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THE « » • ,AiSS * » » i^lOONLlGm 'laoswi' ^*^'j :|; 't^ :^ ^^ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT --,- 'i\ - wm Ar r ut 2.00 TirK \V()Oi.N(, OF Wistahia. Ilhistritcd. Post *"'" '. 1.50 The Heakt ok Hva< inth. Illustrated in color *-""••" ^"> «,/ 2.00 Tama. Illustrated. Japan tint paper. Crown "'"' «./ 1.60 HAKI'KR A- likOTlIHRS, Ni:\V YORK _ COPYRIGHT I»12_B» HARPER S BROTHERS PHINTED IN THE UNITED ST.TES OE AMERICA PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 1912 H-M TO W.. L. W.. AND E. McK. IN REMEMBRANCE OF KIND WORDS ■% r'^il ^a ^;mm^- w^mmi^'^m'^ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT CHAPTER I HE day had been long and sultry. It was the season of little heat, when an all-encompassing humidity seemed sus- pended over the land. Sky and earth ^■cre of one monotonous color, a dim blue, which faded to shadowy grayness at the fall of the twilight. 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 ani- mated aspect. Up through the narrow, twisting roads, in and out of the never-ending paths, the lights of count- ess jmrikishas twinkled, bound for the Houses of I Icasure. Revelers called to each other out of the >almy darkness. Under the quivering light of a lifted lantern, suspended for an instant, faces eleamod our, uicn di-sappeared back into the darkness THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT To the young Lord Saito Gonji the night seemed to speak with myriad tongues. Like some finely tuned instrument whose slenderest string must vi"- bratc if touched by a breath, so the heart of the youth was stirred by ever>' 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 ex- tenuation of the long life of thraldom yet to come. It was in his sole honor that the many relatives and connections of his family had assembled, joy- ously 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 pur- pose only. With almost as rigid care as would have been bestowed upon a novitiate priest, Gonji had been educated. "Send the child you love upon a journey," ad- monished the stem-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 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT under the strictest discipline known to the samourai 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 samourai, said his teachers, but his spirit and his heart were those of the poet. There came a period when he was placed in the Imperial University, and a new l^fe opened to the wondering youth. New laws, new modes of thought the alluring secrets of strange sciences, baffling and fascmatmg. all opened their doors to the infatuated and eager Gonji. With the enthusiasm bom of his sohtar>' 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 bom leader and genius. He was to do great thmgs for Japan some day! Tlien came a time when the education of the youth was abruptly halted, and he was ordered to return o his homo. 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 kno^-n from childhood and a distant relative of his mother's family. MechanicaUy and obediently the dazed Gonji found himself exchanging with the maiden the first gifts of betrothal Ohano was plump, with a round, somewhat sullen tace, a pouting, full-lipped mouth, and pve^ so «.mMl THK HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT lliey sccmccJ but mere slits in Ikt face. She had in- luriifd the- inscrutable, disdainful cxi)resbion of her loft y ancestors. Though he had played with her as a child and had seen her upon every occasion during his school vaca- tions, Gonji looked at her now with new eyes. As a little boy he had liked Uliano. She was his sole play- mate, and it had been his delight to tea.se 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? Like ever>' other Japanese youth, who knows that some day his i)roj)er mate will be chosen and given to him, Gonji had conjured up a lovely, yielding creature of the imagination, a gentle, .smiling, mys- terious Eve, who, like a new world, should daily sur- prise 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 arainst the chains they were forging in- exorably 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. The relatives agreed that something should be done to offset the gloom of the first stages of be- trothal. 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 4 .i?'T/'^-*-J tail ii ^^/i^m^^^4^^dkk:mi^ I THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT the life of gaiety and pleasure thaL lay outside the Icjfty, aneestral walls, the better, later, to appreeiate the ealm and pure joys of home and family. In single file the jinrikishas had been runninj^ along a narrow road which overlooked city and ba>-. Now they swer\'ed 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. For some time the tingling music of samisen and drum close by had been growing ever clearer. Sud- denly the glimmer of many lights was seen, as if suspended overhead. Almost unconsciously faces were raised, e.xcited breaths drown 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. Gay little mousm6s, rubbing hands and knees to- gether, ran to meet them at the gate, kowtowing and hissing in obeisance. The note of a samisen was heard; and a thin little voice, sweet, and incredibly high, broke into song. Geishas, 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- THE nONORAHLK MISS MOONLIGHT tact with these htllc creatures of joy. Soon he was to be set in the niche destined for him by his an- cestors. Here was his sole opportunity to lieizc the fleeting dehghts of youth. A laughing-faced niousnie, red-lipped and with saucy, teasing eyes that peeped at him from beneath veiled lashes, knelt to hold his sake-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. An elder cousin ofTercd some chafifing advice, and an hilarious uncle suggested that the master of the house put his geishas ui)on 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 ver>' 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 grufT whisper at his ear : "Pay attention. You see now the star of the night. It is the famous Spider, spinning her web!" As Gonji slowly raised his head and gazed like one spellbound at the dancer, his father added, with a sudden vehemence: "Take care, my son, lest she entrap thee, too, like the proverbial fly." 6 i llli: HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT A Injsh had fallen upon the gartlens. Almost it scrnu'd as if the tiny feet of the dancer stirred not at all. Vet, with imi)erceptil)le advances, she moved nearer and nearer to her fascinated audience. Above h( r flimsy gown of sheerest veiling', which si)rang like a web on all sides and above her, her face shone with its marvelous beauty and allurement. Her lips were apart, i;miling, coaxing, teasing; and her eyes, wide and ver\- 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 Sjndcr's eyes had ceased to wander. They were fixed compellingly upon those of the Lord Saito Gonji. He had ari.sen 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 ra- diant wonder. Then darkness came rudely between them. The geisha's face vanished with the light. He was standing alone, staring into the darkness, his father's voice droning meaninglessly in his ear. CHAPTER II ER real name was as poetical as the one she was known by was forbidding and repeUing. Moonhght, it was; though all the gay world which hovers about a famous geisha, like flics over the honey- pot, knew her solely as the "Spider." "Spider" she was called because of the peculiar dance she had originated. It was against all clas- sical precedents, but of so exceptional a character that in a night, a single hour, as it were, she found her- self from a humble little apprentice the most cele- brated geisha in Kioto, that paradise of geishas. 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. Harsh, cunning, even cruel to the many girls in his employ, Matsuda had yet one vulnerable point. That was his overwhelming affection for the geisha 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 diseas^e. From whatever misfortune, 8 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT the gentle Okusama, as they called her in the geisha- house, was at intervals blank-minded. Still she, the harmless, gentle creature, was loved by the geishas; and, as far as it lay in her power, she was their friend, and often saved them from the WTath 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 geisha. In her time the wife of Matsuda had been very fa- mous, 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 geisha-house. Matsuda had watched with some degree of irrita- tion, not unmixed with a peculiar jealousy, his wife's absorption in the tiny Moonlight. He did not ap- prove 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, perhcps, one might prove lenient. It was no uncommon thing for a geisha to be pampered and spoiled, but an apprentice, never! However, the child seemed to make happier the lot of the beloved Okusama, and there was nothing to be done about the matter. Disliking the child, Matsuda nevertheless reco2- 9 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT nized from the first her undoubted beauty, the thii-.^ 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 geisha, however, since his wife chose to pet and protect her. How was it possible for her to learn from the poor, witless Okusama? Wlien the latter joyously jabbered of the little one's wonderful progress, Matsuda would smile or grunt surlily. Then, one day, walking in the woods, he had come, uncxpecieJly, upon the pc.^turing child, toss- ing her little body from side to side like a wind- blown flower, while his wife picked two single notes upon the samisen. Ivlatsuda watched them dumb- smitten. Was it possible, he asked himself, that the Okusama had discovered what he had over- looked? 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 woman- hood. There was much to do in the geisha-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 Okusama. And so, almost unobserved by the master of the geisha-house, Moonlight came to the years of maidenhood. One night the House of Slender Pines was honored by the unexpected advent of most exalted gtiests. lO -;^^M.cmvM^^ ^^'^^mw^^^-^^^' -:--^m^^^^^fi^^'^^^ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT The chief geishas were absent at an entertainment, and Matsuda was in despair. He was forced, con- sequently, to put the novices into service, and while he bit his nails frenzicdly at the awkward move- ments of the apprentices, Moonlight slipped to his side and whisi)cred in his ear that she was com- petent to dance as beautifully as the chief geishas. As he stared at her in wrathful irritation, his wife glided to his c^her side and joined the girl in plead- ing. Gruffly h'- consented. Matters could not be much worse. v\Tiat mattered it now? He was al- ready disgraced in the eyes of the most high. Well, then, let this pet apprentice do her foolish dance. 