s last words. He dared not
      confide his fears even to his wife, who was already
      sufficiently distracted by her task of caring for
      Ohano and her anxiety about her son.</p>
                  
      <p>Against the advice of the relatives that Gonji be
      left alone to fight out the battle by himself, his
      father forced his way into the boy’s presence. Gonji
      responded neither to his knocking nor to his father’s
      imperative call. So Lord Ichigo forced the screens
      apart.</p>
                  
      <p>In one glance the father of Gonji saw what it
      was the desperate young man now contemplated,
      for he had robed himself from head to foot in the
      white garments of the dead. His face was, moreover,
      as fixed and white as though already he had started
      upon the journey.</p>
      
      <p><q>Gonji—my dear son!</q></p>
                  
      <p>The elder Lord Saito scarce knew his own voice,
      so hoarse and full of anguished emotion was it. He<pb n="44"/>
      stood close by the kneeling Gonji and rested his
      hands heavily upon the boy’s slender shoulders.
      Gonji looked up slowly and met his father’s gaze.
      A mist came before his eyes, but he spoke steadily,
      gently:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is better this way. I pray you to pardon me.
      I am unable to serve the ancestors</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is not of the ancestors I think</q>, said Lord
      Saito, gruffly, <q>but of you—you only, my son!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Gonji looked at him strangely now, as though he
      sought to fathom the mind of his father; but he
      turned away, perplexed and distressed.</p>
                  
      <p><q>You must believe that</q>, went on his father,
      brokenly. <q>What is best for your happiness, that
      is my wish, above all things. If happiness is only
      possible for you by giving you what is your heart’s
      desire, then</q>—a smile broke over the grave, pain-racked
      features of his father, as though a weight
      were suddenly lifted from his heart at the sudden
      resolve that had come to him—<q>then</q>, he continued,
      <q>it shall be!</q></p>
                  
      <p>With a cry, Gonji gripped at his parent’s hands,
      his eyes turned imploringly upon Lord Saito’s face.</p>
                  
      <p><q>You mean—ah, you promise, then—</q> He could
      not speak the words that rushed in a flood to his
      lips.</p>
      
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Hé</foreign>! (Yes!)</q> said Lord Ichigo, solemnly. <q>It is a
      promise</q>.</p>
            
            <pb n="45"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER VII</head>

  
      <p>Having determined upon the course to
      take, Lord Saito Ichigo summoned a
      council of the relatives of the family.</p>
                  
      <p>For the first time, possibly, since his
      marriage, he faced the assembled kinsfolk
      with the calm demeanor of one who had seized,
      and intended to retain, the authority properly invested
      in him as head of the house of Saito. His
      should be the voice heard! His the decision that
      must prevail!</p>
                  
      <p>In the minds of most men—Japanese men, at
      least—who have married at the dictates of their
      parents, there is always some little cherished chamber
      to which, despite the passing years, memory returns
      with loving, loitering step. So with Lord
      Ichigo. Now, with the fate of his beloved child
      in his hands, the father looked back upon his own
      life, and it was no reflection upon his excellent and
      virtuous wife that he did so with just a shade of
      vague regret.</p>
                  
      <p>The impetuous Gonji’s passionate words had not
      been spoken to deaf ears. Lord Saito Ichigo was
      determined to keep his promise to his son, what-<pb n="46"/>ever
      the result; for well he knew of the upheaval
      in his household which would be sure to follow.</p>
                  
      <p>There was, of course, Ohano to think of. Her
      case was not as difficult as it seemed, he pointed out
      to the assembled relatives. An orphan, one of a
      family already allied by marriage to the Saitos, they
      had taken her into their house at an early age. They
      already regarded her as a daughter. As for a daughter,
      they would seek, outside their own family, for
      a worthy and suitable husband for the maiden. In
      fact, it was better that Ohano should marry another
      than Lord Gonji, since the latter had always looked
      upon her as a sister, and a union between them
      was, to him, repugnant. That, indeed, Ichigo himself
      had thought at first, but he had desired to please
      <q>the honorable interior</q> (his wife) and the many
      relatives of his honorable wife.</p>
                  
      <p>Thus he disposed of this matter briefly, and, although
      the relatives looked at each other with
      startled glances, they had nothing to say. Something
      in the fixed attitude of the one they had hitherto
      somewhat contemptuously regarded as weak
      and yielding claimed now their respectful attention.</p>
                  
      <p>To approach the matter of the marriage of a
      Saito with a public <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> required not alone tact,
      but bravery. Hardly had the father of Gonji
      mentioned the matter when a storm of dissent arose.
      To a man—to say nothing of the countless unseen
      female relatives arrayed even more bitterly against<pb n="47"/>
      her—the exalted kinsmen resented even the suggestion
      of such a union. So the Lord Ichigo approached
      the subject by wary paths.</p>
                  
      <p>In the first place, he pointed out boldly, the assembled
      ones were not actually of the Saito blood,
      but relatives by marriage only; and, while their
      counsel and advice were respectfully and gratefully
      solicited, even their united verdict could not finally
      stand out against the legal head of the house. This
      bold statement at the outset met a silence more
      eloquent of resentment than any storm of words.</p>
                  
      <p>It was imperative, as all had agreed, continued
      Lord Ichigo, that the son and heir of the house of
      Saito should make an early marriage. He was the
      last of the line. The glorious and heroic ancestors
      demanded descendants. It was a sacred duty to keep
      alive the illustrious seed.</p>
                  
      <p>Lord Ichigo launched into a detailed recital here
      of the notable deeds of his ancestors, but was stopped
      abruptly by the sarcastic comment of Takedo Isami,
      who quoted the ancient proverb, <q>There is no seed
      to a great man!</q> meaning none could inherit his
      greatness.</p>
                  
      <p>This cut off Ichigo’s oratory; and, hurt and disturbed
      at the quotation as a reflection upon his
      own shortcomings, he brought up squarely before them
      the main issue.</p>
                  
      <p>These were the days of enlightenment, when the
      iron-clad ships of war sailed the seas as far as the<pb n="48"/>
      great Western lands; when the Japanese had accepted
      the best of the ways of the West; when the spirit
      of the New Japan permeated every nook and corner
      of the empire. There was one Western privilege
      which the men of New Japan were now demanding,
      and desired above all things. That they must have:
      the right to love!</p>
                  
      <p>Now, <q>love</q> is not a very proper word, according
      to the Japanese notion of polite speech. Hence the
      attitude of the relatives. Nor did the frigid atmosphere
      melt in the slightest before the flow of
      fervid eloquence that the father of Gonji brought
      to the defense of this reprehensible weakness.</p>
                  
      <p>Takedo Isami, who seemed to have assumed the
      position of leader and dictator among the relatives,
      arose slowly to his feet, and, thrusting out a pugnacious
      chin, asked for the right to speak. He was
      short, dark, with the face of a fighter and the body
      of a dwarf.</p>
                  
      <p>Admitting the right of man to love, he said it
      was better to hide this weakness, and, by all means,
      fight its insidious effort to enter the household.
      Only men of low morals married for love. Duty was
      so beautiful a thing that it brought its own reward.
      The proper kind of love—the lofty and the pure—declared
      the uncle of Ohano, came always after
      marriage, and sanctified the union. That the last
      of a great race, in whose keeping the ancestors had
      confidently placed the family honor, should con-<pb n="49"/>template
      a union of mere love and passion with a
      notorious and public <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> was a gratuitous and
      cruel insult not alone to his many living relatives—and
      they of his mother’s side were equally of his
      blood—but to the ancestors.</p>
                  
      <p>As the uncle of Ohano reseated himself a low
      murmur of approbation broke out from the circle.
      Gloomy looks were turned toward Ichigo, whose
      face had become curiously fixed. Far from weakening
      his resolve, his pride had been stung to the
      quick. Nothing, he told himself inwardly, would
      cause him to retreat from the position he had
      taken. He looked Takedo Isami squarely in the
      eye ere he spoke.</p>
                  
      <p>The honorable Takedo Isami’s remarks, he declared,
      were a reflection upon his own, since they
      concerned one whom the ancestors and the Lord
      Saito Gonji deemed worthy to honor. Moreover,
      it was both vain and reprehensible to cast a stone
      at a profession honored by all intelligent Japanese.
      It was of established knowledge that often the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> were recruited from the noblest families in
      Japan. It was absurd to regard them with disdain,
      as apparently had latterly become the fashion.
      There was no great event in the history of the
      nation since feudal times wherein the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> had
      not played her part nobly. The greatest of sacrifices
      she had made for her country and the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Mikado</foreign>.
      There were instances, too famous to need repeating,<pb n="50"/>
      of the most exquisite martyrdom. The Emperor,
      the nobility, the priests—all delighted to do her
      honor. Only the ignorant assumed to despise her.
      She was in reality the darling and the pride of the
      entire nation. One would as soon dream of being
      without the flowers and the birds, and all the other
      joyous things of life, as the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>. Who was it,
      then, dared to reflect upon the most charming of
      Japanese institutions?</p>
                 
      <p>Up sprang Takedo Isami, his hand raised, his
      dark face flushed with fury, despite the restraint
      he sought to exercise upon his features. His voice
      was under control, and he spoke with incisive
      bitterness.</p>
                  
      <p>His honorable kinsman, he loudly declared, wished
      but to confuse the issue. No one denied the virtues
      of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>; also the undoubted fact that many
      of them came from the impoverished families of
      the <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>. Nevertheless, charming and desirable
      as she was, she had not been educated to
      be the mother of a great race. Her lithe, twisting,
      dancing little body was not meant to bear children.
      Her light, frivolous mind was ill-fitted to instruct
      one’s sons and daughters. Society had set her in
      her proper place. It was against all precedents to
      take her from her sphere. One did not desire as a
      mate through life a creature of mere beauty, any
      more than one would care to take one’s daily bowl
      of rice from a fragile work of art which would shat-<pb n="51"/>ter
      at the mere contact of the sturdy chop-sticks
      against it.</p>
                  
      <p>Such a storm of dissent and discussion now arose
      that it was impossible for the father of Gonji to hear
      his own voice, and indeed all seemed to make an
      effort to drown it. So he summoned servants, and
      coolly bade them put the <foreign xml:lang="ja">amado</foreign> (outside sliding
      walls) in place, lest the unseemly noise of wordy
      strife be heard by some passing neighbor—for the
      Japanese esteem it a disgrace to engage in controversy.
      Then, when the doors were in place, Lord
      Saito Ichigo gravely bowed to the assembled relatives,
      and, taking his son by the arm, bade them good
      night, advising that they argue the matter among
      themselves, without his unnecessary presence.</p>
            
            <pb n="52"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER VIII</head>

  
      <p>The most dreaded moment of a Japanese
      girl’s life is when she enters the house
      of the mother-in-law. Her future happiness,
      she knows, is in the hands of
      this autocratic and all-powerful lady.
      Meekly the wise bride enters, with propitiating
      smiles and gifts, robed in her most inconspicuous
      gown, her aim being not to enhance whatever beauty
      she may possess, but, if possible, to hide it.</p>
                  
      <p>Far more necessary is it for her to have the goodwill
      of the mother-in-law than that of the husband.
      It is even possible for the mother-in-law, for certain
      causes, to divorce the young wife. In point of fact,
      the bride goes on trial not to her husband, but to her
      husband’s parents. It depends entirely upon their
      verdict whether she shall be <q>returned</q> or not. In
      most cases, however, where the marriage is arranged
      between the families, there is the desire to please the
      family of the bride; and it is more often the case
      than not that the parents of the husband receive
      the little, fearful bride with open arms and
      hearts.</p>
                  
      <p>The <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> is not educated for marriage. From<pb n="53"/>
      her earliest years, indeed, she is taught that her
      office in life is merely to entertain.</p>
                  
      <p>In the case of the Spider, she had even less opportunity
      for knowing the rules that prevailed in such
      matters. She had been educated by the witless wife
      of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-keeper. All her short life had been
      spent in aiding nature to make her more beautiful,
      more charming. The most important thing in life,
      the thing that brought rare smiles of admiration to
      even the sternest lips, was to be beautiful, witty,
      and charming.</p>
                  
      <p>So the Spider set out for the Saito house with
      a light and fearless heart, confident in the power of
      her beauty and witchery to win even the most
      frosty-hearted of mothers-in-law. Arrayed in the
      most gorgeous robe the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house afforded, with
      huge flowers in her hair, her little scarlet fan fluttering
      at her breast, attended by her no less gaudily dressed
      maiden and apprentice, Omi, and followed almost
      to the gates of the estate by a procession of well-meaning
      friends and former comrades, the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>
      entered the ancestral home of the illustrious family.
      For just a moment, ere she entered, she paused
      upon the threshold, a premonitory thrill of fear
      seizing her. She clung to the supporting hand of
      the garrulous Omi, whose shrill and acid little
      tongue already grew mute in the silent halls of the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">shiro</foreign> (mansion).</p>
                  
      <p>Presently they were ushered into the <foreign xml:lang="ja">ozashiki</foreign>,From<pb n="54"/>
      and the Spider became conscious of the stiff and
      ceremonious figures standing back coldly by the
      screens, their gowns seeming in the subdued light
      of the room of a similar dull color to the satin fusuma
      of the walls, their shining topknots undecorated with
      flower or ornament, their thin, unmoving lips and
      eyes almost closed in cold, unsmiling scrutiny of
      the intruder, who seemed, like some brilliant butterfly,
      to have dropped in their midst from another
      world.</p>
                  
      <p>The women of the household—and these comprised
      the mother, two austere maternal aunts, and
      Takedo Ohano-san (she who was to have been the
      bride of Lord Gonji)—surveyed the Spider with
      narrow, keen eyes that took in every detail of her
      flaming gown, her dazzling coiffure, flower-laden,
      and, beneath, the exquisite little face, with wide
      and starlit eyes that looked at them now in friendly
      appeal.</p>
                  
      <p>There was no word spoken. Nothing but the
      sighing, hissing sound of indrawn breaths, as with
      precise formality they made their obeisances to the
      bride.</p>
                  
      <p>In vain did the wandering eyes of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> scan
      the farthermost corner of the great room in search
      of her lover, or even his seemingly friendly father.
      There were only the women there to receive her.</p>
                  
      <p>Dimly, now, she recalled hearing or reading somewhere
      that this was a fashion followed by many<pb n="55"/>
      families—the reception of the bride at first alone by
      the women of the house, who were later to present
      her to the assembled relatives. But why this disconcerting
      silence? Why the cold, unfriendly, lofty gaze
      of these unmoving women? They stood like grave
      automata, regarding sternly the bride of the Lord
      Saito Gonji.</p>
                  
      <p>The smile upon the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>’s lips flickered away
      tremulously; her little head drooped like a flower;
      she closed her eyes lest the threatening tears might
      fall.</p>
                  
      <p>A voice, cold, harsh, and with that note of command
      of one in authority addressing a servant, at
      last broke the silence.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is my wish</q>, said the Lady Saito Ichigo,
      <q>that you retire to your chamber, and there remove
      the garments of your trade</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>So strange and unexpected were the words that
      at first the Spider did not realize that they could
      possibly be addressed to her. She looked up, bewildered,
      and encountered the steely gaze of the
      mother-in-law. Moonlight never forgot that first
      glance. In the unrelenting gaze bent upon her she
      read what brought havoc and pain to her heart,
      for all the stored-up resentment and hatred that
      burned within the Lady Saito Ichigo showed now
      in her face. Her voice droned on with mechanical,
      incisive calmness, but always with the cruel and
      harsh tone of contemptuous command:</p>
            
            <pb n="56"/>
                  
      <p><q>It is my wish that your maiden of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house
      be returned at once to her proper home</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>She clapped her hands precisely twice, and a
      serving-woman answered the summons and knelt
      respectfully to take the order of her mistress.</p>
      
      <p><q>You will conduct the wife of the Lord Saito
      Gonji to her chamber</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>The servant crossed to the still kneeling Moonlight,
      and while the latter, mystified, looked dumbly
      at the exalted but, to her, horrible lady, she assisted
      the Spider to arise. Mechanically and fearfully,
      pausing not even at the wrathful, sobbing outcry
      that had broken loose from Omi, she followed in
      the wake of the serving-maid.</p>
                  
      <p>Presently she found herself in an empty chamber,
      unlike any she had known in the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house, with
      its golden matting shining like glass, and its lacquer
      latticed walls of water-paper, and the sliding screens,
      rare and exquisite works of art. Here the maid fell to
      work upon the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, removing every vestige of her
      attire and substituting the plain but elegant flowing
      robes of a lady of rank.</p>
                  
      <p>From the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>’s hair she removed the ornaments
      and the poppies. She swept it down, like a cloud
      of lacquer, upon the shoulders of the girl, then drew
      it up into the stiff and formal mode proper for one
      of her class. From the girl’s face she wiped the last
      trace of rouge and powder, revealing the rosy, shining
      skin beneath, clear and clean as a baby’s.</p>
            
            <pb n="57"/>
                  
      <p>When she emerged from the hands of the maid,
      Moonlight looked at herself curiously in the small
      mirror tendered her, and for a moment she stared,
      dumbfounded at the face that looked back at her.
      It seemed so strangely young, despite its wide and
      wounded eyes. Though she was in reality more
      charming than ever, seeming like one who had come
      from a fresh and invigorating bath, the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> felt
      that the last vestige of her beauty had fled. Within
      her heart arose a panic-stricken fear of the effect
      of the metamorphosis upon her lord. She wished
      ardently she were back in the noisy <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house,
      with the maidens clamoring about her and the
      apprentices vying with one another in imitating
      her. She put the mirror behind her. Her lips
      trembled so she could hardly compress them, and
      to avoid the scrutiny of the maid she moved
      blindly to the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>. There she stared out unseeingly
      at the landscape before her, heroically trying
      to choke back the tears that would force their
      way and dripped down her dimpled cheeks like
      rain.</p>
                  
      <p>Some one whispered her name, very softly, adoringly.
      She turned and looked at him—her young
      bridegroom, with his pale face alight with happiness.
      She tried to answer him, but even his name eluded
      her. It was the first time they had been alone together,
      the first time they had seen each other since
      that night in the gardens of the Saito.</p>
            
            <pb n="58"/>
                  
      <p><q>Why, how beautiful thou art!</q> he stammered.
      <q>More so even than I had dreamed!</q></p>
                  
      <p>He was very close to her now, and almost unconsciously
      she leaned against him. His arms enfolded
      her rapturously, and she felt his young cheek warm
      against her own.</p>
            
            <pb n="59"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER IX</head>

  
      <p><q>The mistake—you will admit it was a
      mistake?—was to have countenanced
      such a match at all</q>, said the Lady
      Saito Ichigo.</p>
                  
      <p>Her husband’s manner was less sure,
      less unyielding than it had been in many days. Indeed,
      there was a slightly apologetic tone in his voice,
      and he avoided the angry eyes of his spouse. He
      too had seen the arrival of the Spider!</p>
                  
      <p><q>Well, well, let us admit it, then, for the sake of
      peace. The marriage was a mistake. But consider,
      our son’s happiness—nay, his very life!—was at
      stake</q>.</p>
                 
      <p>He lowered his voice.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I will tell you in confidence that which I had
      discovered. They had already made their plans to
      marry</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Pff!</q> Lady Saito waved the matter aside as
      unbelievable. <q>Will you tell me how they were to
      do this thing? Marriage, fortunately, is not such
      an easy matter without the consent of the parents.
      Moreover, the woman was under bonds to her
      keeper</q>.</p>
            
            <pb n="60"/>
                  
      <p><q>You forget there are other unions possible to
      lovers. You should know that many such start
      bravely on the long journey to the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Meido</foreign> when it
      is impossible to marry in this life</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Lady Saito turned her face slowly toward her
      husband and fixed him with a piercing, bitter glare.</p>
                  
      <p><q>That</q>, said Ichigo, gently, <q>was the union contemplated
      by our children</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>His wife drew in her breath in that peculiar, hissing
      fashion of the Japanese. Her beady little eyes
      glittered like fire.</p>
                  
      <p><q>That was what <hi style="font-style:italic">she</hi>—the Spider woman—induced
      my son to do! You see, do you not, how
      completely she has seduced him—even from his
      duty to his parents and his ancestors?</q></p>
                  
      <p>She beat out the minute blaze from her pipe,
      digging into it with her forefinger. Then, first
      coughing harshly to attract the attention of the
      young people, she called out loudly:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Come hither, if you please! I say, come! You
      seem to forget you are no longer in the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house.
      It is the voice of supreme authority which summons
      you now. A cup of tea, if you please—and water
      for my honorable feet!</q></p>
                  
      <p>She repeated the demand twice, in a peremptory
      voice; and now she arose to her feet and advanced
      a step almost threateningly toward the young couple.</p>
                  
      <p>They had been smiling into each other’s eyes.
      They were oblivious of everything and every one in<pb n="61"/>
      the room, for they were in that exalted and enraptured
      condition of first love which makes the individual
      seem almost stupid and obtuse to all save
      the loved one. Only dimly the words of their
      mother had reached them, and they stirred like
      children rudely awakened from some beautiful
      dream. The smile was still on the face of the girl
      as she turned toward her mother-in-law; but it
      slowly faded, leaving her pale, confused, and timorous.
      She met the malevolent gaze of the older
      woman, and began to tremble.</p>
                  
      <p>She tried to speak, and her hand reached out
      flutteringly toward her husband—a charming, helpless
      little gesture that warmed him to the soul. He
      inclosed the little reaching hand, and thus, hand
      in hand, they faced the enraged lady.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Your manners, my good girl, are in keeping
      with the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house. Is it the fashion there to
      ignore the voice of authority?</q></p>
                  
      <p>The bride’s large, dark eyes had widened in innocent
      surprise. Only partially she seemed to comprehend
      the older woman’s attitude. She had been
      but a day in the house of the parents-in-law. No
      one as yet had taught her, the cherished, petted,
      adored star of the House of Slender Pines, that the
      position of a daughter-in-law is often as lowly as
      that of a servant. Not even by Matsuda had she
      ever been thus offensively addressed. She said,
      stammeringly:</p>
            
            <pb n="62"/>
                  
      <p><q>I—I—have not heard the voice of which you
      speak, august lady</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>A cruel smile curled the lips of her mother-in-law.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Then it is time, my girl, that you kept your ears
      wide open</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>She sat down upon her heels abruptly by the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">hibachi</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Tea is desirable for the honorable insides.
      Water for my feet, which are tired!</q></p>
                  
      <p>The girl’s eyes turned inquiringly toward her
      husband. He had grown darkly red. For a moment
      he seemed about to speak protestingly to his mother;
      then in a whisper he murmured to his bride:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is your—duty!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight’s shocked glance had gone from her
      husband’s face to the opposite <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>. There, in
      dumb show, a maid beckoned to her. Without a
      word her lovely little head bowed in meek assent;
      she began upon her first menial task.</p>
                  
      <p>When she was gone Gonji looked scowlingly at
      the back of his mother’s head—she had turned her
      face rigidly from him. He felt keenly the danger
      threatening his wife, the one he adored. He knew
      the exact power in the hands of the mother-in-law,
      the cruel whip of authority it was possible for her
      to wield. That Moonlight would be forced to
      succumb to the common lot of many unhappy
      wives he had not realized. Secretly he determined
      to help her in every way possible within his power.</p>
            
            <pb n="63"/>
                  
      <p><q>What has come over you?</q> His mother’s voice
      broke upon his miserable reverie, and it was as harsh
      as the one she employed to his wife. <q>Is it a new
      fashion of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house perchance—to answer a
      parent’s question with silence?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Did you question me, mother? I am sorry I
      did not hear you</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Oh, it is of no consequence. Besides, you are not
      listening, even now. Your eyes are still upon the
      screen through which the insignificant daughter-in-law
      passed to do me service</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>He flushed and bit his lips. Something in his
      mother’s baleful look moved him to an impetuous
      cry:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Mother! Do not hate my wife! If you could
      but know her as she is, so sweet and lovely and—</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>There is no medicine for a fool!</q> snarled his
      mother, enraged at the boy’s apparent infatuation.</p>
                 
      <p>Moonlight, who had pushed the sliding doors open,
      heard the words, and now she paused, looking from
      one to the other. Gonji hastened across to her and
      seized the pail of water from her hand.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is too heavy for hands so small—and so
      lovely!</q> he cried, and then, as though aghast at
      his own words, he again pleadingly faced his
      mother.</p>
                  
      <p><q>We have many servants. Why give such employment
      to my wife?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Since when</q>, demanded the mother, hoarsely,<pb n="64"/>
      <q>did a childless son become master in his father’s
      house?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>These are modern times, mother</q>, he protested.
      <q>She has not been bred for service such as this!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Then it is time we undertook her education</q>,
      said his mother, ominously. <q>In the house of the
      honorable mother-in-law she will quickly learn her
      proper place</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>She put out her feet, and the girl knelt and washed
      them.</p>
                  
      <p>Alone that evening in their room, they clung together
      like frightened children. It had been a hard,
      a cruel day for both.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is true</q>, she said, searching his face in the
      hope of finding a denial there, <q>that your parents
      bitterly hate me</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>They will outgrow it. It is not so with my father,
      and later you will win my mother’s affection. Your
      sweetness, beauty, goodness, beloved one, will win
      her even against her will</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>She held him back from her, with her two little
      hands resting flatly on his breast.</p>
                  
      <p><q>They despise me because I am a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>? That
      is why they treat me so</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>No, it is not that only. It is often the case at
      first in the house of the parents-in-law. It is your
      duty to serve them—to obey even their cruel caprices.
      But</q>—and he drew her into a warm embrace—<q>it
      will not be for long! Maybe a year—longer, if the<pb n="65"/>
      gods decree it! You can bear it for a little while,
      can you not, for me?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>And after that?</q> she persisted, with the clear-eyed
      innocence of a child.</p>
                  
      <p><q>After that? Why, the gods are good!</q> he cried,
      joyously. <q>We will have our own home. The
      humblest daughter-in-law is elevated with the coming
      of an heir!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Her eyes were very wide, and in their dark depths
      he saw a piteous look of terror there. She caught
      at his hand and clung to it.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Gonji! Suppose—suppose it is not possible for
      me—to please the gods!</q> she gasped. <q>Ah!</q>—as
      he hastened to reassure her—<q>it is said by the wise
      ones that a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> is but a fragile toy, for transient
      pleasure only, but with neither the body nor the
      heart to mother a race!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="66"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER X</head>

  
      <p>Life for a young wife in the house of
      her parents-in-law in Japan is seldom a
      bed of roses. Of the entire family she
      is, up to a certain period, the most insignificant.
      Under the most galling circumstances
      the Japanese bride remains meek, dutiful,
      patient. She dare not even look too fondly for
      comfort from her husband, lest she arouse the
      jealousy of the august lady, for no woman can, with
      equanimity, endure the thought that her adored
      son prefers another to herself.</p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight’s lot was harder than that of most
      brides, for, besides the menial tasks assigned her,
      she was obliged to endure the veiled, insulting
      references to her former caste, and to carry always
      with her the knowledge that she was not alone
      despised but hated by her husband’s people.</p>
                  
      <p>There was one compensation, however. Far from
      decreasing, the love of the young Lord Gonji for
      his beautiful wife grew ever stronger. It was impossible,
      moreover, for him to conceal the state of
      his heart from the lynx-eyed, passionately jealous
      mother, with the consequence that she let no oppor-<pb n="67"/>tunity
      escape her of making her daughter’s life a
      burden. In this venomous task she was ably
      assisted by Ohano, who was still a member of the
      household.</p>
                  
      <p>In contrast to the treatment accorded the young
      wife, Ohano was cherished and made the constant
      companion and confidante of Lady Saito. Always
      healthy, plump, and active, she presented at this
      time a striking contrast to the wistful-eyed and
      fragile Moonlight, who looked as if a breath might
      blow her away. She was given to dreaming and
      star-gazing, a girl devoted to poetry and music. In
      the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house her fresh, young laughter had
      mingled at all times with the other joyous sounds.
      Now, however, she seemed under some spell. She
      was a different creature, one who even moved
      uncertainly, starting painfully at the slightest motion
      and flushing and paling whenever addressed.</p>
                  
      <p>She had set herself the task of studying <q>The
      Greater Learning for Women</q>, and now, painfully,
      from day to day, she, who had once gaily
      ordered all about her, tried to obey meekly the
      strict rules laid down for her sex by Confucius.</p>
                  
      <p>No matter how humiliating the task set her, how
      harshly, and even cruelly, the tongue of the mother-in-law
      lashed her, she made no murmur of complaint.
      But daily she visited the Temple. While it
      seemed as if her back must break from weariness, she
      would remain upon her knees for hours at the shrine,<pb n="68"/>
      murmuring ever one insistent, passionate prayer to
      the gods.</p>
                  
      <p>The first year passed away, and there was no
      change in the household of the Saitos.</p>
                  
      <p>A letter came to the young wife from the wife of
      Matsuda, entreating her former favorite to come
      to her for a little visit. The letter was laid meekly
      before the mother-in-law, and, to the girl’s surprise,
      permission was granted. Her husband took her to
      her former home and left her there among her friends.</p>
      
      <p>They had both expected that her health would be
      improved by the change, by the reunion with old
      friends and comrades, the brightness and cheer of the
      House of Pleasure, and the throng of admiring maidens
      and <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> about her. But, instead, the place had a
      depressing effect upon the former <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>. The lights,
      the constant strumming of drum and <foreign xml:lang="ja">samisen</foreign>, the
      singing, the continuous dancing and chatting, bewildered
      her, and before the week was over she returned
      to her husband’s home. Hardly, however, had she
      entered the Saito house when a new fear seized her.</p>
                  
      <p>Something in the silent, speculating gaze of her
      mother-in-law smote her heart with terror. Of
      what was the older woman thinking, she wondered,
      and what had put that curious smile of satisfied
      triumph upon the face of Ohano?</p>
                  
      <p>Troubled, she begged her husband to tell her
      exactly of what they had talked in her absence.
      He reassured her, told her she but imagined a<pb n="69"/>
      change; but he held her so closely, so savagely to his
      breast that she was surer than ever that something
      menaced their happiness.</p>
                  
      <p>The following morning she trembled and turned very
      pale at a sneering hint conveyed by the mother-in-law.</p>
                  
      <p>The fact that she was childless at the end of the
      first year, then, had become a subject of remark in
      the family!</p>
                  
      <p>The Lady Saito remarked sarcastically that
      among certain classes it was customary for childless
      women to drink of the Kiyomidzu Temple springs.
      They were said to contain miraculous qualities by
      which one might attain to motherhood.</p>
                 
      <p>Moonlight said nothing, but unconsciously her
      glance stole to her husband. He had grown uncomfortably
      red, and she saw his scowling face
      turned upon his mother.</p>
                  
      <p>Later, very timidly, she begged his permission to
      drink of the springs. He was opposed to it, saying
      it was a superstition of the ignorant; his mother
      but jested. She pleaded so insistently, and seemed
      to take the matter so deeply to heart, that at last
      he consented.</p>
                  
      <p>And so, with this last frantic hope, the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>
      whose flashing beauty and talents had made her a
      queen in the most exacting of the tea-houses of
      Kioto now joined this melancholy band of childless
      women who thus desperately seek to please the
      gods by drinking of their favored waters.</p>
            
            <pb n="70"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XI</head>

  
      <p>As a matter of expediency, the father told
      Gonji, it would be necessary to divorce
      Moonlight. One could not allow one’s
      family to be wiped out because of a
      matter of mere sentiment and passion.
      Doubtless, the young wife, who had proved a most
      docile and obedient daughter-in-law in every way,
      would see the necessity of dissolving the union.</p>
                  
      <p>Gonji pleaded for time, one, two, three more
      years. Moonlight was very young. They could
      afford to wait.</p>
      
      <p>His father, at heart as soft toward his son as his
      wife was stern, surrendered, as always.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Arrange it with your mother, then. I am going
      to Tokio for a week</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>It was a difficult subject to breach to his mother,
      and Gonji avoided it fearfully; nor did he mention
      the matter to his wife, whose wistful glance he had
      begun to avoid. Indeed, he saw less of his wife
      each day, for his mother was careful to keep the
      girl constantly employed in her service, and in the
      intervals of leisure Moonlight would go to the
      shrines or to the Kiyomidzu springs. Gonji, more-<pb n="71"/>over,
      was making an effort to conceal somewhat of
      his affection for his wife from his mother in an
      effort to conciliate her; and he even made advances
      toward the older lady, waiting upon her with great
      thoughtfulness and seeming anxious for her constant
      comfort and happiness. But all his efforts met
      with satirical and acid remarks from his mother,
      and not for a moment did she change in her attitude
      to the young wife.</p>
                  
      <p>The subject, avoided as it had been by the young
      husband, was bound to come up at last. It was
      plain that it occupied the mind of Lady Saito at
      this time to the exclusion of all else. She broached
      it herself one morning at breakfast, when, besides
      her son and her daughter-in-law, Ohano was
      present, ostentatiously vying with the young wife
      in replenishing the older woman’s plate and
      cup.</p>
                 
      <p><q>Now</q>, said Lady Saito, abruptly, turning over
      her rice bowl to signify her meal was ended, <q>it
      must be plain to both of you that things cannot
      continue as they are. The fate of all our ancestors
      is menaced. Come, Moonlight, lift up your head.
      Suggest some solution of the problem</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I will double my offerings at the shrines</q>, said
      the young creature, with quivering lips; and at the
      contemptuous movement of her mother-in-law, and
      the smile upon Ohano’s face, she added, desperately:
      <q>I will wear my knees out, if necessary. I will not<pb n="72"/>
      leave the springs at all, till the gods have heard
      my prayer</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Lady Saito tapped her finger irritably against
      the tobacco-bon. Ohano solicitously filled and lit
      the long-stemmed pipe, and refilled and relit it ere
      the mother of Gonji spoke again.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Of course, it is very hard. So is everything in
      life—hard! We learn that as we grow older; but
      there are the comforting words of the philosophers.
      You should study well the ‘Greater Learning for
      Women.’ Really, my girl, you will find there is
      even a satisfaction in unselfishness</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Two red spots, hectic and feverish, stole into the
      waxen cheeks of the young wife. Her fingers writhed
      mechanically. Her eyes were riveted in fascination
      upon the face of the one who had tormented her
      now for so long. Wayward, passionate, savage impulses
      swept over her. She felt an intense longing
      to strike out—just once!</p>
                  
      <p>Something was touching her hand. Her fingers
      closed spasmodically about Gonji’s. A sob rose
      stranglingly in her throat, but she held herself
      stiffly erect. Death, she felt, would be preferable,
      rather than that they should see how she was
      suffering.</p>
                  
      <p>The mother-in-law’s voice droned on monotonously:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I have been well advised in the matter. Yes,
      I even called in the counsel of your uncle, Ohano</q>,<pb n="73"/>
      turning toward Ohano, who was affectionately
      waiting upon her. <q>When your father returns, my
      children, there shall be a family council. Be assured,
      Moonlight, that, whatever comes, you will be properly
      supported by the Saito family for the rest of
      your days, though I have no doubt at all but that
      you will shortly marry. With a dowry from the
      Saito and a pretty face—well, a pretty face often
      accomplishes astonishing things. See the case of
      our own son. It was apparent to every one he was
      bewitched, obsessed! He would have his way! Contemplated
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">suppuku</foreign>! Forgot his duty to his parents,
      his ancestors—forgot that in Japan duty is higher
      than love. He made great promises. Well, we
      listened. At the time I bade him ponder the proverb:
      ‘Beware of a beautiful woman. She is like red
      pepper!’—will burn, sting, is death to those who
      touch her, and—</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Mother!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Is it a new custom to interrupt the head of the
      house?</q></p>
                  
      <p>The young man’s voice trembled with repressed
      feeling, but there was a certain expression of outraged
      dignity in his face as he looked at his mother
      fairly.</p>
                  
      <p><q>In the absence of the honorable father, the son
      is the legitimate head of the household</q>, he said.</p>
                  
      <p>It was the first time he had spoken thus to
      her. He had restrained himself during this last<pb n="74"/>
      year, for fear of bringing down his mother’s wrath
      upon the defenseless head of Moonlight.</p>
                  
      <p>The hand that pounded the ash from her pipe
      trembled now, and her lips had become a thin, compressed
      line. She started to arise, but Ohano sprang
      to her assistance, and she leaned against the girl
      as she flung back, almost snarlingly, the words at
      her son:</p>
                  
      <p><q>So be it, august authority! We will await the
      return of thy father. <hi style="font-style:italic">He</hi> will then decide the fate
      of this—</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>No, mother</q>, he broke in, <q>I make humble
      apology. Speak your will, but pity us, your children.
      We desire to be filial, obedient, but it is
      cruel, hard!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Hard!</q> cried his mother, savagely. <q>Is it harder
      than for a mother to see her only son enmeshed in
      the web of a vile Spider?</q></p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight had sprung up sharply now. Her eyes
      were like wells of fire as, her bosom heaving, she
      started toward the older woman. A grim smile
      distorted the features of the Lady Saito Ichigo.
      As the girl advanced toward her, with that unconsciously
      threatening motion, this old woman of
      patrician ancestry neither moved nor retreated a
      space. In her cold, sneering gaze one read the
      disdain of the woman of caste who sees one whom she
      deems beneath her betray her lowly origin.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Moonlight!</q> She felt herself caught by the<pb n="75"/>
      shoulders in a grip that almost pained. She caught
      but a glimpse of his face. It was livid. Feeling
      that he, too, was deserting her, she uttered a loud
      cry, and covering her face with her sleeve, she fled
      from the room.</p>
                  
      <p>And all that night she lay weeping and trembling
      in the arms of her husband. In vain he besought
      her not to abandon herself to such wild and terrible
      grief. Moonlight was very, very sure, she told him,
      that all the gods of the heavens and the seas had
      deserted her forever and forever. She dreamed of
      an abyss into which she was pushed and which
      closed inexorably about her, and from which not
      even the loving arms of the Lord Saito Gonji could
      rescue her.</p>
            
            <pb n="76"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XII</head>

  
      <p>The quiet that comes before a tempest
      reigned for a few days in the household.
      Like a volcano whose pent-up energy is
      the more violent from long repression,
      it burst its bounds upon the return
      of the master.</p>
                  
      <p>Day and night they renewed the argument.
      Now Lord Ichigo was in firm agreement with his
      wife on the subject. There was no other course.
      Moonlight must go. Without descendants, who
      would there be to make the offerings and pray
      for their souls and those of the ancestors?</p>
                  
      <p>And again he was won over to his son’s side.
      Well, it would do no harm to wait another year.
      Moonlight was, as they had pointed out, still very
      young and healthy. There was every likelihood
      that she would bear children.</p>
                 