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 ma.ster, the ridicule, disdain, and even hatred of the older geishas, whom it was her duty to imitate, the girl danced before the most critical audience in Kioto, 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, coa.xing witchery- of her eyes and lips they fell figuratively, and indeed literally, upon their knees. She became the mad furore and fashion of the hour. Poets indited lyrics to her respective THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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. CHAPTER III IS honorable mother declared that Gonji was afflicted w-ith 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 was at last at home with her, all of the natural inother within her, which had been repressed so long, yearned over her only son. Even her cold and somewhat repelling manner showed a softening. 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 hsalth was excellent, begged to be excused, and wandered off by himself. 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 T,ord Saito was the acute knowledge of what troubled 13 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT his son, for afflicted he undoubt. Jly was, as aU the relatives unanimously and officiously averred. Such a funereal countenance was unbefitting a bride- groom. One would think the unhappy youth was bemg dnven to his tomb, rather than to the bridal bed! The parents an<^ 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 10 day he grew paler, thinner, more silent, and sad. ' Call in the services of the mightiest of honorable physicians and surgeons," ordered the Lady Saito. "It may be an operation will relieve our son " Her husband, thoughtful, sad, a prey to an unea.sy conscience, shook his head dumbly. "It is not possible for the honorable knife to efface a cancer of the heart," said he, sighing. "Hasten the nuptials." suggested the uncle of Ohano. "There is no medicine which acts with as drastic force as a wife." This time the Lord Saito Ichigo was even more emphatic in negativing the suggestion. ^ "There is time enough," he asserted, gruffly 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." 14 ^S^^_;-i;^CS.c^^.'!?'-iJ^ -?*..'?~^-- -il'-f^: 1 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT The brusque words of the head of the Saito house aroused the ire of the nearest relative of the bride. He said ccmplainingly ; "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'" "It is a matter of choice," contended the father of Gonji, with curt pride. "But if it injure his health, is it not the duty of the relatives to a.ssist him?" "The gates of the saito arc 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." "That," said the uncle of Ghano, suavely "is because he still stumbles in the period of adolescence. It is necessary he be instructed." The father of Gonji pondered the matter som- berly, pulling with thumb and forefinger at his lower lip. After a moment he said, with sudden determination : "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 necessar>' immediately to arouse him from a youthful despair which may tend to injure his health." He looked up and met the cunning eye of l>is 15 I THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT prospective kinsman regarding him with a peculiar expression. Ichigo added, gruffly but sturdily: "It would be an excellent jirogramme to secure the services of the honorable Spider of the House of Slender Pines. I i)ray you undertake the matter for me. See Matsuda, the master of the house. Spare no expense in the matter." The expression on Takedo's face was now enig- matic. He emptied his pipe slowly and with de- liberation, 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 wo'-ds of parting the usual friendly and polite ones; but each met the eye of the other, and both under- stood; and, strangely, a sense of antagonism arose between them. CHAPTER IV JO It was in the honorable house of his father, and of the hundred au^'ust an- cestors whom they accused him of dis- honoring, that Gonji again saw the opider. Into the houses of the most exalted the geisha flt:tters wuh the free famih^arity of a pampered house pet. No festivity, however private, is con- sidered complete without her. She is as necessary as the flowers that bedeck the house, the viandJ. and the sake. ' Upon a humid nig!,t in the season of greatest hea . and m the glow of a thousand fireflL, the Spider danced m the gardens of the house of Saito 1 cr kimono was vermilion, embroidered with dragons re/ . ""I'J' '°" ^'''' ^^^ ^^^ -^ her fan.!and red and gold were the ornaments that glistened l=J^e fire m her hair. Yet more brilliant, more sparkimgly. gleamed and shone the eyes of the dancer, and her scarlet lips were redder than the leT^ O ^'i^'T. ^°"^'' ^'-'^'^^^"2 h^^ i" ^ breath- less silence that fairly pained him. 17 iiil: honorable miss moonlight I-^very gesture, every sligluest flutter of her sleeve, her hand, her fan, every smallest turn or motion (jf her bewi telling 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 liini she threw her joyous smiles, and, in the end, when the (hmcc was done, it was at his feet she knelt, raising her naively coy, half-questioning glance. Then, ver\' softly and with gentle solicitation: "At your sole honorable service, noble lord," she said. "Wliat is your pleasure ne.xt'" lie said, like one awakening from some strange dream or trance: "It is my pleasure, geisha, that you look into my eyes." She glanced up timidly, as if troubled and sur- prised. 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: "I saw your face dimly in the firef^y-light. I was possessed with but one ambition — to look into your eyes!" 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 oflcnded him, she raised her head and looked at him with a mutely questioning glance. There was a cloud, dark and ver>' melancholy, upon iS THK HONORAHLK MISS MOONLIGHT the face f.f the one she had been ordered to enter- tain. She thought of the instructions of Matsuda- that It should be her i)aran]ount dutv to heguile and distract the Lord Saito C'.onji. Hc'r fortune for hfe might be made by succeeding in arousing him to a joyous mood. But. lo! the one .she sought to please drew back from her. gloomv, troubled 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 cele- brated gei.sha-house. but had brought fame and tortune 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. No longer was it possible for her to be shielded by the loving arms of the Okusama. Out into the broadest limelight even the delighted Okusama had pushed her. and this blinding light entailed a thou- sand duties of which she had only vaguely heard rom the patronizing elder gei.shas. She had ceased to be the cuddled and petted little Moonlight. loved and stroked and tossed about by the geishas, be- cause of her beauty and ingenuous wit. Suddenly he had beconie the Spider! It was a new and 1^'arful name that terrified her. Matsuda, proud of her success, and at last com- pletely won over, surrounded her with everj- luxury. 19 I 111: IIONURAin.K MIS., MOONLIGHT So far he had forced upon the girl none of the odious exactions often demanded of the geishas l)y their masters, even though the law had defined the exact services to which he was legally enlitUd. A thousand lovers a geisha might have, said the tnnvritten law, but to possess one alone was fatrd! She must place a guard of iron before her heart ! A geisha must sip at \ovc as the bee culls the honey from the blossom, lingering but a moment over each. The rivers and the many pits of death were filUd with the bodies of the hapless ones who had gone outside this law, who had dared to pennit the pas- sionate heart to escape beyond the prescribed bounds. Moonlight, with all the witching arts of the geisha at her finger-tips, with a beauty as rare and mysterious as though she were a j^rinccss 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 geisha-house jealously protected his star from all possible con- tamination. 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 re- ward. The most illustrious head of the house of the e.Kalted Saito solicited his services! 20 >w^ .'.*^=^-T .«^ =*-■ r '^ 7'^^.^^":^^% msm^-^mmmi TIIK HONORABLE MISS MOONMdHT So. while Matsuda floated over th^ 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 somlxT glance. All her gay insouciance, her saucy, quick reparlee, 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 oi 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. "I desire to please you. noble sir," she said, plain- tively, and added, with an impulsive motion of her little hands: "Alas! It is my duty!" 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 lliat musing fashion, r-:: though he studied every feature of her face and drank in its loveliness with something of resignation and despair. His curious silence affected her. Was it not I'ossible 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 lean-d suddenly toward her, inclosing her hand in ■i 21 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT a close, almost painful grip. Now hungrily, plead- ingly, his look enveloped her. His voice trembled with the emotion he sought vainly to control. "Geisha, 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!" Like a child, wondering and curious, she answered: ■ray you, tell me! To keep a troubled .secret is li... Trying a cup brim full !" ' will ask you a question," he said incisively, ti.ju be my wife for all the lives yet to come?" 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 dis- traction. "Answer me!" he entreated. "Make me the promise, beautiful little mousme!" 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: "You speak so strangely, noble sir. I— I— am but— a geisha of the House of Slender Pines. Thou 32 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT art as far above my sphere as-as-are the honor- able stars in the heavens." 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. "It is not possible," he murmured, "for one to be above thee, little geisha. 