      <p>Lady Saito, however, had set herself stubbornly
      against all truce. She was determined now to be
      rid of the Spider. The wretched <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-girl, she
      alleged, had been forced into their illustrious family
      through the mere passion of a boy. It was a matter
      of humiliation that a child should have prevailed, in<pb n="77"/>
      such a contention, over the parents. They should
      have vetoed the thing at the outset. Their love
      for their son should have but strengthened their
      resolve. The main thing now was to be rid of the
      incubus. The law was perfectly clear upon the
      matter. Never a simpler case. Doubtless, it was
      the workings of the gods, who pitied the ancestors.
      Here was a great family threatened with extinction.
      Should a thousand illustrious and heroic ancestors
      then be doomed to the cruelest of fates because
      of a notorious Spider woman? It were better, decreed
      the stern-minded lady, that the family commit
      honorable <foreign xml:lang="ja">suppuku</foreign> than suffer an extinction so
      contemptible.</p>
                  
      <p>Against such a flood of bitter argument and invective
      the young people could turn only their
      tears and their prayers.</p>
                  
      <p>Then it seemed as if the very hand of Fate intervened
      to settle the matter finally. The war with
      Russia had begun. The effect of this news upon
      the Saito family was electrical. It silenced the
      storm of cruel innuendo and abuse. It stopped the
      battle of words. All saw at once that the Lord
      Saito Gonji could now take but one course.</p>
                  
      <p>Following the steps of his ancestors, he must of
      course be in the foremost ranks of war. It would be
      his duty, his hope, to give up his life for the Mikado.
      Therefore, before leaving for the seat of war, it<pb n="78"/>
      would be imperative that he should leave behind
      him in Japan a lineal descendant.</p>
                  
      <p>There was no need, the parents now felt assured,
      to speak another word of urging. Even the young
      wife, of lowly stock as she was, would see the necessity
      now of self-sacrifice.</p>
                  
      <p>Dry-eyed, pale, with leaden hearts, the young
      people now faced each other. The family had mercifully
      left them alone.</p>
                  
      <p>She sought to entrap his gaze, but persistently,
      gloomily, he averted his face. The delusion which
      had upheld her through all these dizzy, torturing
      months, that the gods had chosen one so humble
      as she to hand down the race of heroes, had dissolved
      now into thin air. Alas, how slender—ah, slenderer
      than the imaginary web she had spun as the Spider!—had
      been her hold upon the all-highest!</p>
                  
      <p><q>Gonji! My Lord Gonji!</q> She caught at his
      hand, entreating his touch. <q>Do not turn your
      head. Speak to me. Pardon me that I have been
      unable to serve the ancestors—to please you,
      augustness!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>You please me in all things</q>, he said, roughly.
      <q>I <hi style="font-style:italic">dare</hi> not look at you—now!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>It will give me strength if you will but condescend.
      The sacrifice will be sweet, if it gives
      your lordship pleasure!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Pleasure! Gods!</q></p>
                  
      <p>He broke down completely and, like a child,<pb n="79"/>
      buried his face upon her bosom. But no tears came
      to the relief of the girl. Tremulously, tenderly, she
      smoothed his hair.</p>
                  
      <p>Presently he put her from him and sat back
      looking at her now with hungry, somber eyes. She
      met his glance with a bright bravery. Their hands
      close-locked, they repeated solemnly together the
      promise to marry in all the lives yet to come and to
      travel the final journey to Nirvana together.</p>
                  
      <p>Then:</p>
                  
      <p><q>There is satisfaction in performing a noble
      duty</q>, said he, automatically.</p>
                  
      <p>And she:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is a privilege for one so humble to serve the
      exalted ancestors of your excellency in even so
      insignificant a way</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Silence a moment, during which he tried to
      speak, but could not. Then he burst out wildly:</p>
      
      <p><q>A thousand august ancestors call to me sternly
      from the noble past</q>. He covered his eyes, lest the
      wistful, appealing beauty of her face might cause
      him to falter. <q>They entreat me not to extinguish
      their honorable spark of life. I am but the honorable
      custodian of the seed! I cannot prove recreant
      to its charge!</q></p>
                  
      <p>A longer silence fell between them now, and when
      he dared again to look at her, he found she smiled,
      a gentle, brooding smile, such as a gentle mother
      might have turned upon him. It irradiated<pb n="80"/>
      and made beautiful beyond words her thin little
      face.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I will speak to my father!</q> he cried out, wildly.
      <q>It is not possible for me to put you away from
      me, beloved one!</q></p>
                  
      <p>He made a savage movement toward her, as though
      again he would enfold her within his arms; but now,
      as he advanced, she retreated, her little speaking hands
      held before her, as though she pushed him from her.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is—as it should be! You are the all-highest
      one, and I—but a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>. With this little hand I
      cannot dip up the ocean. I have tried, august one,
      and—and—its waters have engulfed me!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>I go to service of <foreign xml:lang="ja">Tenshi-sama</foreign>!</q> he cried, hoarsely.
      <q>We may never meet again in this honorable
      life, but, ah, there are a thousand lives we can
      be sure to share together!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>A—thousand—lives—together!</q> she repeated,
      her eyes closed, her face as white as one dead.</p>
                  
      <p>Slowly, feeling backward with her hands, she groped
      her way to the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>. There she paused a moment
      and looked at her husband, a long, deep, enveloping
      look.</p>
                  
      <p>He heard the sliding doors trapped between them,
      and listened vainly for even the softest fall of her
      footsteps. But the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> moves with the silence
      of a moth, and the one who had gone from him
      forever, as it seemed, had broken her wings against
      his heart.</p>
            
            <pb n="81"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XIII</head>

  
      <p>So the Lord Saito Gonji went to Tokio
      the following day, and immediately the
      machinery of law, which grinds less
      slowly in Japan than in many other
      countries, was set in motion. All that
      wealth, power, influence could do to hasten matters
      was brought to bear. Presently the wife of Lord
      Gonji was divorced by her husband’s parents and
      legally barred from the home of his ancestors.</p>
                  
      <p>No one knew where she had gone. Disregarding
      and refusing all the charitable and gracious offers
      and promises of present or future aid, she disappeared
      upon the night of her last interview with
      her husband, going without even the customary ceremonious
      leave-taking.</p>
                  
      <p>Even her going, pointed out the relatives, was
      proof of her unworthiness. The daughter of a
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign> would have departed with a certain submissive
      dignity and grace, and, whatever her lacerated
      feelings, would have proclaimed her pleasure in the
      act of the superior ones. But the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-girl fled
      in the night, like one who goes in fear and shame.</p>
                  
      <p>Meanwhile Ohano was duly taken to Tokio.<pb n="82"/>
      Here in the presence of a host of triumphantly
      joyous and exultant relatives she was married at
      last to the Lord Saito Gonji.</p>
                  
      <p>Here, like a dutiful wife, she remained in the
      capital by her husband’s side, awaiting the summons
      which would take him from her and give him eternally
      to the Emperor.</p>
                  
      <p>As a little boy Gonji had been, in a way, fond of
      Ohano. She was of that chubby, sulky type that
      a small boy delights to tease. Time had changed
      very little the form and disposition of Ohano; but
      what in a child had appealed to his humorous
      affection, in a woman proved not merely tiresome
      but repellent. Mere unadorned flesh has little
      attraction for one of a naturally poetic and visionary
      temperament. Even the slight affection he had
      felt for Ohano as a child had now entirely disappeared.
      It was with an element of positive loathing
      that he regarded the girl he had married. When
      his mind reverted to the one he had forsaken on her
      account, he was filled with such overwhelming
      despair that it seemed as if he must injure himself—but
      for the mighty events in which he tried vainly
      to plunge his mind.</p>
                  
      <p>No soldier in all the Emperor’s service, though animated
      with the most lofty patriotism and excitement
      as the times demanded, seized upon the cause with
      such fanatic zeal as Lord Gonji. Day and night
      he was among his men. When not in some way<pb n="83"/>
      improving their equipment and physical condition,
      he was arousing and stimulating their ardor and
      patriotism.</p>
                  
      <p>People pointed with pride to the young man’s
      heroic ancestry, and prophesied that in his young
      body still glowed that wonderful spark which would
      give to Japan another hero, and assure for all under
      him glorious victory and triumph.</p>
                  
      <p>It seemed as if it were impossible for him to
      leave his men even to return to his temporary
      home for rest and sleep. The prayers and entreaties
      of his mother and of his new wife fell upon deaf ears.
      Vainly they besought him, in the short time he was
      yet to be in Japan, to remain as much as possible
      in their company. They were sacrificing him for
      all time. Surely even exalted <foreign xml:lang="ja">Tenshi-sama</foreign> (the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">Mikado</foreign>) would not begrudge to them the little,
      precious moments he might yet spend in Japan.</p>
                  
      <p>Gonji looked at the pleading women with blank,
      cold eyes. Then, abruptly, he would return to his
      labors.</p>
                  
      <p>Never since the day they had married him to
      Ohano had he voluntarily addressed a single word
      to his wife. When forced finally at night to return
      to her sole company, he would creep back stealthily
      to the house like some guilty wretch entering upon
      some infamous errand. There, always, he found
      her patiently, dutifully awaiting his coming.</p>
                  
      <p><q>My dear lord</q>, she would humbly say, <q>though<pb n="84"/>
      it is very late, I pray you feed the honorable insides.
      Permit the honorable interior to wait upon your
      excellency</q>.</p>
                 
      <p>He ignored the tray of viands thus nightly tendered
      him as completely as he did her words; but
      when she made officious efforts to assist him to undress,
      kneeling in the attitude of a servant or the
      lowliest of wives, to wash his feet, he would quietly
      push her to one side, just as though she were some
      article that stood in his pathway.</p>
                  
      <p>Sometimes he would point silently to his wife’s
      couch, thus sternly bidding her retire. When this
      was accomplished, he would lie down beside her,
      and not till the heavy, even, healthy breathing of
      Ohano proclaimed she slept would he close his own
      weary eyelids.</p>
                  
      <p>Beside Ohano’s blooming, satisfied face (for with
      feminine logic Ohano set her husband’s curious
      treatment of her down to his absorption in the war
      matter, and thus in the proud knowledge of possession
      still found happiness), he conjured up always
      that thin, white, wistful one, whose long dark eyes
      had drawn the very heart out of his breast from
      the moment they had first looked into his own.</p>
                  
      <p>Sometimes in the night he would arise, to tramp
      frenziedly up and down, as he pictured the fate
      that might have befallen the beloved Moonlight.
      What had become of her? Whither had she gone?
      How would she fare, now that, penniless and<pb n="85"/>
      without even her old employment (for now in
      time of war the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> were in reduced circumstances),
      she had been cast adrift?</p>
                  
      <p>He cursed his own folly in not having foreseen
      the way in which she would go; for not having
      provided for her, forced her to accept at least
      monetary assistance of some kind from his family.</p>
                  
      <p>His agents had assured him she had not returned
      to Matsuda; neither had a trace been found of her
      in any of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-houses of Tokio or Kioto.
      Whither, then, had she gone? A sick fear seized
      upon him that she had started upon the Long
      Journey alone, without waiting for him, who had
      promised to tread it with her. He knew that he
      would never know a moment’s peace till the time
      when, face to face, they should meet each other
      upon the Long Road which has no ending.</p>
                  
      <p>Thus the wretched nights passed, giving the unhappy
      man little or no rest; and that he might not
      encounter the ingratiating smiles and questions of
      Ohano, he would depart hurriedly ere she awoke,
      and plunge into the war preparations with renewed
      fervor and desperation.</p>
            
            <pb n="86"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XIV</head>

  
      <p>The days stretched into weeks; the
      weeks into months. It is not possible
      to account for the various delays that
      arise in time of war.</p>
                  
      <p>Four months had passed since his
      marriage to Ohano, when at last the welcome summons
      came. His honorable regiment was to go to
      the front!</p>
                  
      <p>Gonji felt like one released from a cruel bondage.
      His very heart leaped within him like a mad thing.
      Even to Ohano he spoke, and although his words
      had a deep ulterior meaning, she was gratified and
      elated. They stood as a proof at least to her of
      her elevation. He had noticed her! Undoubtedly
      she had leaped forward a thousand paces in the
      estimation of her lord. He recognized her importance
      now at the crucial moment.</p>
                  
      <p>Naturally vain and proud, Ohano’s mind had been
      entirely concerned with the attention she was attracting
      from all as the wife of the Lord Saito
      Gonji. People pointed her out as she rode abroad
      in the lacquered carriages of the Saito family, and
      everywhere was recounted the illustrious history<pb n="87"/>
      of his ancestors and of her own important mission,
      now when the last of the exalted race was sacrificing
      his life for Japan.</p>
                  
      <p>And now her lord himself had condescended to
      notice her, and for the first time his somewhat wild
      eyes had looked at Ohano with an element of gentleness
      and kindness. His words were curious, and
      long after he was gone to the city Ohano turned
      them over in her mind and pondered their meaning;
      and when, that night, he returned to her for the last
      time, she begged him to repeat them, saying that
      the presence of the parents-in-law had confused her
      hearing. She wished rightly and clearly to understand
      his words, so that when he was quite gone
      from her she might the better carry out his wishes.</p>
                  
      <p>With solemn dignity he repeated the instructions:</p>
                 
      <p><q>Take care of your honorable health and of that
      of my descendant. Choose wisely a companion
      upon the Long Journey, for it is lonely to travel.
      The world is peopled with many souls, but only
      two may travel the final path together</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Again she pondered the words, and she shivered
      under her husband’s melancholy glance. What did
      the strange words imply? Consideration for her
      future merely? Surely he must know that, as the
      wife of one so illustrious as he must become, she
      would never marry another in his place. (Every
      Japanese woman resigns her husband to war
      service with the proud and pious belief and hope<pb n="88"/>
      that he will not return, but will gloriously sacrifice
      life for the cause.)</p>
                  
      <p>Finally she said, as she watched his face stealthily:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It will be unnecessary for the humble one to
      choose another companion. Glorious will be the
      privilege of awaiting the time when she will join
      your honor on the journey</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>He gave her a deep look, which seemed to pierce
      and search to the very depths of her heart.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Ohano</q>, he said, <q><hi style="font-style:italic">thou</hi> knowest I did not marry
      thee save for the time of this life</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>She sat up stiffly, mechanically, moistening her
      dry lips. All the petty vanity with which she had
      upheld herself since the day when she had married
      Saito Gonji now seemed to drop from her in shreds.
      Her many days of supreme devotion, and even adoration,
      for the Lord Gonji—and they stretched back
      as far as her childhood days—came up to torture
      her. Looking into her husband’s face, Ohano knew,
      without questioning, who it was who would make
      the final precious journey with him. She was to
      be wife only for the short span of his lifetime.
      That other one, the Spider—whose image in effigy
      she had pricked so mercilessly with a thousand
      spiteful pins in order to destroy her soul, as she
      fain would have done her body—<hi style="font-style:italic">she</hi> was to be the
      wife of Saito Gonji for all time! She who had
      stolen him from Ohano upon her very wedding-night!</p>
            
            <pb n="89"/>
                  
      <p>Her face became convulsed. The eyes seemed to
      have disappeared from her face. Presently, breathing
      heavily, her hands clutching her breast to repress
      the emotion which would show despite her
      best efforts:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I pray you permit your humble wife to attend
      your lordship upon the journey</q>, she said. <q>Who
      else is competent to travel at your side, my lord?</q></p>
                  
      <p>He did not answer her. He was looking out of
      an open <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>, and his face in the moonlight seemed
      as if carved in marble, so set, so rigid, immovable
      as that of one dead.</p>
                  
      <p>Ohano rose desperately to her feet. She felt
      unspeakably weak from the excess of her inner
      passion. At that moment gladly would she have
      exchanged places with the homeless and outcast
      wife of Saito Gonji, who in the end was to come to
      that eternal bliss so rigorously denied to Ohano.</p>
                  
      <p>She caught at her husband’s hand. He drew it
      up into his sleeve. There had never been any caresses
      between them. Always he seemed rather to shrink
      from contact with her.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Lord, let us call a family council</q>, she cried, shrilly.
      <q>Let them decide where is my proper place, Lord
      Saito Gonji. It is not for the time of one life only
      that we marry. I have plighted my troth to you
      for all time!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Slowly he turned; and the deep, penetrating look
      scorched Ohano again.</p>
            
            <pb n="90"/>
                  
      <p><q>And I</q>, he said, <q>have plighted my troth with
      another</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Lord, it was dissolved</q>, she cried, breathlessly,
      <q>by the honorable laws of our land. The Spider is
      now an outcast. Ah!</q>—her voice rose shrilly on the
      verge of hysteria—<q>it is said—it is known—proved
      by those who know—that now—now she is an inmate
      of the Yoshiwara. She—</q></p>
                  
      <p>He had gripped her so savagely by the shoulder
      that she cried aloud in pain. At her cry he threw
      her from him almost as if she had been some unclean
      thing. She fell upon her knees, and upon them
      crept toward him, stretching out her hands and
      beating them futilely together.</p>
                  
      <p><q>My Lord Gonji! My husband! I am your
      honorable wife before all the eight million gods of
      the heavens and the seas. It is impossible to forsake
      me. I will not permit it. I will cling to your
      skirts and proclaim my rights—ah, yes, to the very
      doors of Hades, if need be!</q></p>
                  
      <p>He seemed not even to hear her. With his face
      thrust out like one who dreams, he was recalling
      a vision. It was the face of Moonlight as he had
      seen it last with that exalted, spiritual expression
      of self-sacrifice and adoration upon it. <hi style="font-style:italic">She</hi> an inmate
      of the cursed Yoshiwara! The thought was
      grotesque, so horrible that a short laugh came to
      his lips.</p>
                  
      <p>He strode by the agonized woman on the floor<pb n="91"/>
      without a further word, and sharply snapped the
      folding doors between them. This was their farewell.</p>
                  
      <p>As he passed down the street, on his way to join
      his regiment, he was halted by the throngs pressing
      on all sides. The whole country seemed to be
      abroad in the streets. The people marched about
      carrying banners, and even the little children
      seemed to have caught the spirit of Yamato Damashii
      (the Soul of Japan), and stammered their little
      banzais in chorus. It was an inspiring sight, and
      he wandered about for some time, with no particular
      purpose, unconscious where he was, in what direction
      his feet carried him, following the throngs as they
      pushed along through the streets.</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly he came to where the lights were
      brighter; and the sounds of revelry seemed to
      shriek at the very gates. Gonji paused, concentrating
      his attention for the first time upon the place.</p>
                  
      <p>All at once it dawned upon him that he was
      before the gates of the Yoshiwara! The words of
      Ohano seemed to ring in his ears. As if to shut out
      their loud outcry, he covered his ears and sped like a
      madman down the street. He swore to his very soul
      that it was an accursed lie Ohano had uttered, and yet—</p>
                  
      <p>He stopped suddenly and threw a furtive, agonized
      glance toward the infernal <q>city</q>. Then
      his head drooped down upon his breast and he staggered
      toward the barracks like one who has been
      wounded mortally.</p>
            
            <pb n="92"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XV</head>

  
      <p><q>Let us go outside. See, many of the
      citizens stand on the roofs of the cars.
      We can see nothing from here</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Thus coaxed Ohano. With Gonji’s
      parents she was traveling, their train
      running parallel with another crowded with the departing
      troops. The trains moved slowly, for all
      the country had come to see the departing ones and
      to acclaim them with loud <foreign xml:lang="ja">banzais</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p>Lady Saito’s hard features were unrecognizable
      because of their swollen and agonized appearance.
      She allowed the younger woman to support her
      and finally draw her outside. The people made way
      respectfully for them. Every one knew their history—knew,
      moreover, of the sacrifice they were
      making in giving up the only son, and of how
      generously they had contributed to the war fund.
      Here were the brave, patriotic father and mother!
      Here the young and beautiful wife.</p>
                  