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 mousme, that thou wilt travel with me-that thou wilt be mine, mine only'" She drew back as far from him as it was possible, with her hands jealously held by his o^-n Her wide mghtened eyes were fixed in terror upon his 1 cannot speak the words!" she gasped "I dare not speak them, august one!" For a moment his face, which had been lighted by excitement and passion, darkened. ''You cannot then return my love?" "Ah! They are not words for a geisha to speak It IS not for such as I to make the long journey with one so illustnous as thou!" A sob broke from her, and because she could no onger bear to meet his burning gaze she hid her face with the motion of a child against their clasped hands, ^ For a long moment there was silence between 23 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT them. Louder, noisier, rose the mirth of the rev- elers about them. A dozen geishas pulled at the three-stringed instruments. As many more swayed and moved in the figures of the elassical 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 con- certed 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. The Lord Gonji saw nothing of the relatives. He was oblivious indeed of everything save the shining, drooped Httle head upon his hands. Scarcely he knew his own voice, so superlatively gentle and wooing was its tone. "I pray you, give me complete happiness with the promise, beloved one," he entreated. She raised her head slowly ; and gravely, wistfully, her eyes now questioned him. Dimly she realized the efTect of such a union upon his haughty family and the ancestors. She was but a geisha, a cultivated toy, educated for the one purpose of beguiling men and making THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT their lot brighter. Like he painted and grotesque comedian who tortured his limbs to make others laugh, so it was the duty of a geisha 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 entranc- ing opportunity of which lovers whisper to each other. Her face was ver>' pinched and white, the eyes startlingly large, as she answered him: "I dare not speak the words, noble sir. I do not know the way. The Meido is very far ofiF. \Vc meet but once. Your honorable i)arents and the ancestors would turn back one so humble and in- significant as L" "The honorable parents," he gently explained, "can but point our duty in the present life. In the lives yet to come we choose our ovvti companions. If I could — if it were possible — how gladly would I take thee also for this present life." vShe drew back, puzzled, vaguely distressed. "You — you do not wish me now also?" she stam- mered, and there was a shock<3d, dazed note in her voice. He saw what was in her mind, and it startled him. "Do you not know why they have summoned you here to-night?" he questioned. "At — at the command of my master," she fal- tered. "I am here to— to please thee, noble sir. If it please thee to make a jest—" 25 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT She broke ofT j)iteously and tried to smile. Her hands sli})i)ed from his as he arose suddenly and look'cd down at her solenmly, where she still knelt at his feet. "You are here," he said, "to celebrate my honor- able betrothal to Takedo Ohano-san." She did not move, but continued to stare u^ 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. "Geisha!" He called to her sharply, command- ingly, and yet with a world of pleading emotion. Matsuda, hovering near, turned and looked lower- ingly 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 geisha, and Matsuda moved furiously nearer to them. This was the work of the Okusama, inwardly he fumed. Now when the geisha was put to the greatest test she was found wanting. At the feet of the man when he should have knelt at hers, "Geisha!" 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 "long journey." She, in her simple innocence, believed he had asked her 2U THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT in marriage for this life also. Now, humiliated, she dared not look at him. DowTi 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. 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 u-icked 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. 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. 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 27 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "honorable interiors," the ladies of the family, who might not, with propriety, join their lords in the revelry. Here, unseen, these "precious jewels of the household" might watch the celebration; but it was the part of the geisha to entertain their lord. Theirs the lot to receive him when, weary and worn, he must eventually return for rest. Now, from their sake-sipping the ladies were aroused by that cr>' 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 grour 1. 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, whis- pering to and caressing her, was the Lord Saito Gonji. 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. WTien the Lady Saito's hand was with- drawn from the mouth of the bride, the pallid- faced Ohano slipped humbly to her knees, and, shaking like a leaf in a storm, stammered: "I — I — b-but laughed at the antics of the come- dians. Oh, d-d-d-did you see—" 28 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT Here she broke ofl 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 shoji into place, closing the floor. CHAPTER V ^MI! Omi! Are you there? Wretched little maiden, why do you not come?" ' The Sinder 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. A passing geisha 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 geisha had glided out of sight she was back at the patch again. She called in a whisper: "Omi! Omi! Omi-san!" but no an- swering treble child-voice responded. 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. paus- ing a moment with alert cars to listen, she opened at last the note. It was crushed about a pebble, and was written on the thinncot of tissue-paper. 30 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT Moonlight drank in avidly the burning words of love in the poem. Her eyes were shining and bril liant, 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 geisha, but contented himself with scrutinizing her in a calculating manner, as thougli 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. A few moments later the screens which Matsuda had carefully closed behind him were cautiously parted a space, and the thin, impish, pert, and pre- cocious 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. Omi— for it was she — slipped into the room. She was an odd-looking little creature, her body as thin as her wise httle face, above which her hair was piled in elaborate imitation of the coiffure of her mistress and preceptress, ^he 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. "Although it is not the proper work for an ap- prentice-geisha," she rattled along, "yet I myself will serve your honorable body, rather than permit it to suffer from such pernicious neglect." 31 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT She smoothed the Httle hands of her mistress, manicured and perfumed them, talking volubly all the time upon ever>' subject save the one the Spider was waiting to hear about. At last, unable to bear it longer. Moonlight broke in abruptly: "How you chatter of insignificant matters! You tease me, Omi. I shall have to chastise you. Tell me in a breath about the matter." 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. "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." "Yes, yes, speak quickly!" urged the Spider, eagerly hanging upon the words of the appren- tice. Omi drew in and expelled her breath in long, sibilant hisses after the manner of the most exalted of aristocrats. "There are six of them at the gates, not to count the servants and nmners down the road!" Moonlight looked at her incredulously, and Omi nodded her head with vigor. "It is so. I counted each augustness." She began enumerating upon her fingers. "There was the high-up Count Takedo Isami, Takedo Sachi, 32 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT Then the Lord Takedo— there were four Takedos. Saito Takamura Ichigo, wSaito — " "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." 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 httle girl cried out sharply: "It is true. Moonlight-san ! Thou art lovelier than Ama-terasu-o-mi-kami!" "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 ! " She ended coaxingly ; but, as the pert little apprentice merely smiled tantalizingly, she added, very severely: "It may be I will look about for a new under- study. There is Ochika— " At the mention of her rival's name Omi made a scornful grimace, but she answered quickly: "The Okusama helped me. She pretended an illness. Matsuda was afraid, and icTiained by her side, chafing her hands and her head." She laughed 33 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT maliciously, and continued: "I slipped out by the bamboo-hedge gate. Omatsu saw me — " At the look of alarm on the Spider's face: "Potohl what tloes it matter? Ever>' servant in the house — ah! and the maids and ai)prcntices — yes, and the most hotiorahle geishas too — know the secret, and they wish you well, sweet mistress!" She squeezed Moonlight's hands with girlish fer- vor, and the latter returned the pressure lovingly, but besought her to continue. "The main gates were closed. Just think! No one is admitted even to the gardens. Wliy, 'tis like the days of feudalism. We are in a fortress, with the enemy on all sides!" "Oh, Omi, you let your imagination run away with you, and I hang upon your words, waiting to hear what has actually hapiDcned." "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 p"blic. No one dare enter. No one dare —go out— save — I!" and she smiled impudently. " It is said' ■ — lowering her voice confidentially — ' ' 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!' And 34 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT just think," and the little apprcnticc-geisha i)outcd. "not a koto or a siiniiscn is i>crmiitcd to be- touched' Who ever heard of a geisha-house as silent as a mortuary' hall? It is ver>- 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 afTair that ever>' geisha and every apprentice is being punished! We are not permitted to sjjeak above a whisi>er. Our lovers must stand beyond the gates and serenade us themselves. It is—" "Oh, Omi, you wander so! Now tell me, sweet girl, exactly what I am perishing to know." "I will, duly! You i)reach patience to me so often," declared the impish little creature; "now you must practise it also. I resume my narrative. Pray do not interrupt so often, as it delays my story." With that she leisurely proceeded. "Mistress, the entire gardens of the House of Slender Pines are pairoled— yes, and by armed samourai!" "Samourai! You speak nonsense. There is no such thing to-day as a samourai. 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!" "It is as I have said. I speak only the truth. The ones who guard our house are exalted ones— samourai by birth at least, relatives of his lords.hin 35 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT '^S.. 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 — " "Omi!" "—for it has gone abroad through all the Saito clan that the ;/eace of the most honorable ancestors is about to be imperiled." 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. "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"— and the little maiden shook her head with precocious wisdom— "he may actually reach your side despite the care of Matsuda." 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. "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!" 36 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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 geisha-house he had taken his stand, there to importune the implacable Matsuda and try vainly, by every ruse and device, to reach her side. 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 lis- tened with tingling ears, as Omi glibly and with ex- aggeration 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 ozashiki, a chance to toss the note aloft to her mis- tress, and then to await her opportunity when the lower halls should be clear and slip upstairs! Ap- prentices 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. 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 4 37 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT enclasped, the two sat in silence, watching the falling of the twilight; and in the mind of each one sohtary figure stood clearly outhned. 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 ineflfaceable stamp of caste, and it lent a charm to the youth's entire bearing. A maid pattered into the apartment and lit the solitary andon. Its wan light added but a feeble gleam in the darkened room. Presently she re- turned, bearing the simple meal for the geisha and her apprentice. When this was finished, with the aid of Omi she spread the sleeping-quilts and snufifed the andon 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 geisha, and the servant sighed un- easily. She did not like this work assigned her by Matsuda. In the middle of the night Omi, turning on the quilts, missed her mistress at her side. Arising, she 3S THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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 shoji. 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. CHAPTER VI F the once flourishing and numerous family of the Saito, there were but two male members Hving, Saito Gonji, and his father, Saito Ichigo. The relatives of the Lady Saito were, however, nu- merous, and, like the mother of Gonji, they possessed stem 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. 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 giri 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 honor- able and desirable vehicle to hand down the race of 40 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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 in- dividuals So the peace-loving elder Lord Saito be- lieved, at the time of the betrothal, that he had safely disposed of a most vexing problem. He was dumfounded, panic-stricken, at the turn events had taken. On all sides, harangued by that msistent lady, his wife, and also by her many rela- tives, he found it, nevertheless, impossible to turn a deaf ear to the impassioned pleading of the young man himself. Day ar J night Genii desperately beset his father, ignoring utterly all other members of the family. 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 sac- nfice of the ancestors' honor even— he was deter- mined 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 de- nsion, that those about them might not suspect— Gonji determined to marry the geisha not alone in the thousand vague lives vet 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 41 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT receive them in a bridal night that would never pass away. It is not an easy matter for a youth in Japan to marry without tlie full consent of his parents. Ever>' 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 geisha-keeper from the posi- tion 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. The latter had listened, without comment, to the law as laid dowm 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 stem 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. While the father miserably debated the matter within himself, Gonji suddenly ceased to importune his parent. Retiring to his own chamber, he closed 42 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT the doors against all possible in- and fastened truden. The relatives regarded this latest act of their fractious young kinsman as an evidence that at last his impetuous young will was breaking. They con- gratulated themselves upon their firmness at this time, and advised Lord Saito Ichigo to retain an unbending attitude in the matter. 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 Ghano and her anxiety about her son. 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. 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 fi.xed and white as though already he had started upon the journey. "Gonji — my dear son!" The elder Lord Saito scarce knew his own voice, so hoarse and full of anguished emotion was it. He 43 THE HONORABLK MISS MOONLIGHT 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 : "It is better this way. I pray you to pardon me. I am unable to serve the ancestors." "It is not of the ancestors I think," said Lord vSaito, gruffly, "but of you — you nly, my son!" Gonji looked at him strangely now, as though he sought to fathom the mind of his father; but he turned away, perplexed and distressed. "You must believe that," went on his father, brokenly. "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" — 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 — "then," he con- tinued, "it shall be!" With a cr>% Gonji gripped at his parent s hands, his eyes turned imploringly upon I^rd Saito's face. "You mean — ah, you promise, then — " He could not speak the words that rushed in a flood to his lips. " He ! (Yes !)" said Lord Ichigo, solemnly. " It is a promise." CHAPTER VII AVING determined upon the course to take, Lord Saito Ichigo summoned a council of the relatives of the family. For the first time, possibly, since his marriage, he faced the assembled kins- folk with the cahn demeanor of one who had seized, and intended to retain, the authority properly in- vested in him as head of the house of Saito. His should be the voice heard! His the decision that must prevail! 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 cham- ber to which, despite the passing years, memory re- turns with loving, loitering step. So with Lord Ichigo. Now, with the fate of his beloved child m 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. 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- 4S THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT ever the result; for well he knew of the upheaval in his household which would be sure to follow. There was, of course, Ghano 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 daugh- ter, they would seek, outside their own family, for a worthy and suitable husband for the maid^ .1. In fact, it was better that Ghano 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 " the honorable interior " (his wife) and the many relatives of his honorable wife. Thus he disposed of this matter briefly, and, al- though the relatives looked at each other with startled glances, they had nothing to say. Some- thing in the fixed attitude of the one they had hith- erto somewhat contemptuously regarded as weak and yielding claimed now their respectful attention. To approach the matter of the marriage of a Saito with a public geisha 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 46 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT her — the exalted kinsmen resented even the sug- gestion of such a union. So the Lord Ichigo ap- proached the subject by wary i)aths. In the first pKvCe, he pointed out boldly, the as- sembled 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. 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. 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, "There is no seed to a great man!" meaning none could inherit his greatness. This cut ofT Ichigo's oratory; and, hurt and dis- turbed at the quotation as a reflection upon his own shortcomings, he brought up squarely before the main issue. These were the days of enlightenment, when the iron-clad ships of war sailed the seas as far as the 47 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT Kreat Western lands; when the Japanese had accepted the best of the ways of the West; when the si)irit of the New Japan permeated every nook and comer 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! Now," love" is not a ver>' proper word, according to the Japanese notion of polite speech. Hence the attitude of the relatives. Nor did the frigid at- mosphere melt in the slightest before the iiow of fervid eloquence that the father of Gonji brought to the defense of this reprehensible weakness. 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 pugna- cious chin, asked for the right to speak. He was short, dark, with the face of a fighter and the body of a dwarf. 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 Ghano, 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- 48 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT tcmpLite a union of mere love and passion with a notonous and public geisha 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. As the uncle of Ohano reseated himself a low murmur of approbation broke out from the circle, (lloomy looks were turned toward Ichigo, whose face had become curiously fixed. Par from weaken- ing 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. The honorable Takedo Isami's remarks, he de- clared, 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 geishas 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 geisha had not played her part nobly. The greatest of sacrifices ^e had made for her country and the Mikado There were instances, too famous to need repeating, 49 V^--' ■HHiiiiii 11 i THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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 geisha. Who was it, then, dared to reflect upon the most charming of Japanese institutions? 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. His honorable kinsman, he loudly declared, wished but to confuse the issue. No one denied the virtues of the geisha; also the undoubted fact that many of them came from the impoverished families of the samourai. Nevertheless, charming and de- sirable 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- .i^yvv -ji*!iS».-./s$v*!^ . ii's^ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT ter at the mere contact of the sturdy chop-sticks against it. 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 drowTi it. So he summoned servants, and coolly bade them put the amado (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 contro- versy. Then, when the doors were in place, Lord Saito Ichigo gravely bowed to the assembled rela- tives, and, taking his son by the arm, bade them good night, advising that they argue the matter among themselves, withou '-is unnecessary presence. ^ . ;vS^.'i;^ Vf JT.- i'-;. s^i?/?^ ' -^- CHAPTER VIII >•- i HE most dreaded moment of a Japanese girl's life is when she enters the house of the mother-in-law. Her future hap- piness, 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. Far more necessary is it for her to have the good- will 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 "returned" 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 re- ceive the little, fearful bride with open arms and hearts. The geisha is not educated for marriage. From 52 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT her earliest years, indeed, she is taught that her office in life is merely to entertain. In the case of the wSpider, she had even less oppor- tunity for knowing the rules that prevailed in such matters. She had been educated by the witless wife of the geisha-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. 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 geisha-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 geisha entered the ancestral home of the illustrious family. For just a moment, ere she entered, she paused upon the threshold, a premonitor>' thrill of fear seizing her. She clung to the supporting hand of the garrulous Omi, whose shrill and acid little tongue already grew xTiute in the silent halls of the shiro (mansion). Presently they were ushered into the ozashiki. 