      <p>Ohano’s round cheeks were pink with excitement.
      She had forgotten, for the time being at least, her
      last interview with her husband. The excitement
      of the situation, the murmured admiration and re-<pb n="93"/>spect
      of those about her, upheld her. There was
      almost an element of enjoyment mingled with her
      excitement, as her eyes wandered eagerly over the
      crowds.</p>
                  
      <p>The train bearing the troops moved a bit swifter
      along its course, and the fourth car came opposite
      to that on the platform of which stood the Saito
      family.</p>
                  
      <p><q>There he is! There he is!</q> cried Ohano, excitedly;
      and she leaned far out, restrained by the
      solicitous hand of her father-in-law, and, waving
      her silk handkerchief, called to her husband by
      name:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Gonji! Gonji! My Lord Gonji!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>My son!</q> moaned the aged woman, unable
      longer to restrain her feelings.</p>
                  
      <p>Stoically, and with no sign of the ache within
      her, she had parted from her son. Japanese
      women send their men on perilous journeys with
      smiles upon their lips, even while their hearts are
      breaking; but now, as the mother saw the train
      carrying away the only child the gods had given
      her, the tension broke. She clung moaning to her
      husband and her daughter-in-law.</p>
                  
      <p>For the first time, as she saw the thin profile of
      the young man in the window of the car opposite,
      she was seized with an overwhelming sense of
      remorse. What happiness had she ever helped to
      bring into the life of her boy? She had put him<pb n="94"/>
      from her after the manner of a Spartan woman
      while he was yet in tender years. She had done
      this fiercely, heroically as she believed, fearing that
      otherwise she might not sufficiently do her duty
      to both him and the ancestors. But now—now! He
      was going from her forever! She had given him
      to the Emperor! Soon her terrible prayer that he
      might give his young life in service for his Emperor
      and country might indeed be answered.</p>
                  
      <p>She felt very old, very feeble, and utterly forsaken
      and forlorn. Even as she looked through
      tear-blinded eyes at her son there came vividly
      before her memory the pale and tragic face of the
      young and outcast wife he had loved so passionately.
      She burst into a loud cry, stretching out her
      arms frantically:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Oh, my son! Oh, my son!</q></p>
                  
      <p>In the opposite train Gonji raised his head, saw
      his people, but, possibly because of the crowds and
      the intervening glass pane, did not notice their intense
      anguish. He smiled, bowed, and made a slight
      motion of salute with his hand.</p>
                  
      <p>His mother was silenced, and remained staring
      at him like one turned to stone. Ohano’s face fell,
      and she stood like a pouting child unjustly punished.
      He had not even risen in his seat nor so much as
      opened the window.</p>
                  
      <p>Both trains had now come to a standstill at the
      little suburban station. Crowds of people swarmed<pb n="95"/>
      over the platform, some even climbing the steps of
      the troop-train and penetrating into the cars themselves.
      A band began to beat out the monotonous
      droning music of the national hymn. Windows
      were raised, caps lifted, and cheering ensued for a
      time. But still the Lord Gonji remained unmoved,
      not rousing from the moody reverie into which he
      seemed plunged, and casting not even a glance in
      the direction of the party that watched him so
      eagerly from across the way: so oblivious and indifferent
      to his surroundings did he seem.</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly an officer in the seat behind him leaned
      over and spoke to him. His family saw Gonji start
      as if he had been struck. Turning about quickly
      in his seat, he tore at the fastenings of the window.
      Now he leaned far out, his ears strained, his eyes
      searching above the vast crowds without.</p>
                  
      <p>They watched him curiously, following his gaze.
      His lips moved; he seemed about to leap from the
      window, but was held back by the restraining hand
      of his brother-officer, and the train began to move
      rapidly.</p>
                  
      <p>A hush had fallen not alone upon the family of
      the Saito, but on the throngs pressing on all sides.
      As if compelled, their united gaze followed that of
      the seemingly entranced Gonji.</p>
                  
      <p>Upon a little hillock a short space removed from
      the station, one lone figure stood out, silhouetted
      against the clear blue sky. Her <foreign xml:lang="ja">kimono</foreign> was of a<pb n="96"/>
      vermilion color, embroidered with dragons of gold.
      Gold, too, was her <foreign xml:lang="ja">obi</foreign>, and in the bright sunlight
      her scarlet fan and the poppies in her hair flashed
      like sparks of fire.</p>
                  
      <p>To the crowds in the valley below, surging like
      a swarm of sheep all along the railway-tracks,
      following the troop-trains, their hoarse cheers mingling
      with that of the beating drums and the chanting
      of the national hymn, she seemed a symbol of
      triumph, an exquisite omen of victory to come!</p>
                  
      <p>Some one shouted her name aloud:</p>
                  
      <p><q>The glorious Spider of the House of Slender
      Pines!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Nay</q>, cried another, <q>it is the vision of the
      Sun Lady herself!</q></p>
                  
      <p>The soldiers, too, saw her, and began to cheer,
      their wild <foreign xml:lang="ja">banzais</foreign> ringing out triumphantly and
      reaching the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> on the hill.</p>
            
            <pb n="97"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XVI</head>

  
      <p>On a day in the season of greatest heat,
      a few months after the going of Lord
      Saito Gonji to the front, there staggered
      up the tortuous and winding pathway,
      which climbed the mountain-side to
      where the House of Slender Pines rested as on a cliff, a
      curious figure. She was garbed in the conventional
      dress of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, and the burning sun, beating
      down upon the little figure, showed the gold of her
      wide <foreign xml:lang="ja">obi</foreign> and the glittering vermilion of her <foreign xml:lang="ja">kimono</foreign>.</p>
      
      <p>Something bound to the woman’s neck and back
      seemed to crush her almost double beneath its
      weight, and she clung weakly to the stumps of tree
      and bush as she made her way along.</p>
                  
      <p>It seemed almost, to the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> sitting in the
      cool shade of the pavilion, that she dragged herself
      along on her hands and knees.</p>
                  
      <p>One ceased strumming upon the <foreign xml:lang="ja">samisen</foreign>, and
      a dancer, idly illustrating a few new gestures to
      the admiring apprentices, stopped in the middle of
      a movement.</p>
                  
      <p>Omi suddenly screeched and caught at the sleeve
      of the dancer. No one moved or spoke. They stood<pb n="98"/>
      dumbfounded, staring with unbelieving eyes at the
      Spider, as she crept up the last height and dropped
      in silent exhaustion in their midst. There, with the
      glowing sun beating mercilessly down upon her,
      entangled in her glimmering gown, she lay like a
      great dead butterfly.</p>
                  
      <p>There was a stir among the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>. Eyes met
      eyes in meaning, shocked glances; but still, from
      custom, they were voiceless.</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly the little Omi began to run about like
      one bereft of her senses. One moment she knelt
      by her former mistress; the next she sought to
      awaken the chaperon, shaking and pounding that
      enormously stout and somnolent lady. Several
      maids now joined her, and they ran about in panic-stricken
      circles, uncertain what to do. Matsuda
      was absent. The poor, mindless <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> was
      indoors, playing and talking with her countless dolls,
      quite oblivious of all about her. Should they go to
      her? Would she understand?</p>
                  
      <p>Omi finally darted into the house, and, dragging
      the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> from her dolls, drew her out into the
      sunlight. For a moment the demented creature
      stared with a puzzled, troubled look at the form
      upon the ground. Then she began to utter strange
      little inarticulate cries and threw herself upon the
      body of the Spider.</p>
                  
      <p>She seemed suddenly to regain all of her lost
      senses. She felt the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>’s hands, listened to<pb n="99"/>
      her heart, screamed for water, and tore at the
      object upon the Spider’s back, drawing it warmly
      to her own bosom.</p>
                  
      <p>One maiden brought water, another a parasol,
      another a fan, while Omi supported Moonlight’s
      head upon her lap. One vied with the other in
      performing some service for the one they all had
      loved.</p>
                  
      <p>Presently the heavy eyes of the Spider opened,
      and, dazedly, she appeared to recognize the faces
      of those about her. A faint smile crept to her
      white lips. But the smile quickly faded, and a
      piteous look of commingled fear and pain stole
      over her wan little face. She put back her hands
      to her neck and started up, moaning. Loving arms
      were about her. They reassured her that all about
      her were friends, and showed her her baby, where,
      safe and sweet, it rested in the bosom of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>.
      Then for a long time she lay with her eyes closed, a
      look of peace, such as comes after a long, exhausting
      race, upon her face.</p>
                  
      <p>Later, when, refreshed and stronger, she rested
      among the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> in the pavilion, she weakly and
      somewhat incoherently told them the story of her
      wanderings.</p>
                  
      <p>At first she had found employment under another
      name in a tea-house of the city of Tokio; but it
      was not in the capacity of <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, for she knew
      the agents of her husband sought among all the<pb n="100"/>
      houses of the two cities for a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> answering her
      description. Moreover, she had not the heart nor
      the strength to follow her old employment. So she
      had worked in the humble capacity of seamstress
      to a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house in Tokio, near by the very barracks
      where her husband daily went. Every day she had
      seen him, unseen by him. She had even heard his
      inquiries of the master of the house for one answering
      her description. But no one had thought
      of the pale and shrinking little sewing woman, who
      so humbly served the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>, as the famous one
      they sought.</p>
                  
      <p>Then the war had caused business stagnation
      everywhere in Tokio, and the first to suffer were
      the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>. Patrons now were few, confined mostly
      to members of the departing regiments.</p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight’s strength at this time had begun to
      fail her. Her work was unsatisfactory. She was
      dismissed. Now, at this time, when it was too late
      to please the Lord Saito Gonji and all his august
      ancestors, she had made the astonishing discovery,
      which she had not known when with him: that she
      was to become a mother!</p>
                  
      <p>Unable, even had she so desired, to return to the
      house of the Saitos, scorning to accept even the
      smallest help from the family which had divorced
      her, turned away from every place where she sought
      employment because of her condition, she had been
      reduced to the direst necessity. Indeed she, the once<pb n="101"/>
      celebrated Spider, the wife of the noble Lord Saito
      Gonji, had become a miserable mendicant, hovering
      on the outskirts of the temples and the tea-houses,
      seeking, in the garb of her late calling, now worn
      and tattered, as they saw, for pity and charity.
      After long and tortuous wanderings, she had at
      last managed to return to Kioto. She wandered
      out into the hills in search of the House of Slender
      Pines.</p>
                  
      <p>In a secluded and quiet little corner of a seemingly
      deserted and unexplored hill she had found at last
      a refuge in a diminutive temple, where a lonely
      priestess expiated the sins of her youth by a life
      of absolute solitude and piety. Here Moonlight’s
      child was born. Here she might still have been,
      but the aged nun had finished her last penance
      and had gone to join the ones the gods loved in
      Nirvana. The <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> had set out again, in search
      of her former home, and now she bore her baby
      on her back. Without funds to pay for a <foreign xml:lang="ja">jinrikisha</foreign>,
      she had traveled entirely on foot. The journey
      had been long, the sun never so hot, but, ah! the
      gods had guided her feet unerringly, and here at
      last she was in their midst!</p>
                  
      <p>She looked at the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>, whispering to the
      little head against her lips; at Omi, holding her
      hands in a strangling grasp and making violent
      contortions of her face in an effort to keep back
      the tears; at the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> and maidens, with their<pb n="102"/>
      pretty faces running over with tears. Then she
      sighed and smiled.</p>
                  
      <p>The <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> seemed to remember something
      of a sudden. She started upon her knees, clapping
      her hands violently.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Hurry, maidens!</q> she cried, shrilly. <q>The
      most honorable Spider requires new apparel! Wait
      upon her quickly and excellently!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Omi whirled around in a dizzy circle, and she
      danced every step of the way to the house. Inside
      they heard her singing, and a moment later berating
      and scolding the maid who was to wait upon her
      mistress.</p>
            
            <pb n="103"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XVII</head>

   
      <p>Returning from a fruitless canvass
      for patrons for his house, Matsuda was
      in an evil mood. The times were bitter.
      Upon every tongue was heard but the
      one topic—the war! The gayest and
      most spendthrift of youths turned a deaf ear to the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-keeper’s descriptions of the exceptional beauty
      and talents of his maidens. The clash of drum and
      arms had a more alluring call to the men of Japan
      than the most charming song ever sung by <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>;
      and the glittering sun-flag, tossing aloft from every
      roof and tower, was more enchanting to their sight
      than the brightest pair of eyes or reddest lips of
      which the master of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> told.</p>
                  
      <p>Not a patron in all the city of Kioto for the
      once famous House of Slender Pines! Superstitiously
      its master feared his place was doomed.</p>
                  
      <p>At the solicitation of his wife, he had kept the
      girls despite the hard times; now he felt he could
      no longer humor even the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>. Matsuda
      knew the fate likely to befall the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>, were they
      to be turned out of employment at this time. Unable
      to obtain positions through the customary channels<pb n="104"/>
      of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-houses, they had but one last resource—the
      Yoshiwara! Even in war-times the
      <q>hell city</q>, as it was aptly named, thrived. Against
      this fate the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> had so far shielded the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> of the House of Slender Pines, and even
      now, as he thought of her, Matsuda debated how
      he should explain the going of even the humblest
      apprentice.</p>
                  
      <p>As his <foreign xml:lang="ja">jinrikisha</foreign> wound in and out up the twisting
      pathway, he noted through the shadowing trees
      that the tea-house was brilliantly lighted, an expense
      lately considerably cut down by his express orders.
      The frown upon his brow grew darker, and his
      little cruel eyes were like those of a wild boar.</p>
                  
      <p>As he turned into the gates he saw that even
      the pathway was strung with lighted lanterns, and
      from the house itself came the resounding beat of
      the triumphant little <foreign xml:lang="ja">koto</foreign>, mingled with the softly
      humming voices of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p>The illuminated tea-house, the music, the air of
      festivity and affluence puzzled him. It was against
      his orders, but, perchance, in his absence, some
      lofty ones had condescended to patronize his place!</p>
                  
      <p>As he stepped from his carriage, the laughing
      little Omi came running down to the gate to meet
      him, a bowl of water splashing in her hands. So
      eager she seemed to welcome the master, she barely
      waited for him to kick aside his clogs ere she dashed
      the refreshing water upon his heated feet.</p>
            
            <pb n="105"/>
                  
      <p>The <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> prostrated themselves as he passed
      among them. Wherever he looked he saw the lights
      and the evidences of a recent feast; but nowhere
      did the master of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> see a single guest.</p>
                  
      <p>His face had become pastily white, and his little
      eyes glittered as they turned from side to side. So
      far he spoke no word to the offending <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>.
      Looking upward, he noted the illuminated second
      story, while the lighted <foreign xml:lang="ja">takahiras</foreign> were visible
      against the massed flowers of the balconies and the
      tingling wind-bells. But still, nowhere a guest!
      Mystified, his rage deepening, he turned suddenly
      with a roar toward the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p>So this was the way his servants disported themselves
      in his absence! Feasting and celebrating!
      So be it. They were shortly to learn that their
      master carried with him a punishment even more
      dreadful than the whip. <q>The Yoshiwara!</q> he
      shouted, raising his clenched fists above his head.
      That was the fate reserved for the faithless cattle
      he had trusted.</p>
                  
      <p>No one stirred. No one spoke. The <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>,
      still prostrated, kept their humble heads on the
      ground. Yet something in their unshrinking attitude
      made him see that for some reason they did
      not realize his words. Like an animal in pain, he
      bounced into their midst, his arm upraised to
      strike, his foot to kick.</p>
                  
      <p>Some one caught at his sleeve and held to it in-<pb n="106"/>sistently.
      He turned and encountered the white,
      wild face of his wife. Her lips moved voicelessly,
      but she clung with tenacity to his sleeve.</p>
                  
      <p>For the first time he struck the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>—a
      cruel, savage blow that sent her staggering back
      from him. She sprang back to his side, dumbly
      caught again at his sleeve with one hand, and
      pointed steadily upward with the other.</p>
                  
      <p>Matsuda looked and began to shake. There on
      the widest balcony of the House of Slender Pines,
      swaying and tossing like a moth in the wind, the
      Spider spun her web.</p>
                  
      <p>He wiped his eyes as if to make sure he did not
      see a vision; but still the alluring, smiling face of the
      one who had brought him fortune glanced at him
      in the torchlight.</p>
                  
      <p><q>The Spider!</q> he cried hoarsely. <q>She is back!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="107"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XVIII</head>

  
      <p>Of course, figured Matsuda to himself,
      even the addition of one so famous as
      the Spider could not at once bring fortune
      to the House of Slender Pines at
      war-time. Then, too, there was the
      honorable child to sustain.</p>
                  
      <p>Not for a moment, Matsuda told himself, did he
      begrudge or regret the celebrations in the Spider’s
      honor rightly insisted upon by his wife. Undoubtedly
      she was an honorable guest. Still, a poor man,
      the keeper of a half-score of <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>, must make
      proper provision for their future sustenance and
      his own old age. If the Spider were, in fact, to prove
      her old title of fortune-bringer to the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house,
      it was necessary that she begin at once.</p>
                  
      <p>So, while the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> and the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> showered
      the Spider with favors and waited upon her slightest
      wish, while the honorable descendant of the illustrious
      Saito blood joyously passed from hand to
      hand, while the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> cast aside her dolls and
      hovered like a brooding mother over Moonlight
      and her baby, Matsuda held his head within his
      own chamber and cunningly planned a scheme<pb n="108"/>
      whereby the Spider’s presence in his house might
      be turned to immediate profit.</p>
                  
      <p>By his contract with the Saito family, the Spider
      was released from bondage. Hence she was not
      entirely bound to serve him. She had already excited
      his exasperation by her persistent refusal
      to dance for prospective customers the dance by
      which she had won fame. She desired to assume
      another pseudonym, and for a month at least asked
      that she might rest and thus regain her strength.</p>
                  
      <p>A month! inwardly had snorted Matsuda. Why,
      even the last batch of troops would be at the front
      by then. Japan would be emptied completely of
      her men. Now was the time, if ever, to draw
      patrons to the house, since the departing soldiers
      celebrated their going at the most popular <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-houses.
      Only the fact that the House of Slender
      Pines was some distance away among the hills kept
      the soldiers from patronizing it in preference to
      those in the city of Kioto. But, could Matsuda
      venture down below, proclaiming the fact of the
      return of the Spider, ah, then indeed he might
      be assured of customers for a time at least!</p>
                 
      <p>No amount of pleading or reasoning, however,
      moved the Spider. With the pitying, solicitous,
      fond arms of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> about her, she languidly
      proclaimed herself still ill, as indeed she looked and
      was.</p>
                  
      <p>So Matsuda chewed on his nails and thought and<pb n="109"/>
      thought. He thought of the agents of the young
      Lord Saito Gonji, who had come to see him at the
      time Gonji’s regiment was stationed in Tokio. He
      thought of the exorbitant reward temptingly tendered
      him for any information of the Spider. How
      he had cursed his inability to find the girl at that
      time. But the young Lord Gonji was gone—gone
      forever, undoubtedly. Who was there in all this
      haughty family, which had disdainfully and contemptuously
      cast out from its doors the miserable
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, who could now possibly be interested in
      her lot? Nevertheless, the master of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house
      pondered the matter, and as he did so there
      came up suddenly before his mind’s eye the round
      rosy face of the rightful heir of all the Saito ancestors.
      His heart began to thump within him
      with a strange excitement. Suddenly he set out
      upon a journey.</p>
            
            <pb n="110"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XIX</head>

  
      <p>The ancestral home of the Saitos was
      situated in the most aristocratic of the
      suburbs of Kioto. Walled in on all
      sides by the evergreen hills and mountains
      and sharing in eminence and
      beauty the most famous of the temples, the shiro
      should have proved an ideal retreat for the saddened
      female relatives of the Lord Saito Gonji.</p>
                  
      <p>Here, with their household reduced to a single
      man and maid, and themselves performing menial
      tasks the more to chasten their spirits, as had
      become the custom during this period among the
      nobility, the mother and the wife of Saito Gonji
      lived silently together. For even the father of
      Gonji had heard the stern voice of Hachiman, the
      god of war, and had taken up arms dutifully in his
      Emperor’s defense.</p>
                  
      <p>No longer was the harsh, sarcastic tongue of the
      Lady Saito Ichigo heard in insistent berating of
      maid and daughter-in-law; nor did the loud, mirthless
      laughter of Ohano ring out. Mute, their white
      faces marked with the shadow of a fear that fairly<pb n="111"/>
      ate at their hearts’ core, the two Saito women
      plodded along daily together.</p>
                  
      <p>For a time, after the going of Gonji, the older
      woman had waited upon the younger; but as the
      days and weeks passed her solicitude for the health
      of the young wife slowly diminished, and in its
      place came a scorching anxiety to torture the now
      aging woman.</p>
                  
      <p>Not in the sneering tone she had turned upon
      the hapless Moonlight, but with the deepest earnestness,
      she now besought her daughter-in-law daily
      to lavish costly offerings at the shrines, and even
      to drink of the Kiyomidzu springs! As became a
      dutiful daughter, the once smiling, taunting Ohano
      joined that same melancholy group where once
      the unhappy Moonlight had been a familiar figure.</p>
                  
      <p>Thus the tragic months passed away. Few if any
      words now passed between the Saito women. A
      wall seemed to have arisen between them. Where
      previously the older woman had felt for Ohano an
      affection almost equivalent to that of a mother, she
      now turned wearily from the girl’s timid effort to
      appease her. Unlike, however, her treatment of the
      Spider, she at least spared the young wife the
      harsh, nagging, condemnatory words of reproach
      and recrimination.</p>
                  
      <p>Every morning the selfsame question was asked
      and answered:</p>
            
            <pb n="112"/>
                  
      <p><q>You were at Kiyomidzu yesterday, my daughter?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Hé</foreign>, honorable mother</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>And—?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>The gods are obdurate, alas!</q></p>
      
      <p>Lady Saito would mechanically knock out the
      ash from her pipe and refill it with her trembling
      fingers. Then, shaking her head, she would mutter:</p>
                  
      <p><q>From the decree of heaven there is no escape!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="113"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XX</head>

  
      <p><q>Even a calamity, left alone, may turn
      into a fortune</q>, quoted Lady Saito
      Ichigo, devoutly, as with her hand
      trembling with excitement she filled
      her pipe.</p>
                  
      <p>Ohano listlessly extended the taper to her mother-in-law,
      and the latter took several puffs and inhaled
      with intense satisfaction.</p>
                  
      <p>There was something peculiarly still and strange
      about the attitude of Ohano. Her eyes seemed
      almost closed, her lips were a single colorless line,
      and there was not a vestige of color in her face.
      Almost she seemed like some automaton that was
      unable to move save when touched. One of Ohano’s
      arms was shorter than the other, and this had
      always been a sensitive matter to her, so that generally
      she had carried it hidden in her sleeve. Now
      she nursed it mechanically, almost as if it pained,
      and twice she extended the lame arm for the taper.
      Whatever there was about the girl’s expression or
      attitude, it aroused the irritation of the older woman,
      and she said sharply:</p>
            
            <pb n="114"/>
                  
      <p><q>You perceive the wisdom of the proverb, my
      girl, do you not?</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano said slowly, as though the words came
      from her with an effort:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is not apropos to our case at all. I do not
      at all see either the calamity or the fortune, for that
      matter</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Her mother-in-law took her pipe from her mouth
      and stared at her amazedly a moment. Then she
      enumerated events upon her fingers.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Calamity</q>, she said, <q>when my son met the
      Spider woman. Almost it seemed as if the gods
      had forsaken their favorites. What a fate for the
      illustrious ancestors—the last of the race married
      to a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano shrugged her shoulders, then averted her
      face. She had bitten her lips so that now they
      seemed to be blistered, and pushed out, thick and
      swollen.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Well</q>, resumed her mother, triumphantly, <q>you
      perceive the workings of the gods undoubtedly in
      what followed. The war came like a veritable
      miracle. Think; had it come but a few—one or
      two—months later even, the Spider would still
      have been in our house, and, what is more, Ohano,
      elevated! Oh, there would have been no enduring
      the dancer. It is said</q>—and she lowered her voice
      confidently—<q>that the arrogance and pride of women
      of her class is an intolerable thing when once aroused.<pb n="115"/>
      An excellent actress was this Spider. Let us admit
      it. She was prepared to—wait! She entreated patience
      for only a few months longer. But, as I have
      said, the gods intervened. The war arose! It was
      found imperative to return her at once! Hoom!
      That is right. You may well smile, my girl, since
      your turn had come!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano’s mask-like countenance had broken into a
      rigid smile of reminiscence. She recalled the days
      of her supreme triumph—the casting out of the one
      she hated, her own elevation as the wife of the
      Lord Saito Gonji. A faint color stole into her cheeks.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I’ll confess</q>, continued the mother-in-law, humorously,
      <q>that you proved a less docile and filial
      daughter</q>. She chuckled reminiscently. <q>It is
      impossible to forget the humility of the Spider!</q>
      She looked at Ohano fondly. <q>I will tell you, my
      girl, I always desired you for my daughter. Your
      mother and I were cousins, and do you know—I
      will tell you, now that my lord is honorably absent—that
      it was originally planned that your father and
      I should marry</q>. She scowled and blinked her
      eyes, sighing heavily. <q>Well, schemes fall through!</q></p>
                  
      <p>For a time she was silent, drowsily pulling at her
      pipe, which Ohano mechanically filled and refilled.</p>
                  
      <p>Presently Lady Saito laid her pipe down on the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">hibachi</foreign> and resumed as if she had not stopped.</p>
                  
      <p><q>So much for the calamity—the intervention of
      the gods that followed. Now look you, my girl.<pb n="116"/>
      All the expensive offerings heaped at the shrines
      have been in vain. It is my opinion that if you
      supplicated the gods till doomsday and drank of
      the last drop of the Kiyomidzu waters, you would
      not now become a mother! Superstitions are for
      the ignorant. These are enlightened days, when
      we fight and beat—and <hi style="font-style:italic">beat</hi>, Ohano!—the Western
      nations! So, now, we supplicate the gods for a solution
      of the tragic problem facing us—the extinction
      of the illustrious race of Saito. It is impossible
      for such a race to die!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano moved uneasily. She had picked up her
      embroidery frame, and was attempting to work,
      but her lips were moving and her hands trembled.
      Partly to hide her expression from her mother-in-law,
      she bent her head far over the frame. Lady
      Saito began to laugh quite loudly.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Never—no, not within the entire span of a
      lifetime—have I even heard of such favor of the
      gods! Just think, Ohano, without the pains and
      labors of a mother, they put into your honorable
      arms a most noble descendant of the august ancestors.
      Why, you should extend your arms in perpetual
      thanks to all the gods. Was ever such mercy?</q></p>
                  
      <p>Said Ohano, with her face still hidden by the frame:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is said, as you know, that it is easier to beget
      children than to care for them!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Silence a moment. Then she added with sudden
      passionate vehemence:</p>
            
            <pb n="117"/>
                  
      <p><q>I loathe the task you set me, mother-in-law.
      It is not possible for me to carry out your wishes</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>The expression on the older woman’s face should
      have warned her. The thin lips drew back in a
      line as cruel as when previously she had looked at
      the hapless Moonlight. Her voice was, if possible,
      harsher.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is better to nourish a dog than an unfaithful
      child!</q> she cried, got to her feet, and, drawing her
      skirts about her, moved away in stately dudgeon.</p>
                  
      <p>Ohano leaped up also, anxious to repair the injury
      she had done.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Mother!</q> she cried out, chokingly, <q>put yourself
      in my place. Would it be possible for you to cherish
      in your bosom the child of one you abhorred?</q></p>
                  
      <p>Slowly the outraged and angry look faded from
      Lady Saito’s face. It seemed pinched and haggard.
      Her voice was curiously gentle:</p>
                  
      <p><q>That is possible, Ohano. I have given you an
      instance in my own honorable house, for as deeply
      as I hated your mother, so I have loved you!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano’s breath came in gasps. She was losing
      control of the icy nerve that had hitherto upheld
      her. She longed to fling herself upon the breast of
      her mother-in-law, who, despite her austere bearing
      to all, had always been kind to Ohano. Even as
      the two looked into each other’s face the cry of
      the one they were expecting to arrive was heard
      outside the screens. Matsuda had kept his word!</p>
            
            <pb n="118"/>
                  
      <p>Ohano turned white with despair. She clutched
      at her throat as though she were choking and clung
      for a moment to the screens, her anguished face
      turned back toward her mother-in-law.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is a crime!</q> she gasped. <q>The Spider will
      come for her child!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Let her come</q>, darkly rejoined Lady Saito.
      <q>Who will take the word of a public <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> against
      that of the honorable ladies of the house of Saito?</q></p>
                 
      <p><q>The man—he himself—will betray—it is not
      possible to close the tongue of one of the choum
      class</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>He is well paid. Moreover, in committing the
      act he places himself under the ban of the law.
      Will he betray himself?</q></p>
                  
      <p>Lady Saito moved with a curious sense of hunger
      toward the doors, outside which, she knew, was the
      son of her son. For the moment at least she had
      forgotten Ohano; but when she found the girl
      barred her passage she thrust her ruthlessly aside.
      Ohano fell upon her knees by the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>, and, with
      her face hidden upon the floor, she began to pray
      to the gods.</p>
            
            <pb n="119"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XXI</head>


      <p>Meanwhile in the House of Slender
      Pines there was pandemonium. The
      frightened, panic-stricken <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> and
      maidens fled wildly about, seeking in
      every nook and corner of the place for
      the lost child, while above their chattering and awe-stricken
      whispers rose the shrill, hysterical laughter
      of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p>She it was who had lost the child, so she averred,
      for it was upon her bosom the little one had slept.</p>
                  
      <p>Of all the inmates of the House of Slender Pines,
      the only one whose voice had not yet been heard
      was the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> Moonlight. She sat in an upper
      chamber, her chin pillowed by her folded hands,
      while her long, dark eyes stared straight out before
      her blankly. She had remained in this motionless
      position from the moment they had told her of the
      loss of her child. Her little apprentice, Omi, fearing
      that her mistress’s mind was affected, hung about
      her in tears, alternately offering bodily service and
      seeking to tempt the silent one to eat. But her
      offices were ignored or passively endured. The
      food remained untouched.</p>
            
            <pb n="120"/>
                  
      <p>Not even the wild crying of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> stirred
      her, though she could plainly hear the coaxing
      voices of the maidens as they sought to restrain
      her from flinging herself down the mountain-side.</p>
                  
      <p>Later in the day, however, when the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>,
      whose wailing, from sheer exhaustion, had turned to
      long gasping sobs, scratched and pulled at the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>
      of the Spider’s room, Moonlight stirred, like one
      coming out of a trance, and drew her hand dazedly
      across her eyes as she listened to the heartrending
      words of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Dearest Moonlight! The honorable little one
      has gone upon a journey. He was too beautiful,
      too exalted for a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-house; the gods coveted him.
      What shall I do? I pray you speak to me. What
      shall the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> do?</q></p>
                  
      <p>With the aid of Omi, the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> slowly arose,
      and, walking blindly toward the screens, opened
      them at last.</p>
                  
      <p>At her sudden appearance the maidens supporting
      and restraining the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> drew back, and even
      the wild wife of Matsuda stopped her bitter crying
      for a moment, for a faint smile was on the lips of the
      Spider, and she held out both her hands toward them.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Silence is good</q>, she gently admonished. <q>It
      is necessary to think. Help me all, I pray you!</q></p>
                  
      <p>They followed her into the chamber and seated
      themselves in a solemn little circle about her. Presently:</p>
            
            <pb n="121"/>
                  
      <p><q>Last night the honorable Lord Taro slept safe
      upon your bosom, <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>?</q></p>
                  
      <p>The poor wife of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-keeper clasped her
      thin hands passionately upon her breast; but her
      expression was less wild, her words intelligible.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Here, my Moonlight! In my arms, the soft head
      nestling beneath my chin—so warm—so—so—so-o—</q></p>
                  
      <p>She laid her hands in the place where the little
      head had rested. Her features worked as if she must
      again abandon herself to anguished weeping, but
      the look on Moonlight’s face restrained her with
      almost hypnotic power.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It was after the going of the master?</q> she
      queried, speaking very slowly and gently, as if
      thus the better to secure intelligent answers.</p>
                  
      <p><q>After the going</q>, repeated the woman. <q>For
      good-fortune I held him in the <foreign xml:lang="ja">andon</foreign>-light, that
      his honorable face might be the last my lord should
      see as he departed</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>He has gone to the—city?</q></p>
      
      <p><q>To the city. He contemplated arousing the interest
      of a departing regiment in your honorable
      presence here, but, alas!</q> She broke down again,
      crying out piercingly that the evil ones had come
      meanwhile in the absence of the master of the house,
      and who was there left save helpless females to seek
      the august little one?</p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight’s chin had fallen into her hands again.
      She seemed to think deeply, but the stricken, numb<pb n="122"/>
      look was gone. Two red spots crept into her cheeks,
      and her dark eyes gleamed dangerously.</p>
                  
      <p>She was rehearsing in her mind the words and
      actions of Matsuda since his return. She was
      acutely aware of the base character of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>-keeper,
      and recalled the many times when she had
      seen him plunged in calculating thought, pacing
      and repacing the gardens, gnawing like a rat at his
      nails, and ever his eye stealing craftily to her.</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly there came clearly to the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> what
      had possessed for days the mind of the master.
      Like an illuminating flash from the gods it came
      upon her what Matsuda had done with her
      child.</p>
                  
      <p>There arose now before her agonized vision the
      cruel, scornful face of the fearful mother-in-law,
      and beside it the round, envious, malicious countenance
      of Ohano. Like a meek, mute fool, she had
      permitted them to drive her from her rightful—yes,
      her legal—home, because she had not then
      known her full power. Now they had stolen from
      her the one link that bound her inexorably to the
      beloved dead: for Japanese women believe their
      soldiers dead until they return. Little they knew
      of the true character of the Spider! She would
      show them that even one of the vagabond, despised
      actor race from which she had come was not to
      be trodden upon with impunity.</p>
                  
      <p>She sprang to her feet, electrified with her new<pb n="123"/>
      purpose. The <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>scattered, alarmed and frightened,
      on either side of her.</p>
                  
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>!</q> She caught at the woman’s wandering
      attention as the latter raised herself from
      her prostrate position on the floor.</p>
                  
      <p><q>My Moonlight?</q></p>
      
      <p><q>You have jewels—cash, perhaps! Speak!</q></p>
                  
      <p>The troubled brows of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> drew together,
      and the vague look of wandering came back
      to her eyes. Moonlight dropped on her knees
      opposite the woman, and, placing her hands on
      her shoulders, forced her to look directly in her
      face.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Answer me—speak, <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>!</q></p>
                  
      <p>As still the poor creature regarded her vaguely,
      the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> whispered with entreating tenderness:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Tell me—my—mother!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Over the wild features of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign> a gentle,
      wistful smile crept.</p>
                  
      <p><q>What shall I say?</q> she plaintively whispered.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Name your possessions. He has given you
      jewels, money even. Yes, it is so—is it not?</q></p>
                  
      <p>The woman nodded. Her lips began to quiver like 
      a child about to cry. The <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> and the apprentices
      had crowded in a circle about them, and
      now they seemed to hang in suspense upon the words
      of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is—so!</q> she faintly said.</p>
            
            <pb n="124"/>
                  
      <p><q>Will you not give them to me?</q> pleaded the
      Spider. Then, as the woman drew back timorously,
      she cried: <q>Quick, now, while you remember where
      they are!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Her eyes were on the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>’s, hypnotically
      compelling her. Slowly the woman tottered to her
      feet. She staggered across the room, supported on
      either side by the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>. She came to the east
      wall, felt along it till her fingers found a secret
      panel, pushed it aside, found an inner one, and still
      an inner one, and still an inner one. Then she drew
      out the lacquer safe, and, with a conciliating smile
      trembling over her vacant features, she opened the
      casket and poured the jewels into the lap of the
      Spider. Moonlight looked at them with glittering
      eyes of excitement. Then she spoke to the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>You all have heard of Oka, the great and just
      judge of feudal days. You know how it was he
      decided the parentage of a child whom two women
      claimed. He bade them each take an arm of the
      girl and pull, and the strongest should prevail to
      keep the child. Alas, the poor mother dared not
      pull too hard lest she hurt her beloved offspring,
      and preferred to resign her child to the impostor.
      Thus the judge knew she was the true mother.
      Maidens, in the city of Kioto there are judges as
      wise as Oka, but much money is needed to obtain
      the services of those who must bring the cases<pb n="125"/>
      before them. Come, little Omi, we set out now
      upon a long and perilous journey!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>The gods go with you!</q> quavered the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign>,
      wiping their tears upon their sleeves.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Ah, may all the gods lead and protect you!</q>
      sobbed the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Okusama</foreign>.</p>
            
            <pb n="126"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XXII</head>

  
      <p>They were bathing the young Lord
      Saito Taro: the Lady Saito Ichigo and
      a rosy-cheeked country girl who had
      recently entered the family’s service.
      Indeed, the coming of the child had materially
      altered the regimen of the household. The
      servants that had been cast aside, as a pious sign
      from the women that they desired to share their
      lord’s sacrifices during war-time, were now restored,
      or their places were filled by new maids.</p>
                  
      <p>There was an air of activity throughout the
      entire estate; the maids bustled about swiftly, the
      chore-boy whistled at his toil, and the aged gateman
      looked up from the great Western book into which
      he seemed to bury his nose at all times.</p>
                  
      <p>The little Taro lay upon his grandmother’s lap,
      and she rubbed his shining little body with warm
      towels, tendered by the admiring maids.</p>
                  
      <p>There was a curious change in the face of Lady
      Saito. Almost it seemed as if an iron had been
      pressed across her features, smoothing away the
      harsh and bitter lines. The eyes had lost their
      angry luster, and seemed almost mild and peaceful<pb n="127"/>
      in expression as she raised them for a moment to
      give an order to the nursemaid. She chuckled
      contentedly when the baby grasped at her thumb
      and put it into his diminutive mouth, sucking upon
      it with fervor and relish.</p>
                  
      <p>Every slight movement of its face or body delighted
      and moved her to an emotion new and fascinating.
      Indeed, she was experiencing in the little
      Taro all the maternal emotions she had sternly
      denied herself with her own son.</p>
                  
      <p>From the moment when she had taken the warm
      tiny body into her arms everything within her
      seemed to have capitulated; this in spite of the fact
      that she did not wish to love, had not intended
      to love, this child of the Spider!</p>
                  
      <p>Now the Spider, and all the bitter animosity and
      shame she had brought into the proud family of
      the Saitos, were forgotten. This was the child of
      her son, the Lord Saito Gonji! Its eyes were the
      eyes of her son—its mouth, its chin, even its gentle
      expression; she traced hungrily every seeming likeness,
      and proclaimed the fact that her son had
      indeed been reborn to her in the little Taro.</p>
                  