53 Ii * THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT and the Sjjidcr 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 undccorated with flower or ornament, their thin, unmoving lips and eyes almost closed in cold, unsmiling scrutiny of the intruder, who seemed, like some brilliant butter- fly, to have dropped in their midst from another world. The women of the household — and these com- prised 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. There was no word spoken. Nothing but the sighing, hissing sound of indrawTi breaths, as with precise formality they made their obeisances to the bride. In vain did the wandering eyes of the geisha scan the farthermost comer of the great room in search of her lover, or even his seemingly friendly father. There were only the women there to receive her. Dimly, now, she recalled hearing or reading somt- where that this was a fashion followed by many 54 iy-:.*^-' THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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 discon- certing 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, The smile upon the geisha's lips flickered away trem' msly; her little head drooped like a flower; she closed her eyes lest the threatening tears might fall. A voice, cold, harsh, and with that note of com- mand of one in authority addressing a servant, at last brok( the silence. "It is my wish," said the Lady Saito Ichigo, "that you retire to your chamber, and there remove the garments of your trade." 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, be- wildered, 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: ce ! II IK II (). \UR. A in, K MISS M()()MJ(;HT II ( 'I "It is my wish that your maiden of the geisha- house be returned at once to her proper home." She ehipi)ed her hands precisely twice, and a serving-woman answered the summons and knelt res{Krtfully to take the order of her mistress. "Vou will conduct the wife of the Lord Saito (lonji to her chamber." The servant crossed to the still kneeling Moon- light, and while the latter, mystified, looked dumbly at the exalted but, to her, horrible lady, she assisted the vSi)ider 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. Presently she found herself in an empty chamber, unlike any she had known in the geisha-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 geisha, removing every vestige of her attire and substituting the plain but elegant flowing robes of a lady of rank. From the geisha'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 stifT 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. «:6 THE HONORABLE MISS MOOM.ICHT When she emergod from the hands of the maid, MoonHght looked at herself curiously in the small mirror tendered her, and for a moment ^lie stared, dumfounded at the face that looked hack at her.' It seemed so strangely young, dj..pite 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 geisha felt that the last vestige of her beauty had fled. Within her heart aro.se a panic-stricken fear of the efTect of the metamorphosis upon her lord. She wished ardently she were back in the noisy geisha-house, with the maidens clamoring about her and the apprentices vieing with one another in imitating her. She put the mirror behind her. Her lips trembled so she could hardly comi)ress them, and to avoid the scrutiny of the maid she moved blindly to the shoji. There she stared out un.see- ingly at the landscape before her, heroically tr>-- ing to choke back the tears that would force their way and dripped down her dimpled cheeks like rain. Some one whispered her name, ver>' softly, ador- ingly. 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 to- gether, the first time they had seen each other since that night in the gardens of the Saito. ;1 m THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "Why, how beautiful thou art!" he stammered. "More so even than I had dreamed!" He was very close to her now, and almost uncon- sciously she leaned against him. His arms enfolded her rapturously, and she felt his young cheek warm against her own. is ' CHAPTER IX jHE mistake— you will admit it was a mistake ?— was to have countenanced such a match at all," said the Lady [Saito Ichigo. Her husband's manner was less sure, less unyielding than it had been in many days. In- deed, 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! "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. '• He lowered his voice. "I will tell you in confidence that which I had discovered. They had already made their plans to marry." "Pff!" Lady Saito waved the matter aside as unbelievable. "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." 59 .'i THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "You forget there arc other unions possible to lovers. You should know that many such start bravely on 'he long journey to the Meido when it IS imi)ossiblc to marry in this life." Lady Saito turned her face slowly toward her husband and fixed him with a piercing, bitter glare "That," said Ichigo, gently, "was the union con- templated by our children." His wife drew in her breath in that pccul'- hiss- ing fashion of the Japanese. Her beady httle eyes glittered like fire. "That was what she— the Spider woman— in- duccd 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?" 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: "Come hither, if you please! I say, come! You seem to forget you are no longer in the geisha-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!" 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. . They had been smiling into each other's eyes. They were oblivious of evcr>'thing and every one in 60 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT the room, for they were in that exalted and en- raptured condition of first love which makes the in- dividual seem almost stupid and obtuse to all save the loved one. Only dimly the words of their niother had reached them, and they slim-d like children ruddy awakened from some beautiful dream. The smile was still on th. face of tl c trirl as she turned toward her mother-in-law; but it slowly faded, leaving her pale, confused, and tim- orous. She met the malexolent gaze of the older woman, and began to tremble. She tried to speak, and her hand reached out fluttenngly toward her husband -a charming, help- less little gesture that warmed him to the soul He inclosed the little reaching hand, and thus, hand in hand, they faced the enraged lady. r.^2T '^^T^'l'' ""y go«^ girl, are in keeping ^.th the geisha-house. Is it the fashion there to Ignore the voice of authority?" The bride's large, dark eyes had widened in inno- cent surprise. Only partially she seemed to com- prehend 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 stammenngly: 6i i .^.-»wo> ^^^j^jT^jj^.-r^jip^-"^:;^^^ s.r- '\\i [I i I •f 1 ' THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "I— I— have not heard the voice of which you speak, august lady." A cruel smile curled the lips of her mother-in-law. "Then it is time, my girl, that you kept your cars wide open." She sat down upon her heels abruptly by the hihachi. "Tea is desirable for the honorable insides. Water for my feet, which are tired!" The girl's eyes turned inquiringly toward her husband. He had grown darkly red. For a moment he seemed about to speiik protestingly to his mother; then in a whisper he murmured to his bride: "It is your— duty!" Moonlight's shocked glance had gone from her husband's face to the opposite shoji. 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. 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. vSecretly he determined to help her in every way possible within his power. THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLRiHT "What has come over you'- His mother's voice broke upon his miserable reverie, and it wa ; as harsh as the one she employed to his wife. "Is it a new fashion of the geisha-house perchance-to answer a parent's question with silence?" "Did you question me. mother? I am sorrv- I did not hear you." "Oh. it is of no consequence. Besides, you are not hstenmg, even now. Your eyes are stiU upon the screen through which the insignificant daughter-in- law passed to do me service." He flushed and bit his lips. Something in his mother s baleful look moved him to an impetuous cry: "Mother! Do not hate my ;vife! If you could but know her as she is, so sweet and lovely and—" "There is no medicine for a fool!" snarled his mother, enraged at the boy's apparent infatuation. 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. "It is too heavy for hands so small-and so lovely! he cried, and then, as though aghast at his own words, he again pleadingly faced his mother. "We have many servants. Why give such em- ployment to my wife?" "Since when," demanded the mother hno^^Ur 63 m^ m I ! THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "did a childless son become master in his father's house?" "These are modem times, mother," he protested. "She has not been bred for service such as this!" "Then it is time we undertook her education," said his mother, ominously. "In the house of the honorable mother-in-law she will quickly learn her ])ropcr place." She put out her feet, and the girl knelt and washed th-m. Alone that evening in their room, they clung to- ^'cther like frightened children. It had been a hard, a cruel day for both. "It is true," she said, searching his face in the hope of finding a denial there, "that your parents bitterly hate me." ' ' 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 \\'in her even against her will." She held him back from her, with her two little hands resting flatly on his breast. "They despise me because I am a geisha? That is why they treat me so." "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 tlicm—to obey even their cruel caprices. But" -and he drew her into a warm embrace — "it will not b.' for long! Maybe a year— longer, if the 64 THE HONORABLE W 5i MOONLIGHT gods decree it! You can be c for a little while, can you not, for me?" "And after that?" she persisted, with the clear- eyed innocence of a child. "After that? Wliy, the gods are good!" he cried, joyously. "We will have our own home. The humblest daughter-in-law is elevated with the com- ing of an heir!" 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. "Gonji! Suppose — suppose it is not possible for me — to please the gods!" she gasped. "Ah!" — as he hastened to reassvire her — "it is said by the wise ones that a geisha is but a fragile toy, for transient pleasure only, but with neither the body nor the heart to mother a race!" $^,'ff^^' ■m^-; '•^mav^s ;r' 3 it u CHAPTER X jIFE for a young wife in the house of her parcnts-in-law in Japan is seldom a bed of roses. Of the entire family she is, up to a certain period, the most in- significant. Under the most galling cir- cumstances the Japanese bride remains meek, duti- ful, 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 c. n, with equanimity, endure the thought that her adored son prefers another to herself. 