      <p>The youngest of the nursemaids was a bright-eyed,
      somewhat forward girl who had obtained employment
      recently by cajoling the honorable cook,
      now factotum of the household. In the eyes of
      Ochika, wife of the cook, the girl was an impudent
      minx, who should have been sent flying from a re-<pb n="128"/>spectable
      household. Ochika even penetrated from
      her domain of the kitchen, to the presence of the
      Lady Saito Ichigo, in order to whisper into the
      lady’s somewhat absent ear a tale of unseemly
      dances and songs indulged in by the nursemaid
      for the delectation of the other servants.</p>
                 
      <p>Omi (the nurse-girl’s name) seemed, however, so
      innocent and childish in appearance that the Lady
      Saito was loath to believe her guilty of anything
      more than a naughty desire to tease Ochika, whose
      jealousy of her good-looking husband was so notorious
      among the servants that it was a never-failing
      source of both merriment and strife. What,
      however, in Omi recommended her chiefly to the
      fond grandmother was the fact that the honorable
      Lord Taro appeared to love her, and was never so
      happy as when upon his nurse’s back.</p>
                  
      <p>Now, as Omi danced her hand playfully across his
      round and shining little stomach, Taro roared with
      delight, and tossed up his tiny pink heels in approbation.
      So noisy, so continued, so absolutely joyous
      was his crowing laughter that the face of his grandmother
      melted into a smile.</p>
                  
      <p>The smile, however, wavered uneasily and was
      soon suppressed as Ohano silently entered the room.
      The girl’s face was ashen in color, her eyes more
      like mere slits than ever. She stood leaning against
      the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>, her expression sullen and lowering, her
      attitude similar to that of a spoiled and angry child.</p>
            
            <pb n="129"/>
                  
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Ohayo gozarimazu</foreign>!</q> murmured the mother-in-law,
      politely; and she was angrily aware of the conciliating
      tone in her voice, she who was accustomed
      to command.</p>
                  
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Ohayo</foreign>!</q> The girl flung back the morning
      greeting, almost as if it were a challenge.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Well</q>, said her mother, sharply. <q>Be good
      enough to take the place of Omi. It will do your
      heart good to rub the honorable body of your</q>—she
      paused and met the scowling glance of Ohano—<q>your
      lord’s child</q>, she finished.</p>
                  
      <p>Omi was tendering the towels; but Ohano ignored
      the pert little maid. She crossed the room deliberately
      and slowly sank upon her knees opposite
      Lady Saito and the baby. Omi was watching the
      scene with absorbed interest, and she jumped at
      the sharp voice of Lady Saito.</p>
                  
      <p><q>To your other duties, maiden!</q> admonished
      her mistress, conscious of the fact that the girl was
      watching Ohano intently.</p>
                  
      <p>Alone with the child and Ohano, she began in a
      complaining voice:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Now it is most uncivilized to permit one’s emotions
      to show upon the honorable face, which should
      be a mask as regards all inner feelings. I advise
      stern control of all angry impulses. Cultivate
      graciousness of heart, and do not forget each day
      properly to thank the gods for putting into your
      arms the honorable child of your lord</q>.</p>
            
            <pb n="130"/>
                  
      <p>Said Ohano in a breathless whisper, while her
      bosom heaved up and down tempestuously:</p>
                  
      <p><q>He is the child of the—Spider! Take care lest
      he sting thy breast too, mother-in-law!</q></p>
                  
      <p>The older woman drew the warm towels about
      the baby, almost as if for protection.</p>
                  
      <p><q>He is my son’s child</q>, she said, hoarsely. <q>Envy
      and malice are traits we women are warned repeatedly
      against in the ‘Greater Learning for Women.’</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>He is the Spider’s child!</q> almost chanted Ohano,
      and she put her lame hand to her throat as though
      it pained her. <q>His eyes are identical with hers!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Nay</q>, said her mother-in-law, gently; <q>then
      you have not looked into the eyes of the little one.
      I pray you do so, Ohano. It will soften your heart,
      for, see, they are duplicates of the eyes of your lord!</q></p>
                  
      <p>She turned the child’s head about so that its
      smiling, friendly glance met Ohano’s.</p>
                  
      <p>For a moment the latter stared at him, her lips
      working, her eyes widened. The baby had paused
      in his laughter and was studying the working
      features of his stepmother with infantile gravity.
      Almost unconsciously, as if fascinated, she bent
      lower above him, and as she did so he reached up a
      little hand and grasped at her face. A smile broke
      over his rosy features, displaying the two little
      teeth within and showing every adorable dimple
      encrusted in its fair features.</p>
                  
      <p>The breath came from Ohano in gasps. All of<pb n="131"/>
      a sudden she threw up her arm blindly, almost a
      motion of defense. Then with a wordless sob she
      put her face upon the floor. She wept stormily,
      as one whose whole forces are bent upon finding an
      outlet. For a time there was no sound in the chamber
      save that of the moaning Ohano.</p>
                  
      <p>The child had fallen asleep, and Lady Saito kept
      her eyes fixed upon his round, charming little face.
      She would let Ohano’s passion spend itself. These
      daily outbursts since the coming of the child were
      becoming intolerable, she thought. She had been
      too lenient with Ohano. It would be necessary soon
      to teach the girl her exact position in the household.</p>
                  
      <p>As she looked at the beautiful, sleeping child
      the sudden thought of parting with it seized horribly
      upon her. Her face twitched like some hideous
      piece of parchment suddenly animated with life.
      Nothing, she told herself fiercely—neither the clamoring
      voice of the wild mother, nor the sulky jealousy
      of Ohano—should cause her now to relinquish her
      hold upon the descendant of the illustrious ancestors.
      Let the Spider do her worst! Let the vindictive
      jealousy of Ohano betray to the world the truth!
      She, the Lady Saito Ichigo, would defy them all.
      The gates of Saito should be sealed and guarded as
      rigorously as if these were feudal days. As for
      Ohano! She looked at the girl with a new expression.
      Between her and the little one resting upon her
      bosom there could be but one choice.</p>
            
            <pb n="132"/>
                  
      <p><q>My girl</q>, she said to Ohano, finally, <q>dry your
      face, if you please. It is unseemly for one of gentle
      birth to abandon one’s self to passion. Come, come,
      there is a limit to my patience!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano sat up sullenly, drying her eyes with the
      ends of her sleeve. The Lady Saito was choosing
      her words carefully, and her stern glance never
      wavered as she bent it upon Ohano’s quivering face.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Without my lord’s child, Ohano, you are but a
      cipher in the house of the ancestors. It would
      become necessary to serve you as once we served
      an innocent one before you!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano’s hand clutched at her bosom. She appeared
      to be suffocating, and could hardly speak
      the words:</p>
                  
      <p><q>You do not mean—you dare not mean—that
      you would divorce me!</q></p>
                 
      <p><q>The law is clear in your case, as in that of your
      predecessor</q>, said her mother, coldly.</p>
                 
      <p><q>I will speak to my uncle Takedo Isami. I will
      address all of my honorable relatives. I will tell
      them with what you have threatened me, the
      daughter of <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>! You have compared me with
      a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>—a Spider! It is intolerable—not to be
      borne!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Nay</q>, vigorously defended her mother-in-law.
      <q>You speak not now of a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, Ohano, but—of—the
      mother of the last descendant of the illustrious
      ancestors</q>.</p>
            
            <pb n="133"/>
                  
      <p>A silence fell between them, broken only by the
      breathing of Ohano—short, gasping, indrawn sobs
      which she seemed no longer able to control.</p>
                  
      <p>Presently, when she was quieter, her mother-in-law
      put a question roughly to the girl.</p>
                  
      <p><q>What is it to be, Ohano? Will you accept the
      child of the Lord Saito Gonji, proclaiming it to be
      your own, defying the very world to take it from
      you, or—?</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano’s face was turned away. Her head was
      swimming, and she felt strangely weak. After a
      moment she said in a very faint voice, as if the
      last trace of resistance within her had been victoriously
      beaten out by her mother-in-law:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I serve the ancestors of the Saito—and my
      Lord Saito Gonji!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="134"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XXIII</head>

  
      <p>Ohano did not leave her room all of the
      following day. A maid brought word to
      Lady Saito that her daughter-in-law
      wished to meditate and pray alone.
      Permission was somewhat ungraciously
      granted. Her <q>moods</q>, as Lady Saito termed them,
      had become a source of irritation. However, the
      proposition to <q>meditate and pray</q> was good.
      Ohano, perchance, would profit by her thoughts and
      emerge a reasonable being.</p>
                  
      <p>At noon the soft-hearted little Omi begged to
      be permitted to take tea and refreshments to Ohano.
      She was gone some time, to the aggravation of her
      mistress, for the little Taro was loudly demanding
      his favorite’s return. When at last, however, the
      girl returned, she brought such a message to her
      mistress that the latter forgot everything else in
      the glow of satisfaction. Ohano asked for the
      Lord Saito Taro.</p>
                  
      <p>Little Omi hurried out with the child in her arms.
      She paused upon the threshold for a moment and
      threw a curious glance back at her mistress. Lady
      Saito’s face was wreathed in smiles, even while<pb n="135"/>
      the tears dropped like rain down her withered
      cheeks. The girl hid her excited face against the
      child’s little body, then, almost running, she sped
      from the room.</p>
                 
      <p>It was very lonely for Lady Saito the rest of that
      day. She did not wish to disturb Ohano, but how
      hungrily her heart longed for the return of her
      baby! How she missed it, even during the short
      period it had been gone.</p>
                  
      <p>In the middle of the afternoon, when she had
      fallen into a drowsy reverie upon her mat, she was
      disturbed by the sudden shoving aside of a screen
      behind her. She turned her head and saw in the
      aperture the agitated face of Kiyo, the gateman.
      He had fallen to his knees, and now crawled on
      them toward her. Something in his abject attitude
      awoke within the breast of his mistress a sickening
      fear of a calamity he had come to report. She
      felt as if paralyzed, unable either to stir or to utter
      a word.</p>
                  
      <p>Undoubtedly the gateman brought bad tidings,
      for his place was not in the house, and it was an
      unheard-of thing for one in his position to force
      his way into the august presence of the mistress.
      She said to herself:</p>
                  
      <p><q>He has come to report the death of my dear son
      or of my husband!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Vainly she put back her hand for the support of
      Ohano, but the girl was still secluded in her chamber.</p>
            
            <pb n="136"/>
                  
      <p><q>Speak!</q> she gasped, at last. <q>I command you
      not to hesitate!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Despite the peremptory words, she was shaking
      like one in an illness. Her knees gave way. She
      sank down upon them in a collapsed heap. She
      looked entreatingly at the retainer, who seemed
      unable or unwilling to answer her.</p>
                  
      <p><q>You bring exalted and joyous news from Tenshi-sama!</q>
      she cried, brokenly. <q>I pray you speak
      the words!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Nay, mistress!</q> His tremulous old voice shook,
      and he could not control the shaking of his aged
      limbs. He had been in the service of the Lady
      Saito since her babyhood. <q>It is of the youngest
      Lord Saito I speak!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>My son! Gonji!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Thy honorable grandson, mistress</q>, he corrected.</p>
                  
      <p>She stared at him, aghast.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Baby-san!</q> She was upon her feet now, with
      the strength and savagery of a mother at bay. <q>He 
      is here in the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shiro</foreign>!</q></p>
                  
      <p>The gateman looked at her mutely.</p>
                  
      <p><q>He has been stolen—by the maiden Omi. It
      is said she was in the service of the first Lady Saito
      Gonji</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>For a moment Lady Saito stared at the man with
      unbelieving eyes. Suddenly she clapped her hands
      loudly, but no smiling-faced, sharp-tongued Omi
      came running fleetly to her service. Only the<pb n="137"/>
      swollen-eyed wife of the cook crept into the
      room.</p>
                  
      <p><q><hi style="font-style:italic">Thou</hi> knowest where—</q> She could not continue.
      Her words choked her.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Nay, I do not know</q>, burst out Ochika. <q>She
      was an imp of the lowest Hades. Maledictions
      upon her! May Futen tear her flesh!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Hush!</q> cried Lady Saito, with a sudden violence;
      and almost aloud she shouted the words:</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is the rod of the gods! From the decree of
      Heaven there is no escape!</q></p>
                  
      <p>She became conscious that Ohano was beside her.
      She looked at the girl strangely, and as she did so
      something in Ohano’s eyes revealed the truth to her.
      She shrank from her daughter-in-law with a motion
      almost of loathing.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Why, Ohano!</q> she cried. <q>It was <hi style="font-style:italic">thou</hi> who sent
      for—it is—</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano turned from her abruptly and moved
      briskly toward the gateman.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It was thy duty</q>, she haughtily censured, <q>to
      pursue and seize the woman</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Her feet had wings, august young mistress.
      With the honorable young lord upon her back she
      fairly flew by the gates, as if possessed of infernal
      power</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>And thou art very old!</q> said the Lady Saito,
      gently. <q>Thy ancient limbs are unable to compete
      with the fleet wings of a mother’s love!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="138"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XXIV</head>

  
      <p>At the evening meal, which was served
      upon an open balcony because of the
      intense heat, Ohano kept her eyes assiduously
      upon her food. The mood of
      her mother-in-law had changed. There
      was nothing gentle in her expression now as she
      savagely stabbed at the live fish upon her plate,
      speared it in just the proper place, and then lifted
      a morsel of the still palpitating flesh upon her
      chop-stick.</p>
                  
      <p><q>This is excellent fish, Ohano</q>, she said, pleasantly.
      <q>Come, taste a morsel while the live flavor is still
      upon it. Possibly it will remind you of the brevity
      of life. Now we are here, possessed of tempestuous
      passions and emotions—for even a fish, so it is said,
      has the soul of a murderer. Then just think, one
      sharp pick of the knife—or sword—and, like the
      honorable fish, we are—gone! The devils of hatred,
      envy, desire, and malice can no longer torture
      us!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano said nothing. She gave one swift glance
      at the fish, then turned away, nauseated.</p>
                  
      <p>Lady Saito grunted and fell to eating her meal<pb n="139"/>
      as if hungry. Presently, filled and refreshed, she
      began again:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Of course it must be very plain to you, Ohano,
      that it will be impossible for the Saitos to regain
      possession of my son’s child unless we take into
      our household the mother also</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Ohano sat up with a start, and as her mother-in-law
      continued, the expression of intense fear on
      her face deepened.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I know of no law in Japan—and I have been
      advised in the matter—by which we can forcibly take
      a child from its mother, in the absence of its father</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Ohano did not move. She moistened her dry
      lips, and her eyes moved furtively. She watched
      her mother-in-law’s face with a mute expression, half
      of terror and half of defiance. In the going of the
      hated child of the Spider, Ohano had not found the
      relief she had expected. Nay, there loomed before
      her now the possibility of a greater menace to her
      peace of mind. She felt the weight of the older
      woman’s tyrannical will as never before. She
      stammered:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Pardon my dullness. I do not understand your
      words</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is better</q>, counseled the other, sternly, <q>that
      you not alone understand my words, but that you
      study them well! Think awhile, Ohano!</q></p>
                  
      <p>For a time there was silence between them; then
      Lady Saito continued:</p>
            
            <pb n="140"/>
                 
      <p><q>It is my wish, it is the wish of the ancestors,
      that the honorable descendant of the Saitos be
      housed here in the home of his fathers. If it is
      impossible to have my son’s son without the legal
      custodian of his body, then we must face the matter
      gracefully, and solicit her, humbly if need be, to
      come also!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>That—would be—impossible!</q> gasped Ohano.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Nay</q>, protested her mother, coldly, <q>it is done
      every day in Japan. The honorable Moonlight will
      not be the first divorced wife who has been again
      received in the home of the parents-in-law. You
      forget that until recently there was even a custom
      among many families where the wife failed in her
      duty to supply children to her husband, for an
      honorable concubine to be chosen in her place duly
      to serve her lord</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Ohano tried to smile, but it was a ghastly effort.</p>
                  
      <p><q>That is an ancient custom. It is no longer
      tolerated in Japan. It would be a matter of notorious
      gossip. We could not, with honor, she and
      I, live under the same roof together</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>That is true</q>, admitted Lady Saito, calmly, and
      now she met Ohano’s eyes firmly.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I refuse to be ‘returned,’</q> cried Ohano, shrilly.
      <q>My honorable relatives will not permit you to
      divorce me for such a cause. It is not possible to
      treat me in the manner accorded a <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>!</q></p>
                  
            <p><q>That, too, is true</q>, quietly assented her mother-<pb n="141"/>in-law.
      <q>We, the Saitos, desire to remain on terms
      of friendship with your most honorable family.
      Now, therefore, we look to you, Ohano, for a solution
      of the problem. You are right. These are not the
      times when honorable men maintain concubines
      under the same roofs as their wives. We wish to
      impress the Western people with our morality!
      Ha!</q> she broke off, to laugh bitterly. <q>We follow
      the code set by them. Yet what are we to do when
      confronted by such a condition as exists in our
      household now? When a wife is childless, it is
      surely an excellent rule which allows a humble one
      to bear the offspring and put them into the arms of
      the exalted but childless wife. But we can do this
      no longer. Our war with Russia—our victories,
      which are proclaimed daily—will make these matters
      all the more a sensitive point with the nation.
      We must live according to the code set down by
      the Westerners, as I have said. They have taught
      us to fight! Our people desire to imitate their
      virtues!</q> She laughed in hoarse derision. Then
      she continued:</p>
                  
      <p><q>We bow, then, to this. It cannot be helped.
      Now, as we cannot take the honorable Lord Taro
      by force from his mother, and we cannot permit
      two wives of my son to remain under the one roof,
      we must seek some other solution of our problem.
      Can you not offer some suggestion?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>It is possible</q>, said Ohano, <q>that the Lord<pb n="142"/>
      Saito Gonji may not give up his life for <foreign xml:lang="ja">Tenshi-sama</foreign>.
      Many soldiers return. In that event—</q>
      She stammered piteously. <q>I am young and very
      healthy. I will bear him children yet!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>We cannot count upon so unlikely a contingency,
      my girl. We Japanese women, when we sacrifice our
      men to the Emperor’s service, <hi style="font-style:italic">pray</hi> that they may
      not return! It is a pious, patriotic prayer, Ohano.
      Be worthy of it, my girl. Duty and honor to the
      ancestors are the watchwords of our language</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Duty—and honor!</q> repeated Ohano, slowly.</p>
                  
      <p>A long silence fell between them, during which
      Ohano’s eyes never left the face of her mother-in-law.
      A sick terror assailed her, so that she could
      not move, but sat there rigidly, nursing her lame
      arm. What dreadful project, she asked herself,
      did the stern mother-in-law now meditate, that she
      should look at the unhappy Ohano with such a
      peculiar, commanding expression?</p>
                  
      <p>Finally the older woman said, with quiet force:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Ohano, you come of illustrious stock. There
      have been women of your race who have found a
      solution to problems more tragic than yours. I
      pray you reflect upon the text of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>,
      which, as you know, was as binding upon the women
      as the men: ‘To die with honor, when one can no
      longer live with honor!’</q></p>
                  
      <p>She stood up, and leaned heavily upon her staff.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Let me recommend</q>, she added, softly, <q>that<pb n="143"/>
      you study and emulate—and <hi style="font-style:italic">emulate</hi></q>—she repeated
      the last word with deadly emphasis—<q>the lives of
      your ancestors!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano’s mouth had dropped wide open. She
      came to her feet mechanically, and mechanically she
      backed from her mother-in-law until she came to
      the farthest screen; and against this she leaned like
      one about to faint.</p>
                  