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. There was one compensation, however. Far from decreasing, the love of the young Lord Gonji for his beautiful wife grew ever stronger. It wa? im- possible, moreover, for him to conceal the state of his heart from the lynx-eyed, passionately jealous mother, with the consccjuencc that she let no oppor- 66 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT tunity escape her of making her daughter's life a burden. In this venomou task she '.vas ably assisted by Ohano, who was still a member of the household. In contrast to the treatment accorded the young wife, Ohano was cherished and made the constant companion and confidante of Lady Saitc. Alv i}'s healthy, plump, and active, she presented at this time a striking contrast to the wistful-cyed 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 geisha-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 diflerent creature, one who even moved uncertainly, starting painfully at the slightest mo- tion and flushing and paling whenever addressed. She had set herself the task of studying "The Greater Learning for Women " and now, pain- fully, from day to day, she, who had once gaily ordered all about her, tned to obey meekly the strict rules laid down for her sex hv Confucius. 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 com- plaint. But daily she visited the Temple. While it seemed as if iier back must break from weariness, she would remain upon her knees f(jr liours at the shrine, 67 II HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT iinnniuring ever one insistent, passionate prayer to llu- j^ods. The fir At year passed away, and there was no chanj^e in the household of the Saitos. 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, lo *he girl's surprise, permission was granted. Her husband took her to her former home and left her there among her friends. Tliey 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 admiringmaidens and geishas about her. But, instead, the place had a depressing effect upon the former geisha. The lights, the constant strumming of drum and samisen, the singing, the continuous dancing and chatting, bewil- dered 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. Something in the silent, speculating gaze of her mother-in-law smote her heart with terror. Of wliat was the older woman thinking, she wondered, and what had put that curious smile of satisfied triumph upon the face of Ohano' Troubled. slu> V)eggcd her husband to tell her exaeth- of wliat they had talked in her absence. He reassured her, told her she but imagined a 68 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT change ; but he held her so closely, so savagely to his breast that she was surer than ever that something menaced their happiness. The following morning she trembled and turned very pale at a sneering hint convcved by the mother-in-law. The fact that she was childless at the end of the first year, then, had become a subjei_t of remark in the family! The Lady Saito remarked sarcastically that among certain classes it wa customar\' for childless women to drink of the Kiyomidzu Tempi : springs. They were said to coi.tain mir iculous quahties by which one might attain to motherhood. Moonlight said nothing, but unconsciously her glance stole to her husband. He had grown un- comfortably red, and she saw his scowling face turned upon his mother. Later, ver>' 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 heri t, that at last he consented. And so, with this last frantic hope, the geisha 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. 6 t I CHAPTER XI ( ■ i*!! S 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 ever>' way, would see the necessity of dissolving the union. Gonji pleaded for time, one, two, three more years. Moonlight was very young. They could afford to wait. His father, at heart as soft toward his son as his wife was stem, surrendered, as always. "Arrange it with your mother, then. I am going to Tokio for a week." It was a difficult subject to broach 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- 70 1*^ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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 tlioughtfulness 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. 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, Ghano was present, ostentatiously vicing with the young wife in replenishing the older woman's plate and cup. "Now," said Lady Saito, abruptly, turning over her rice bowl to signify her meal was ended, "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." "I will double my offerings at the shrines," said the young creature, with quivering lips; and at the contemptuous movement of her mother-in-law, and the smile upon Ghano's face, she added, desperately: "I will wear my knees out, if necessary. I will not 71 4* THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT leave the springs at all, till the gods have heard my prayer.'* 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 sjx)ke again. "Of course, it is ver>' hard. So is ever>-thing 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." 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 im- pulses swept over her. She felt an intense longing to strike out — just once! 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. The mother-in-law's voice droned on monoto- nously : "I have been well advised in the matter. Yes, I even called in the counsel of your uncle, Ohano," 72 I' THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT turning toward Ohano, who was afTcctionatcly waiting upon her. "WTien your father returns, my children, there shall be a family council. Be assured. Moonlight, that, whatever comes, you will be prop- erly 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 dowr>' from the Saito and a pretty face — well, a pretty face often accomplishes astonishing things. See the case of our ovm son. It was apparent to every one he was bewitched, obsessed ! He would have his way ! Con- templated suppuku ! 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!'— \\'ill bum, sting, is death to those who touch her, and — " "Mother!" "Is it a new custom to interrupt the head of the house?" The young man's voice trembled with repressed feeling, but there was a certain expression of out- raged dignity in his face as he looked at his mother fairly. "In the absence of the honorable father, the son is the legitimate head of the household," he said. It was the first time he had spoken thus to her. He had restrained himself during this last 73 mwv^,* :it'^^-_ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT year, for fear of bringing down his mother's wrath upon the defenseless head of Moonhght. The hand that pounded the ash from her pijx? trembled now, and her lips had become a thin, com- pressed line. vShe 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 : "So be it. august authority! We will await the return of thy father. He will then decide the fate of this—" "No, mother," he broke in, "I make humble apology. Speak your will, but pity us, your chil- dren. We desire to be filial, obedient, but it is cruel, hard!" "Hard!" cried his mother, savagely. "Is it harder than for a mother to sec her only son enmeshed in the web of a vile Spider?" Moonlight had sprung up shaiply 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 un- consciously 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. "Moonlight!" She felt herself caught by the 74 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLKiH T shoulders in a grip that almost pained. She caught but a gHmpsc 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. 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, ver>' 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. '^^m^^.n^^.^ MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART ANSI . , nSO TEST THART No 2 1.0 I.I 1.25 1.4 l-iM m '-la IIIIIZ2 '- ,« II— t |4o III 2.0 18 1.6 jd APPLIED l^/MGE 'bl'i Last MQ,n 'jt' out his wishes. With solemn dignity he repeated the instructions : "Take care of your honorable health and of that of my descendant. Choose \\nsely 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." 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 v/ith the proud and pious belief and hop-e 87 I f^ I -Si THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT that he will not return, but will gloriously sacrifice life for the cause.) Finally she said, as she watched his face stealthily: "It will be unnecessary for the humble one to choose another companion. Glorious will be the j)rivilege of awaiting the time when she will join your honor on the journey." He gave her a deep look, which seemed to pierce and search to the very depths of her heart. "Ohano," he said, "thou knowest I did not marry thee save lor the time of this life." She sat up stiffly, mechanically, moistening her dry lips. All the petty vanity with which she had upheld herself since the da> when she had married Saito Gonji now seemed to drop from her in shreds. Her many days of supreme devotion, and even ado- lation, 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— 5/1^ was to be the wife of Saito Gonji for all time! She who had stolen him from Ohano npon her very wedding- night! 88 1 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT Her face became convulsed. The eyes seemed to have disappeared from her face. Presently, breath- ing heavily, her hands clutching her breast to re- press the emotion which would show despite her best efforts: "I pray you permit your humble wife to attend your lordship upon the journey," she said. "WTio else is competent to travel at you: side, my lord?" He did not answer her. He was looking out of an open shoji, and his face in the moonlight seemed as if carved in marble, so set, so rigid, immovable as that of one dead. Ghano 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, 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. "Lord, let us call a family council "she cried, shrilly. "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!" Slowly he turned; and the deep, penetrating look scorched Ohano again. 8g THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT ',i|, '^t^iZ "And I," he said, "have plighted my troth with another." "Lord, it was dissolved," she cried, breathlessly, "by the honorable laws of our land. The Spider is now an outcast. Ah ! " — her voice rose shrilly on the verge of hysteria — "it is said — it is known — proved by those who know — that now — now she is an in- mate of the Yoshiwpra. She — " 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. "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 for- sake 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!" 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. She an in- mate of the cursed Yoshiwara! The thought was grotesque, so horrible that a short laugh came to his lips. He strode by the agonized woman on the floor yo THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT without a further word, and sharply snapped the folding doors between them. This was their farewell. As he passed douTi the street, on his way to join his regiment, he w?s halted by the throngs pressing on all sides. The whole country seemed to be abroad in the streets. The people marched about carr>-ing banners, and even the little childreu 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, imconscious where he was, in what direction his feet carried him, following the throngs as they pushed along through the streets. Suddenly he came to where the lights were brighter; and the sounds of revelry seemed to shriek at the very gates. Gonji paused, concen- trating his attention for the first time upon the place. 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 wasanaccursedlieOhanohaduttered.andyet — He stopped suddenly and threw a furtive, ag- onized glance toward the infernal "city." Then his head drooped down upon his breast and he stag- gered toward the barracks like one who has been wounded mortally '.'I i i ^W""8E ^ is. CHAPTER XV |ET us go outside. See, many of the citizens stand on the roofs of the cars. We can see nothing from here." Thus coaxed Ohano. With Gonji's parents she was travehng, their train running parallel with another crowded with the de- parting troops. The trains moved slowly, for all the country had come to see the departing ones and to acclaim them with loud banzais. 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 his- tory — 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. Ohano's round cheeks were pink u-ith 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- 92 -B 1 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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. 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. "There he is! There he is!" cried Ohano, ex- citedly; 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: "Gonji! Gonji! My Lord Gonji ! " "My son!" moaned the aged woman, unable longer to restrain her feelings. Stoically, and with no sign of the ache \\'ith- in 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 carr>-ing away the only child the gods had given her, the tension broke. She clung moaning to her husband and her daughter-in-law. 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 93 t i vlgp%4^!%il«* i ! i it «5S r . THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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 sufficientl> do her duty to both him and the ancestors. But now — now ! He was going from her forever! She had given hirn 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. She felt very old, very feeble, and utterly for- saken 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 passion- ately. She burst into a loud cry, stretching out her arms frantically : "Oh, my son! Oh, my son!" 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 in- tense anguish. He smiled, bowed, and made a slight motion of salute with his hand. His mother was silenced, and remained staring at him like ont turned to stone. Ohano's face fell, and she stood like a pout'ng child unjustly punished. He had not even risen In his seat nor so much as opened the window. Both trains had now come to a standstill at the little suburban station. Crowds of people swaimcd 94 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT over the platform, some even climbing the steps of the troop-train and penetrating into the cars them- selves. 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 in- different to his surroundings did he seem. 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. They watched him curiously, following his gaze. His lips moved; he seemed about to leap from the window, but was held back by the restrainmg hand of his brother-officer, and the train began to move rapidly. 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. Upon a little hillock a short space removed from the station, one lone figure stood out, silhouetted against the clear blue sky. Her kimono was of a 95 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 11 vermilion color, embroidered with dragons of gold. Gold, too, was her obi, and in the bright sunlight her scarlet fan and the poppies in her hair flashed like sparks of fire. 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 ming- ling 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! Some one shouted her name aloud: "The glorious Spider of the House of Slender Pines!" "Nay," cried another, "it is the vision of the Sun Lady herself!" The soldiers, too, saw her, and began to cheer, their wild banzais ringing out triumphantly and reaching the geisha on the hill. ,1 CHAPTER XVI N 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 cUmbcd the mountain - side to where the House of Slender Pines rested as on a cliiT, a curious figure. She was garbed in the conventional dress of the geisha, and the burning sun, beating down upon the Httle figure, showed the gold of her wide obi and the ghttering vermilion of her kimono. 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. It seemed almost, to the geishas sitting in the cool shade of the pavilion, that she dragged herself along on her hands and knees. One ceased strumming upon the samisen, and a dancer, idly illustrating a few new gestures to the admiring apprentices, stopped in the middle of a movement. Omi suddenly screeched and caught at the sleeve iiiO one liiovcu or spOKc. They stood 97 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT I' o Mrjtc.ud.i rhrwod on his nails and thoupht and 1 08 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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 ten- dered 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 con- temptuously cast out from its doors the miserable geisha, who could now possibly be interested in her lot? Nevertheless, the master of the geisha- 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 an- cestors. His heart began to thump within him with a strange excitement. Suddenly lie set out upon a joamey. CHAPTER XIX HE 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 moun- tains 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 Ixtrd Saito Gonji. 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 stem voice of Hachiman, the god of war, and had taken up arms dutifully in his Emperor's defense. 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, mirth- less laughter of Ghano ring out. Mute, their vrhitc faces marked with the shadow of a fear that fairly no I ;» THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT ate at their hearts' core, the two Saito women plodded along daily together. For a time, after the going of Gonji, the older woman had waited uix)n 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. Not in the sneering tone she had turned upon the hapless Moonlight, but with the deepest earnest- ness, 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 Oha- no joined that same melancholy group where once the unhappy Moonlight had been a familiar fig- ure. 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. Every morning the selfsame question was asked zxz I.ll, ^:ilS4« .11 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "You were at Kiyomidzu yesterday, my daugh- ter?" "H6, honorable mother." "And—?" "The gods are obdurate, alas!" 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: "From the decree of heaven there is no escape!" ■L \? ^^^H| ^ -ing of the Okusama stiircd her, though she could plainly hear the coaxing voices of the maidens as they souglit to restrain her from flinging herself down the mountain-side. Later in the day, however, when the Okusama, whose wailing, from sheer exhaustion, had turned to long gasping sobs, scratched and pulled at the shoji 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 Okusama. "Dearest Moonlight! The honorable little one has gone upon a journey. He was too beautiful, too exalted for a geisha-house; the gods coveted him. What shall I do? I pray you speak to me. What shall the Okusama do?" With the aid of Omi, the geisha slowly arose, and, walking blindly toward the screens, opened them at last. At her sudden appearance the maidens supporting and restraining the Okusama 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. "Silence is good," she gently admonished. "It is necessary to think. Help me all, I pray you!" They followed her into the chamber and seated themselves in a solemn little circle about her. Pres- ently ; ISO Hh! THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "Last night the h .norable Lord Taro slept safe upon your bosom, Okusama?" The poor wife of the geisha-keeper clasped her thin hands passionately upon her breast; but her expression was less wild, her words intelligible. "Here, my Moonlight ! In my arms, the soft head nestling beneath my chin — so warm— so — so — so-o — " 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. "It was after the going of the master?" she queried, speaking very slowly and gently, as if thus the better to secure intelligent answers. "After the going," repeated the woman. "For good-fortune I held him in the andon-light, that his honorable face might be the last my lord should see as he departed." "He has gone to the — city?" "To the city. He contemplated arousing the in- terest of a departing regiment in your honorable presence here, but, alas!" 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? Moonlight's chin had fallen into her hands again. Shp QPPTTlffl fn tVlinlr C^f:^r\Ur Kiif fl^o cf«r.L-o« K 121 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT '■i> . look was gone. Two red spots crept into her checks, and her dark eyes gleamed dangerously. 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 geisha- 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. Suddenly there came clearly to the geisha what had possessed for days the mind of the master. Like an illuminating flash from the gods it came :pon her what i^.Iatsuda had done with her child. There arose now before her agonized vision the cruel, scornful face of the fearful mother-in-law, and beside it the round, envious, malicious coun- tenance of Ghano. Like a meek, mute fool, she had pennitted them to drive her from her rightful — yes, her legal — home, because she had not ihen 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. w;he sprang to her fe-et, electrified with her new 122 ! I THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT purpose. The geishas scattered, alarmed and fright- ened, on either side of her. "Okusama!" She caught at the woman's wan- dering attention as the latter raised herself from her prostrate position on the floor. "My Moonlight?" "You have jewels — cash, perhaps! Speak!" The troubled brows of the Okusama drew to- gether, 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. "Answer me — speak, Okusama!" As still the poor creature regarded her vaguely, the geisha whispered with entreating tenderness: "Tell me— my— mother!" Over the wild features of the Okusama a gentle, wistful smile crept. "What shall I say?" she plaintively whis- pered. "Name your possessions. He has given you jewels, money even. Yes, it is so — is it not?" The woman nodded. Her lips began u. quiver like a child ab-^ut to cr>'. The geishas and the ap- prentices had crowded in a circle about them, and now they seemed to hang in suspense upon the words of the Okusama. "It is — so!" she faintly said. 123 P'A THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "Will you not give them to me?" pleaded the Spider. Then, as the woman drew back timorously, she cried: "Quick, now, while you remember where they are!" Her eyes were on the Okusama's, hypnotically compelling her. Slowly the woman tottered to her feet. She staggered across the room, supported on either side by the geishas. 