      <p>Her mother-in-law’s voice seemed to reach her
      as from very far away, and also it seemed to Ohano
      that a smile, jeering and cruel, was on the aged
      woman’s face, marking it like a livid scar. It was
      as if she cried to Ohano:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I challenge you, as the daughter of a <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>,
      to do your duty!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Ohano gasped out something, she knew not
      what.</p>
      
      <p><q>Ho!</q> cried Lady Saito, fiercely, <q>it does not
      matter to the true daughter of a <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign> whether
      the days of <foreign xml:lang="ja">suppuku</foreign> are passed or not. We take
      refuge too much behind the new rules of life. The
      spark of heroes is imperishable. If you are a worthy
      daughter of your ancestors it is still within your
      insignificant body!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Said Ohano, with chattering teeth:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I—I—will—go—to the go-down (treasure-house),
      honorable mother-in-law, and study the swords of
      my ancestors. I pray you ask the gods to give me
      strength!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="144"/>
                  
      <p>When she was gone, the Lady Saito Ichigo summoned
      a maid. To her she said curtly:</p>
                  
      <p><q>You will bid the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Samourai</foreign> Asado</q>—it was the
      first time in years she had referred to this old
      retainer as <q><foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign></q>—<q>unlock the doors of the
      honorable go-down. The Lady Saito Gonji would
      examine the treasure-chests of her ancestors!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="145"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XXV</head>

  
      <p>In the go-down itself, Ohano’s courage
      deserted her completely. As the stone
      doors of the go-down were pushed aside,
      and she stepped into the darkened chamber
      with its odor almost as of dead
      things, a sense of unconquerable repugnance and
      terror assailed her.</p>
                  
      <p>From every side, gleaming, softly smiling almost,
      in the light of the setting sun, the ancient relics of
      bygone days were heaped. Almost it seemed as if
      these beautiful objects were living things, their burnished
      and lacquered bodies afire in the darkened
      chamber.</p>
                  
      <p>Slowly, fearfully, staggering as she walked, Ohano
      made her way between rows of this piled-up treasure,
      the wealth and pride of the house of Saito.</p>
                  
      <p>Now she had come to where the possessions of
      her own honorable family were set. Trembling in
      every limb, hovering and hesitating above it, she
      at length unlocked and opened an ancient chest.
      Fearfully she looked down into its depths, then felt
      below the heavy layers of silk. Presently, with her
      poor, lame hand, Ohano brought up a single sword.</p>
            
            <pb n="146"/>
                  
      <p>It was very long. The hilt was of lacquer, a
      shining black. The ferrule, guard, cleats, and rivets
      were inlaid and embossed with rare metals. The
      beautiful blade, as brittle as an icicle, seemed to
      shine in the darkened chamber with its noble
      classic beauty, and it awoke in the breast of the
      agitated Ohano a new sensation—one of awe, of
      reverence and pride!</p>
                  
      <p>She held it in the light that came through the
      still open door, and for long she looked at it with
      widened, fascinated eyes.</p>
                  
      <p>It seemed to her that some chanted song of
      proud and noble achievements rang in her ears, as
      if the whispering ghosts of her ancestors were urging
      her on.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Courage!</q> they cried to her. <q>The gods love
      thee now!</q></p>
                  
      <p>She pricked her wrist to test her strength. Then
      she screamed harshly, like one who has lost his senses.
      The sword dropped with a clank upon the stone
      floor. Ohano fled from the go-down like one possessed.</p>
                  
      <p>With the blood streaming from her hands and
      marking her progress with its ruddy drops, she sped
      across the gardens and into the house. No one
      stopped her; no one even called to her. All had been
      sent away by orders of the Lady Saito Ichigo.</p>
                  
      <p>Alone again in her chamber, with her breath
      coming in agitated gasps, her wrist burning with an<pb n="147"/>
      unbearable pain, weak from the loss of blood, she
      swayed by the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>, her dry lips reiterating the
      common prayer of the devout Buddhist: <foreign xml:lang="ja"><q>Namu,
      amida, Butsu!</q></foreign> (Save us, eternal Buddha!)</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly she felt something cool placed within
      her hands, and her fingers were pressed gently but
      forcibly about the object. It was the sword she
      had left behind. A superstitious fear assailed her
      that the gods had perceived her weakness and inexorably
      had placed the sword within her hands,
      demanding of Ohano that she do her duty.</p>
                  
      <p>Within the girl’s breast a new emotion arose—the
      ambition to prove to all the ancestors that
      within her weak and insignificant body yet glowed
      the spark of heroism; that she was, after all, a true
      daughter of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">samourai</foreign>.</p>
                  
      <p>Her hands acquired a miraculous steadiness and
      strength. She set the sword firmly before her,
      point up. Grasping it with both hands about the
      middle, she dumbly, and with a certain dignity and
      even grace, rested her body upon it. Slowly she sank
      down the full length of the blade.</p>
            
            <pb n="148"/>
                  
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XXVI</head>

  
      <p>Meanwhile, within the war-torn heart
      of Manchuria, the last words of Ohano
      came up to torment the soldier. His
      days and nights were made horrible by
      the imagined reiteration in his ears of
      the words of Ohano.</p>
                  
      <p>By the light of a hundred camp-fires he saw the
      face of Moonlight, the wife he had discarded at the
      command of the ancestors. He tried to picture it
      as he had first seen her, with that peculiar radiance
      about her beauty. She had appeared to him then
      like to some rare and precious flower, so fragile
      and exquisite it seemed almost profanation to
      touch her. How he had desired her! How he had
      adored her!</p>
                  
      <p>He recalled, with anguish, the first days of their
      marriage—a mixture of exquisite joy and pain;
      then the harrowing, heartbreaking months that had
      followed—the metamorphosis that had taken place
      in his beautiful wife. How timid, meek, submissive,
      they had made her in those latter days! He paced
      and repaced the ground, suffering torments incomparably
      worse than those of the wounded soldiers.</p>
            
            <pb n="149"/>
                  
      <p>To think of Moonlight as an inmate of the Yoshiwara,
      as Ohano had insisted, the last resource of
      the most abandoned of lost souls, was to arouse him
      to an inner frenzy that no amount of action in the
      bloodiest encounters could even temporarily efface.</p>
                  
      <p>He began to count the days which must pass
      before his release. He knew by now that the war
      was soon to end. Already negotiations were under
      way. At first he had bitterly regretted the fact
      that the gods had not mercifully permitted him to
      give up his life; now he realized that perchance
      they had saved it for another purpose—the purpose
      of finding his lost wife. He would devote the rest
      of his life, he promised himself, to this undertaking;
      and, ah! when once again they two should meet,
      nothing should part them.</p>
                  
      <p>They would go away to a new land—a better land
      even than Japan—of which he had heard so much
      from a friend he had made out here in Manchuria.
      There men did not cast off their wives because they
      were childless. There no cruel laws sacrificed an
      innocent wife at the demand of the dead. There
      there were no licensed dens of inquity into which
      the innocent might be sold into a bondage lower
      than hell itself!</p>
      
      <p>Gonji dreamed unceasingly of this land of promise,
      whither he intended to go when once he had found
      his beloved Moonlight.</p>
                  
      <p>Incognito, finally, the Lord Gonji returned to<pb n="150"/>
      Japan. He did not, as became a dutiful and honorable
      son, proceed straightway to his home, there
      to permit the members of his family to celebrate
      and rejoice over his return.</p>
                 
      <p>At last Lord Gonji felt free of the thrall of the
      ancestors. He was a son of the New Japan, master
      of his own conscience and deeds. The old strict
      code set down for men of his class and race he knew
      was medieval, childish, unworthy of consideration.
      Hitherto his actions had been governed by the
      example of the ancestors and by order of those in
      authority over him. Now he was free—free to
      choose his own path; and his path led not to the
      house of his fathers.</p>
                  
      <p>It led, instead, to that <q>hell city</q> which had
      been imprinted so vividly upon his mind that even
      in the heart of Manchuria he had seen its lights and
      heard its brazen music.</p>
                  
      <p>From street to street of the Yoshiwara, and from
      house to house, now went the Lord Saito Gonji,
      scanning with eager, feverish eyes every pitiful little
      inmate thus publicly exhibited in cages. But among
      the hopeless, apathetic faces that smiled at him
      with enforced beguilement was not the one he
      sought.</p>
                  
      <p>He turned to other cities, wherever the famous
      brothels were maintained, leaving for the last his
      home city of Kioto, where once the Spider had
      been the darling of the House of Slender Pines.</p>
            
            <pb n="151"/>
                  
      <p>How his haughty relatives had despised her
      calling; yet how desirable, how infinitely superior
      it was in every way to the one to which they had
      perhaps driven her.</p>
                  
      <p>The <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> was protected under the law, and her
      virtue was in her own hands. She could be as pure
      or as light as she chose. Not even the harshest of
      masters could actually drive her to the degradation
      of the inmates of the Yoshiwara, who were sold
      into bondage often in their babyhood.</p>
                  
      <p>If he could but believe that Moonlight was now
      in the House of Slender Pines! Yet his agents had
      insisted she had not returned to her former home:
      moreover, they had supported the contention of
      Ohano, that undoubtedly it was into some such resort
      that the unhappy outcast had finally been driven.</p>
                  
      <p>Upon a day when the inmates of the Yoshiwara
      of Kioto were upon their annual parade, when the
      city was swept by a paroxysm of patriotic enthusiasm
      over the return of the victorious troops,
      Saito Gonji, worn and wearied from his vain quest
      through many cities, returned at last to his home city.</p>
                  
      <p>The streets were in holiday dress. From every roof-tree
      and tower the sun-flag tossed its ruddy symbol
      in the air. The people ran through the streets as
      if possessed, now cheering the passing soldiers, now
      waving and shouting to the happy paraders, and all
      following, some taunting, some cheering the long
      line of courtezans of the Yoshiwara.</p>
            
            <pb n="152"/>
                  
      <p>They marched in single file, their long, silken
      robes, heavily embroidered, held up by their maids,
      and accompanied by their diminutive, toddling apprentices,
      often little girls as young as six and seven.</p>
                  
      <p>Yet, small as they were, each was a miniature
      reproduction and understudy of her mistress, in
      her elaborate coiffure with its glittering ornaments
      (the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> wears flowers), her <foreign xml:lang="ja">obi</foreign> tied in front, and
      the thick paste of paint laid lividly from brow to
      chin. Some day it would be their lot to step into
      the place of the ones they emulated, and, in turn,
      slaves would hold their trains and masters would
      exhibit them like animals in public cages.</p>
                  
      <p>Gonji followed the long train of courtezans for
      miles. Sometimes he would run ahead, and, walking
      backward, pass down the long line, scanning every
      face piercingly and letting not one escape his scrutiny.
      And, as he studied the faces of these <q>hell
      women</q>, as his countrymen had named them, for
      the first time Gonji forgot his beloved Moonlight.
      The words of the American officer he had met in
      the campaign in Manchuria came up vividly to his
      mind:</p>
                  
      <p><q>No nation</q>, the American had said, <q>can honorably
      hold its head erect among civilized nations, no
      matter what its prowess and power, so long as its
      women are held in such bondage; so long as its
      women are bartered and sold, often by their own
      fathers, husbands, and brothers, like cattle</q>.</p>
            
            <pb n="153"/>
                  
      <p>A great and illuminating light broke upon the
      tempest-tossed soul of the Lord Saito Gonji. He
      would erect an imperishable monument to the
      memory of his lost wife. She should be the inspiration
      for the most knightly act that had ever
      been performed in the history of his nation.</p>
                  
      <p>It should be his task to effect the abolishment of
      the Yoshiwara! He would devote his life to this one
      great cause, and never would he abandon it until
      he had succeeded. This, and the revision of the
      inhuman and barbarous laws governing divorce,
      should be his life-work.</p>
                  
      <p>He would show the ancestors that there were
      deeds even more worthy and heroic than those of
      the sword.</p>
            
            <pb n="154"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XXVII</head>


      <p>If Ohano’s relatives were aware of the
      manner of her death, they gave no sign.
      Such of the male members of the family
      and of her husband’s as were not
      serving in the war stolidly attended
      the funeral of their kinswoman, and shortly Ohano
      was honorably interred in the mortuary halls of the
      Saito ancestors.</p>
                  
      <p>There had been expressions of sorrow over her
      passing, but these were largely perfunctory. Ohano
      had been an orphan; and, as she had lived all of her
      life in the Saito house, her husband’s people had
      really been nearer to her than her own family.
      Her uncle, Takedo Isami, was possibly the only one
      of her relatives who had known the girl with any
      degree of intimacy, and at this time he too had
      entered the war service.</p>
                  
      <p>Many offerings and prayers were put up for Ohano,
      and in the end the relatives quietly dispersed to
      their homes, leaving the silent and prim old Lady
      Saito alone in the now almost deserted mansion.
      She shut herself into the chamber of the dead girl,
      and for several days not even her personal maid was<pb n="155"/>
      permitted to intrude upon her voluntary retirement.
      Whatever were the thoughts that tormented and
      haunted the mother-in-law of Ohano, she emerged,
      in the end, still resolute and stern, though her hair
      had turned as white as snow.</p>
                  
      <p>From day to day now the aged lady crouched
      over the <foreign xml:lang="ja">kotatsu</foreign>, warming her withered old fingers,
      lighting and relighting her pipe, and always seeming
      to listen, to watch for some one she expected to
      return.</p>
                  
      <p>Couriers and agents had been despatched by her
      orders to the city in search of Moonlight and her
      child. There was nothing left for the Dowager
      Saito to do, save to wait. Not for a moment had she
      considered the possibility that her servants might
      be unable to find the one they sought, or, having
      found her, fail to induce the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> to return to
      the house of the Saitos. To keep her mind from
      brooding over Ohano, she endeavored to force it to
      remain fixed upon one matter only—the recovery
      of her son’s child.</p>
                  
      <p>But the days passed away, the chill season of
      hoar frost swept the trees bare of leaf and color,
      and the silently moving servants set the winter
      amado (wooden sliding walls) in place; and still,
      with a stony, frozen look upon her face, the Lady
      Saito waited.</p>
                  
      <p>Gradually the proud and strong spirit within her
      began to weaken under the strain. Supported by<pb n="156"/>
      a maid on either side, she toiled up the mountain
      slope to visit the temple endowed by her family,
      and to seek advice and comfort there. In broken
      words, her voice stammering and shaking, she whispered
      a confession to the chief priest, and entreated
      him to help her with spiritual advice and prayers.</p>
                  
      <p>Though the lives of the priests are devoted largely
      to meditation and the study of the sacred books,
      they are by no means ignorant of what passes about
      them. The chief priest of the Saito temple knew
      every detail of the casting out of the first wife; he
      knew, moreover, what had been the end of Ohano.
      As the family had not, up to the present, however,
      sought his advice in the matter, he had expressed
      no opinion.</p>
                  
      <p>An acolyte had quite recently come to the chief
      priest with a strange story. It concerned a very
      beautiful <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> who seemed in deep distress, who,
      with her maiden clinging to her skirt and a baby
      upon her back, had asked the boy to direct them
      toward a certain small temple where an ancient
      priestess of the Nichi sect had lived. The acolyte
      had been unable to direct the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>; and, to his
      surprise and distress, the two had climbed higher
      up the mountain slope, with the evident intention
      of penetrating farther into the interior. Both the
      priest and the acolyte had waited anxiously for the
      return of the wanderers, for they knew there were
      no sheltering places in the direction the pair had<pb n="157"/>
      taken, and the weather had turned very cold. It
      was not the season for an infant to be abroad.
      Now the chief priest called the acolyte before him
      and requested the boy to repeat his story to the
      Lady Saito Ichigo.</p>
                  
      <p>She listened with mixed feelings; and when the
      boy was through he chanced, timidly, to raise his
      eyes to the face of the exalted patroness of the
      temple, and, as he afterward informed the priest, he
      saw that great tears ran down the stern and furrowed
      cheeks of the lady, nor could she speak for
      the sobs that tore her.</p>
            
            <pb n="158"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XXVIII</head>

  
      <p>The trees had dropped their leaves, and,
      with naked arms extended, seemed to
      speak voicelessly of the winter almost
      come. Only the evergreen pines kept
      their warm coats of green, and under
      their shade the travelers found a temporary refuge
      from the wind and the cold, piercing rain.</p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight had been very sure that they had
      climbed the hill in which was hidden the retreat of
      the nun who had previously harbored her, and where
      she knew she could find a refuge to which not even
      the agents of the Saito might penetrate. But Kioto
      is surrounded by hills on all sides, and the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>
      had lost her way.</p>
                  
      <p>With the little Omi to run before her and sell to
      the chance passer-by or pilgrim, for a sen or two, the
      jewels of the crazed wife of Matsuda, or to beg rice
      and fish from charitably disposed temples, they had
      subsisted thus far.</p>
                  
      <p>At first she had turned a deaf ear to the entreaties
      of her maiden, that they go to the city below rather
      than to the bleak, deserted, autumn hills. But
      now, as the penetrating rain searched down through<pb n="159"/>
      even the wide-spreading branches of the pine-trees,
      her heart ached heavily.</p>
                  
      <p>Omi, shivering against her mistress’s side, began
      to cry, and recommenced her prayers to return to
      the city below. The troops were returning, and
      even here on the quiet hillside the sound of the
      beating drum, the wild and hoarse singing, and
      cheering of the soldiers and the citizens was heard.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Why perish in the cold hills?</q> asked the little
      apprentice-<foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, <q>when the warm, happy city
      calls to us? Oh, let us go! Let us go!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Feeling the cold hands of her baby, the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>
      shivered; yet as she looked off hungrily to where
      the little maiden pointed she felt a sense of strong
      reluctance almost akin to terror. It was down
      there they were looking for her, she knew. There
      they would take from her the honorable child of
      her beloved lord.</p>
                  
      <p><q>How much colder it is getting</q>, reproached Omi,
      crossly; <q>and see, graciousness, your <foreign xml:lang="ja">kimono</foreign> is not
      even padded</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Undo my <foreign xml:lang="ja">obi</foreign>, Omi. Wrap it about yourself
      and his lordship. It is seven yards long, and will
      protect you both amply</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>But you, sweet mistress? I will not take your
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">obi</foreign>. Your hands are cold. The august clogs are
      broken even!</q></p>
                  
      <p>She knelt to tie the thong firmer, and while still
      kneeling Omi continued her beseeching.</p>
            
            <pb n="160"/>
                  
      <p><q>Now, if we start downward, we shall travel much
      quicker. I will bear his lordship on my back. We
      can reach the city in less than a night and a day.
      I know a little garden just on the outskirts of Kioto.
      There we can spend the night. With warm rice
      and <foreign xml:lang="ja">sake</foreign> and—</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Hush, Omi, it is impossible</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Omi threw back her head and began to wail
      aloud, just as a child would have done. The burden
      of her cry was that she was cold, very cold, and she
      was very sure that they would all perish in the wet
      and horrible mountains. The <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> tried vainly
      to quiet her. At last she said:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Omi, if you love me, be patient for yet another
      day. If to-morrow we do not find the shrine of the
      honorable nun, then—then—</q> her voice broke, and
      she turned her face away. Omi caught at her hand
      and clung to her joyously.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Oh, you have promised!</q> Then, as she saw the
      distress of her mistress, she cried out remorsefully
      that she was prepared to follow her wherever she
      desired to go—yes, even if it should prove to be
      the highest point of the mountains, said the little
      maid. After a moment, as the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign> made no response,
      Omi, already regretting her generous outburst,
      sighed heavily and declared it was very hard.
      She sat back on her heels, upon the damp ground,
      and looked off plaintively toward the city below.
      How she longed for the bright lights of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign><pb n="161"/>-house,
      the chatter and the movement, the dance and
      the song, the warm quilt under which was hidden the
      glowing <foreign xml:lang="ja">kotatsu</foreign>, close to which, Omi knew, the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geishas</foreign> would creep at night for comfort. As she
      felt the drizzling rain and wind and saw nothing
      but the dark trees about her, her little head drooped
      upon her breast, and she began to sob drearily again.</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly the Spider bent above the child and
      patted her softly upon the head.</p>
      
      <p><q>Play a little tune upon your <foreign xml:lang="ja">samisen</foreign>, my Omi,
      and I will sing to you a little song I myself have
      composed to the honorable baby-san</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Instantly Omi’s face cleared. Crouched upon her
      heels, looking up adoringly at her mistress, she
      picked upon her instrument, and while the cold
      rain dripped down upon them the Spider sang:</p>
            
            <lg>
    
               <l><foreign xml:lang="ja">Neneko</foreign>, <foreign xml:lang="ja">neneko</foreign>, ya!</l>
               <l style="margin-left: 2em">Sleep, my little one, sleep,</l>
               <l>As the bottomless pit of the ocean,</l>
               <l style="margin-left: 2em">So is my love so deep!</l>
    
    
               <l><foreign xml:lang="ja">Neneko</foreign>, <foreign xml:lang="ja">neneko</foreign>, ya!</l>
               <l style="margin-left: 2em">Sleep, my little one, sleep!</l>
               <l>As the unexplored vasts of Nirvana,</l>
               <l style="margin-left: 2em">So is my love so deep!</l>
    
            </lg>
            
      <p>As the softly crooning voice of the dancer stole
      out upon the air a little cortège which had found
      its way up the intricate mountain-path halted there
      in the woods. In silence the runners dropped the
      shafts of the vehicles. Supported by her maids,<pb n="162"/>
      the Lady Saito alighted, and tottered painfully up
      the hill-slope. She stood very still when she saw
      that little group under the tree, and began to tremble
      in every limb.</p>
                  
      <p>The little Omi saw her first, and with a cry of
      fear threw her arms protectingly about her mistress,
      thrusting her thin little body before her, as if to
      shield the beloved one from harm. Now Moonlight
      saw her, and for a moment she remained unmoving,
      staring at the old figure standing there unprotected
      in the drizzling rain, with arms half extended,
      the withered old face full of an appeal she had not
      yet found the courage to utter.</p>
                  
      <p>As she looked at the once dreaded lady, Moonlight
      was conscious of a sense of great calmness and
      strength. No longer was her being flooded with
      the wild impulses of resentment and hatred toward
      her mother-in-law. She knew not why it was so,
      but her heart felt barren of all feeling save one of
      overwhelming pity.</p>
                  
      <p>Her voice was as calm and gentle as though she
      had always been a lady of high caste, who had never
      known a turbulent emotion.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Thou art unprotected from the rain. I pray
      you take my place, honorable Lady Saito!</q></p>
                 
      <p>Now she was at the side of the other, leading
      her, waiting upon her. Under the sheltering arms of
      the great pine-trees, so near to each other that
      their shoulders touched, these two, who had once<pb n="163"/>
      hated each other so deeply, looked at one another
      with white faces.</p>
                  
      <p>Said the Lady Saito Ichigo, with quivering lips:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I have made a long journey!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Said Moonlight, calmly:</p>
                  
      <p><q>You come to seek your son’s son?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Nay</q>, said the aged woman, and she put out
      a trembling hand and caught beseechingly at the
      arm of the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>. <q>I have come for thee, too,
      my daughter!</q></p>
                  
      <p>A silence, unbroken save by the sobs of the
      little Omi, fell now between them. Then said the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, very gently:</p>
                  
      <p><q>Speak your—will—all-highest one. I—I will
      try to—to serve the honorable ancestors of the
      Saito, even though it be necessary to make the
      supreme sacrifice</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Her hands fumbled with the strings that bound
      the child in its bag upon her back. Now she had
      swung it round in front. The child’s little face,
      rosy in sleep, rolled back upon her arm. She felt
      the hungry arms of the woman beside her reaching
      out irresistibly toward the child; and, though she
      tried to smile, a sob tore from her lips as she lifted
      her baby and put it solemnly into the arms of its
      grandmother. Then she turned her back quickly,
      and Omi sprang up and received her into her
      arms.</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly she felt the shaking fingers of the aged<pb n="164"/>
      woman upon her shoulder. She said, with her
      face still hidden and her voice muffled by sobs:</p>
                  
      <p><q>I pray you go, hastily, lest my love prove greater
      than my strength</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>The journey is long</q>, said Lady Saito. <q>Let
      us set out at once, my daughter. I go not back
      without thee</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Slowly Moonlight put the sheltering arms of Omi
      from her and turned and looked wistfully, almost
      hungrily, at her mother-in-law.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is—unnecessary</q>, she said, gently. <q>I pray
      you forgive the dissension I have already caused
      in your honorable family. Say to Ohano, from me,
      that though it is not possible for me to give to her
      the one who has given to me his eternal vows, yet
      gladly I resign to her my little son</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>A curious look was on the face of the mother-in-law.
      For a long moment she stood staring up
      blankly at the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>. Then she said, in a tone of
      deadly quiet:</p>
                  
      <p><q>My daughter Ohano has gone upon—a journey!</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>A journey!</q> repeated the <foreign xml:lang="ja">geisha</foreign>, lowly. Then,
      as she saw that look upon the other’s face: <q>Ah,
      you mean not surely the Long Journey to the
      <foreign xml:lang="ja">Meido</foreign>?</q> she cried out, piteously. Lady Saito’s head
      dropped upon her breast. Moonlight felt overwhelmed,
      dazed, awed. Ohano gone! Ohano, the
      strong, the triumphant one!</p>
                  
      <p><q>I entreat you to come with me now</q>, said<pb n="165"/>
      Lady Saito, simply. <q>It was the wish of Ohano
      that you—that you should take her place</q>. She
      paused, and added quietly: <q>It was she, my daughter,
      who made a place for you in the house of the
      ancestors</q>.</p>
                 
      <p>They had lifted her into the carriage. Her head
      fell back, and she began to weep slow, painful tears
      that crept down her face and dropped upon the
      hands of her maiden. Said the latter, joyously:</p>
                 
      <p><q>See how the gods love you, sweet mistress.
      See how they have avenged you. See how they
      destroy your enemies and—</q></p>
                  
      <p><q>Do not speak so</q>, cried her mistress entreatingly.
      <q>Only the gods themselves are competent to
      judge us. I do not weep for myself, but for Ohano,
      who has been ruthlessly thrust out upon the Long
      Journey. I would that I could take her place; but
      all that I can do to help her is to go to the shrines
      daily and beseech the gods to make easy the travels
      of Ohano</q>.</p>
            
            <pb n="166"/>
            
         </div>
         <div type="chapter">
            <head>CHAPTER XXIX</head>


      <p>It was the season of greatest cold. The
      she hills of Kioto were enwrapped in a garment
      of snow, and with the glistening
      sun upon them they looked as beautiful
      as a dream. The pines and hemlocks
      seemed to spread out their dark-green arms, as if
      to support the glorified burden.</p>
                  
      <p>The gateman of the Saito shiro, squatting upon his
      heels, with his face buried in the great, absorbing
      book of the West, chanced to look up over his bone-rimmed
      glasses, and saw a lone traveler coming on
      foot along the path which led to the lodge gates.
      Kiyo hobbled down to the gates just as the visitor
      reached them. In a high, thin voice the ancient
      gateman challenged the traveler. Then, as the
      latter did not respond to his call, but peered up at
      him curiously and suddenly, the old retainer began
      to tremble so violently that his shaking hands could
      hardly unbar the gates.</p>
                  
      <p>As the young man entered, Kiyo dropped upon
      his knees, and bumped his bald head repeatedly
      upon the frozen ground, emitting strange little cries<pb n="167"/>
      of excitement and joy over the return of the long-absent
      one.</p>
                  
      <p>Deeply touched, Gonji, who had always loved old
      Kiyo, bent over the gateman, patting his head, and
      finally even assisting him to his feet. He inquired
      solicitously after the health of Kiyo and his kindred,
      and then asked how his own family now were.
      Kiyo had answered joyously and willingly all the inquiries
      of his master touching upon his own kinsfolk,
      but at the questions regarding the family he served
      he became suddenly constrained and wretched. His
      silence apparently but aroused the further curiosity
      and anxiety of Gonji. He persisted, his voice becoming
      almost peremptory in tone.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I condescended to ask you regarding the health
      of my family. You do not answer me, good Kiyo-sama!
      Is there sickness, then, within the shiro?</q></p>
                  
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Iya</foreign>, <foreign xml:lang="ja">iya</foreign>! (No, no!)</q> hastily protested Kiyo.
      <q>All is well. It is good health within the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shiro</foreign>,
      praise be to the gods!</q></p>
                  
      <p>Still his questioner noted something strange about
      the manner in which the gateman avoided his
      glance. He studied old Kiyo curiously, as though
      from his own sad reveries, in which he had been
      absorbed to the exclusion of all else, he had been
      reluctantly aroused at the thought of possible
      danger to his people. Gonji had hardened his
      heart, as he thought, against the ones who were responsible
      for his unhappiness—nay, who had delib-<pb n="168"/>erately
      cast forth a pure and beautiful soul. Nevertheless,
      he experienced a sense of uneasiness at the
      thought that all had not been well with them.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Come</q>, he urged. <q>Do not hesitate to confide
      in your master, good Kiyo-sama. Tell me the news,
      be it good or bad</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>All is well. All is well</q>, almost sobbingly chanted
      the gateman. <q>I pray you enter the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shiro</foreign>. There
      you will see for yourself</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Gonji turned a bit uneasily toward the house,
      then halted abruptly.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I read in your face</q>, he said, <q>a tale of some
      calamity to my family. Already I know of my
      father’s glorious sacrifice for <foreign xml:lang="ja">Tenshi-sama</foreign></q>—bowing
      as he spoke the <foreign xml:lang="ja">Mikado</foreign>’s name—<q>for I was with my
      father at the end. So if it is that—but no, there is
      something else troubling you, Kiyo. I know you
      too well not to read your face. Is it my mother?</q></p>
                  
      <p>His voice broke slightly, and for the first time in
      years he was conscious of a sense of tenderness
      toward his mother. She had been the main source
      of all his misery; but she loved him. This Gonji
      knew, despite all.</p>
                  
      <p>Again Kiyo hastened to reassure him, this time
      eagerly and proudly.</p>
      
      <p><q><foreign xml:lang="ja">Iya</foreign>, master. Thy mother is in excellent health.
      Happy, moreover, as never before, with the honorable
      Lord Taro, thy son, embraced within her
      arms!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="169"/>
                  
      <p>The young man was staring at him now strangely.
      He seemed unable to speak or move. A look as of
      almost troubled awakening was in the face of Gonji.
      It was as if a thought, long thrust aside, had suddenly
      recurred to him. During all these agonizing
      months, when he had wandered about from city
      to city, he had been possessed with but one idea—the
      finding of his wife. Now, suddenly, the gateman’s
      words came to him as a very revelation.
      Strange that he had not even thought upon this
      matter since he had left Japan. He was a father!</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is—possible!</q> he gasped. <q>I have a—</q></p>
                 
      <p><q>Son! Gloriously a son, master!</q> cried Kiyo,
      grinning joyously.</p>
                  
      <p>The young man continued to stare almost incredulously
      at the gateman, but in his face was no
      reflection of the joy visible in that of the faithful
      retainer. He was overwhelmed with the sense of a
      new emotion whose very sweetness tore at his
      heart, and brought unbidden tears to his eyes.</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly, against his will even, there came
      vividly before his mind’s eye a vision of Ohano
      as he had seen her last, crawling upon her knees
      toward him and beating her hands futilely together,
      as she besought him piteously to permit her to
      attend him through the dark paths that led to the
      Lotus Land.</p>
                  
      <p>How the gods had comforted the unloved wife,
      was his thought, and with it came a sense of over-<pb n="170"/>whelming
      grief and bitterness that they had not
      shown a similar charity toward the beloved Moonlight.
      He pictured Ohano, cherished, protected,
      praised, within the honorable house of Saito, with
      the long-desired heir of all the illustrious ancestors
      upon her bosom. Then his mind reverted to the
      wandering outcast, Moonlight, and a lump rose
      stranglingly in his throat. As he made his way
      blindly toward the house, all the pride and joy of
      fatherhood, which had uplifted him as on a flood
      but a moment since, seemed to drop from him no less
      suddenly, leaving him as before, hopeless, uncomforted,
      and utterly forlorn.</p>
                  
      <p>Within the shiro, the Lady Saito Ichigo sat
      drowsily swaying by the <foreign xml:lang="ja">hibachi</foreign>, ceaselessly smoking,
      and muttering incoherent prayers for the soul
      of her lord and for Ohano’s. She was very feeble,
      helpless, and childish now. Her body had lost
      much of its vigor, and the sternness which had once
      made her so formidable seemed to have entirely
      left her.</p>
                  
      <p>Moonlight’s dark eyes rested upon her with an
      expression of both pity and anxiety. Suddenly she
      pushed the little Taro along the smoothly matted
      floor and whispered coaxing words into the child’s
      ear. He crawled along several paces till he came
      behind his grandmother. By grasping her <foreign xml:lang="ja">obi</foreign> at
      the back he was enabled to pull himself to his
      feet. Now his chubby, warm little face nestled up<pb n="171"/>
      against Lady Saito’s neck. The pipe dropped from
      her mouth and fell unheeded upon the hearth.
      She turned hungrily toward the child and drew
      him passionately to her breast.</p>
                 
      <p>Outside the screens Gonji had paused, unable
      either to enter or to retire. He had resolved, at whatever
      cost, to resume his forlorn wanderings in search
      of the lost one, ere finally he should take up the
      abolition of the Yoshiwara—a task which had
      seemed to be assigned to him by the very gods themselves.
      But before going he felt it to be his duty
      to have a last interview with his mother, and with
      Ohano, the mother of his child!</p>
                  
      <p>Nevertheless he paused outside the screens,
      feeling unable to combat the sense of reluctance
      and repugnance to joining that little family he
      knew was within. How long he remained outside
      the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign> he could not have told. He debated the
      advisability of withdrawing without their knowledge
      of his presence. Kiyo would keep the secret.
      So would Ochika, whose loud outcry at his advent
      he had quickly silenced. Gonji felt sure his brief
      visit might bring merely unrest and unhappiness.
      It would be kinder both to Ohano and to his mother
      to go. As his resolve became fixed, he was swept
      with an anguished longing and desire at least to
      see, but once, the face of the son the gods had graciously
      given him.</p>
                  
      <p>With infinite caution, lest the sound might be<pb n="172"/>
      heard by those within, he began to scratch with
      his nail upon the <foreign xml:lang="ja">fusuma</foreign>, till gradually he had
      made a small aperture, and to this he applied his
      eye.</p>
                  
      <p>He remained motionless at the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>. He saw,
      within, the toddling child, as it made its swift way
      across the room toward its grandmother; he heard
      the sob of his mother as she took the child into her
      embrace; then he saw the face of Moonlight lifted
      alertly and turned toward where her husband’s
      face was pressed against the screen. She alone
      had heard, and, intuitively, had guessed the truth.
      She came slowly to her feet, her lips apart, her wide
      eyes dark and beautiful with emotion and excitement.</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly the man outside the screens became animated
      with the strength almost of a madman. He
      tore violently at the sliding wall, crushing it into
      its groove. Now he was upon the threshold of the
      room.</p>
                  
      <p>His mother screamed, hoarsely, wildly. But his
      glance went over her head and by the little wondering
      child, who had crawled toward him. Gonji saw
      nothing in the world save the face of that one
      who had rushed to meet him.</p>
                  
      <p>It was much later that they told him of Ohano. At
      first the girl’s sacrifice, for his sake and that of the
      ancestors, brought from him only an exclamation
      of pity; he seemed unable to appreciate the facts<pb n="173"/>
      of the matter. There was no room for a shadow
      upon his happiness now. They were sitting in the
      sunlight, that came in a golden stream through
      the latticed <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>, piercing its way even through the
      amado. They said little to each other, but upon
      their faces was a radiance as golden as the sunlight.</p>
                  
      <p>Suddenly a tiny shape flickered across the outer
      wall. It seemed but a moving speck at first upon
      the water-colored paper; but so insistently did it
      beat against the wall that the family perceived it
      was an insect of some kind.</p>
                  
      <p>Gonji arose and looked at it curiously, where it
      fluttered against the outside of the paper wall.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Why, it is a cicada—and at this time of year!</q>
      he said.</p>
      
      <p>Lady Saito laid her pipe upon the <foreign xml:lang="ja">hibachi</foreign> and
      hobbled across to her son’s side, and Moonlight
      and the little Taro pressed against him on the
      other. They all watched the moving little shape
      outside with absorbed interest and wonder.</p>
                  
      <p><q>I dreamed of a cicada last night</q>, said Lady
      Saito, uneasily. <q>It kept flying at my ears, whispering
      that it could not rest. It is a bad sign.
      Open the <foreign xml:lang="ja">shoji</foreign>, my son. We can catch it with the
      sleeve</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>He pushed the screen partly open, and the cicada
      crept along the lacquered latticed wall, beating its
      little wings and sliding up and down.</p>
                  
      <p>Lady Saito slapped at it with the end of her<pb n="174"/>
      long sleeve, but it fled to the top of the wall. She
      beat at it with a bamboo broom, and presently it
      fluttered down and fell upon the floor.</p>
                  
      <p>They all hung over the curious little creature,
      and as they examined it an oppressive feeling of
      sadness crept upon them.</p>
                  
      <p><q>How strange is this little cicada</q>, murmured
      Moonlight, troubled. <q>See, one of its little wings
      is much smaller than the other</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>It is a bad sign</q>, repeated the mother, gloomily;
      and she made as if to step upon the little creature,
      when Moonlight grasped at her arm and drew her
      back.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Do not kill it! Do not kill it!</q> she cried, in
      sudden excitement. <q>Oh, do you not see—it is
      Ohano, poor Ohano! She has returned to us in this
      way. There is a message she wishes to bring us</q>.</p>
                  
      <p>Even as she spoke the cicada ceased its fluttering
      and lay very still. A silence fell upon the Saito
      family. They were oppressed with the sense of
      being in the presence of one dead.</p>
                  
      <p>Said the Lord Saito Gonji, in a very gentle
      voice:</p>
                  
      <p><q>What can it be my wife wishes? I would gladly
      resign my happiness if I could but make easier the
      lot of Ohano</q>.</p>
                  
      <p><q>She was always anxious about her next birth</q>,
      whispered his mother. <q>Perhaps she desires a
      Buddhist service especially for her spirit!</q></p>
            
            <pb n="175"/>
                  
      <p>Moonlight had tenderly lifted the little body
      and put it into a small box.</p>
                  
      <p><q>Come</q>, she said, simply. <q>We must set out at
      once for the temple. The good priest will perform
      the Segati service, and we will bury Ohano’s little
      body in the grounds of the temple. There surely
      it will rest in peace!</q></p>
            
            
            <trailer>
               THE END
            </trailer>
  

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