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 glitter- ing eyes of excite nent. Then she spoke to the geishas. "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 124 ml THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT before them. Come, little Omi, we set out now upon a long and perilous journey!" "The gods go with you!" quavered the geishas, wiping their tears upon their sleeves. "Ah, may oil the gods lead and protect you!" sobbed the Okusama. CHAPTER XXII ^f ii HEY were bathing the young U^rd Saito Taro: the Lady Saito Ichigo and a rosy-ehcekcd country girl who had recently entered the family's service. Indeed, the coming of the child had ma- terially altered the regimen of the household. The servants that had been cast aside, as a pious sirn 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. 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. The little Taro lay upon his grandmother's lap, and she rubbed his shining little body with warm towels, tendered by the admiring maids. 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 126 Pill 1 1 mi: HONOR ABLK MISS MOONLIGHT in expression as she raised them for a nionient to j^ive an order to the nursemaid. She ehuekU-d eontentedly when the baby grasped at her thumb and put it into his diminutive mouth, sucking ujKjn it with fervor and reHsh. Every sHght movement of its face or body de- hghted and moved her to an emotion new and fas- cinating. Indeed, she was experiencing in the little Taro all the maternal emotions she had sternly denied herself with her own son. 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! 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 like- ness, and proclaimed the fact that her son had indeed been reborn to her in the little Taro. The youngest of the nursemaids was a bright- eyed, somewhat forward girl who had obtained em- ployment 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 bcu sent flying from a re- 127 THK HONORABLE MISS MOONLICHT spec-table household. Ochika even penetrated from her domain of the kitchen, to the ])resenee of the Lady Saito Iclii^'o, in order to \vhis])cr into the lady's somewhat absent ear a tale of unseemly dances and son^s indulged in by the nursemaid for the delectation of the other servants. Omi (the nurse-girl's name) seemed, however, so innocent and childish in ai)i)earance 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 no- torious 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 Ix)rd Taro appeared to love her, and was never so happy as w-hen upon his nurse's back. 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 appro- bation. So noisy, so continued, so absolutely joyous was his crowing laughter that the face of his grand- mr'^^her melted into a smile. 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 shoji, her expression sullen and lowering, her attitude liimilar to that of a spoiled and angry' child. 128 M' THE IIONORAIMJ- MISS MOONLIGHT "Ghayo gozarimazu!" murmured the motl. .-in- law, {>olitcly; and ^hc was angrily aware of t!ic con- ciliating tone in her voice, she who was accustomed to command. "Ohayo!" The girl flung back the morning greeting, almost as if it were a challenge. "Well," .said her mother, .shan)ly. "Be good enough to take the place of Omi. It will do your heart good to rub the honorable body of your"— she pau.sed and met the .scowling glance of Ohano — "your lord's child," .she finished. Omi was tendering the towels; but Ohano ignored the i)ert little maid. She cros.sed the room delib- erately and slowly sank upon her knees oi)posite Lady Saito and the baby. Omi was watching the scene with absorbed interest, and she jumi)ed at the sharp voice of Lady Saito. "To your other duties, maiden!" admoni.shed her mistress, conscious of the fact that the girl was watching Ohano intently. Alone with the child and Ohano, she bogan in a complaining voice: "Now it is most uncivilized to permit one's emo- tions to show upon the honorable face, which should be a mask as regards all inner feelings. I advise stem control of all angr>' 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 vour lord " 139 i I ! 1 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT Said Ohanr in a breathless whisper, while her bosom heaved up and down tempestuously: "He is the child of the— Spider! Take care lest he sting thy breast too, mother-in-law!" The older woman drew the warm towels about the baby, almost as if for protection. " He is my son's child," she said, hoarsely. "Envy and ^.lalice are traits we women are warned repeat- edly against in the 'Greater Learning for Women."' "He is the Spider's child!" almost chanted Ghano, and she put her lame hand to her throat as though it pained her. "His eyes are identical with hers!" "Nay," said her mother-in-law, gently; "then you have not looked into the eyes of the little one. I pray you do so, Ghano. It will soften your heart, for, see, they are duplicates of the eyes of your lord ! " She turned the child's head about so that its smiling, friendly glance met Ghano's. 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. The breath came from Ghano in gasps. All of lt'!;l THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT a sudden she threw up her ami 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 cnam- ber save that of the moaning Ghano. The child had fallen asleep, and Lady Saito kept her eyes fixed upon his round, charming little face. She would let Ghano's passion spend itself. These daily outbursts since the coming of the child were becoming intolerable, she thought. She had been too lenient with Ghano. It would be necessary soon to teach the girl her exact position in the household. As she looked at the beautiful, sleeping child the sudden thought of parting with it seized hor- ribly upon her. Her face twitched like some hideous piece of parchment suddenly animated with life. Nothing, she told herself fiercely — neither the clam- oring voice of the wild mother, nor the sulky jealousy of Ghano — 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 Ghano 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 Ghano! She looked at the girl with a new expression. Between her and the little one resting upon Ler bosom there could be but one choice. 131 f' i THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "My girl," she said to Ohano, finally, "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!" Ohano sat up sullenly, drying her eyes with the ends of her sleeve. The Lady Saito was choosing her words carefully, and her stem glance never wavered as she bent it upon Ohano's quivering face. "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!" Ohano's hand clutched at her bosom. She ap- peared to be suffocating, and could hardly speak the words: "You do not mean — you dare not mean — that you would divorce me!" "The law is clear in your case, as in that of your predecessor," said her mother, coldly. "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 samourai ! You have compared me with a geisha — a Spider! It is intolerable — not to be borne!" "Nay," vigorously defended her mother-in-law. "You speak not now of a geisha, Ohano, but — of — the mother of the last descendant of the illustri- ous ancestors." 13a I*' ill THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT A silence fell between them, broken only by the breathing of Ohano — short, gasping, indrawn sobs which she seemed no longer able to control. Presently, when she was quieter, her mother-in- law put a question roughly to the girl. "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 — ?" Ghano'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 vic- toriously beaten out by her mother-in-law: ''I serve the ancestors of the Saito — and my Lord Saito Gonji!" 10 i:!!f'l I CHAPTER XXIII HANO 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 "moods, " as Lady Saito termed them, had become a source of irritation. However, the proposition to "meditate and pray" was good. Ohano, perchance, would profit by her thoughts and emerge a reasonable being. 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. Little Omi hurried out v;ith the child in her arms. She paused upon th" threshold for a moment and threw a curious glance back at her mistress. Lady Saito's face was wreathed in smiles, even while L,i THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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. 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. 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 sicken- ing fear of a calamity he had come to report. She felt as if paralyzed, unable either to stir or to utter a word. 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: "He has come to report the death of my dear son or of my husband!" Vainly she put back her hand for the support of Ohano, but the girl was still secluded in her chamber. J35 !*;a' I I I; li THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "Speak!" she gasped, at last. "I command you not to hesitate!" 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. "You bring exalted and joyous news from Ten- shi-sama!" she cried, brokenly. "I pray you speak the words!" "Nay, mistress!" 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. "It is of the youngest Lord Saito I speak!" "My son! Gonji!" "Thy honorable grandson, mistress," he corrected. She stared at him, aghast. "Baby-san!" She was upon her feet now, with the strength and savagery of a mother at bay. "He is here in the shiro!" The gateman looked at her mutely. "He has been stolen — by the maiden Omi. It is said she was in the service of the first Lady Saito Gonji." 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 136 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT swollen - eyed wife of the cook crept into the room. ' ' Thou knowest where — ' ' ohe could not continue. Her words choked her. "Nay, I do not know," burst out Ochika. "She was an imp of the lowest Hades. Maledictions upon her! May Futen tear her flesh!" "Hush!" cried Lady Saito, with a sudden violence; and almost aloud she shouted the words: "It is the rod of the gods! From the decree of Heaven there is no escape!" 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. ' ' Why, Ohano ! " she cried. "It was tlwu who sent for— it is—" Ohano turned from her abruptly and moved briskly toward the gateman. "It was thy duty," she haughtily censured, "to pursue and seize the woman." "Her feet had wings, august yoimg mistress. With the honorable young lord upon her back she fairly flew by the gates, as if possessed of infernal power." "And thou art very old!" said the Lady Saito, gently. "Thy ancient limbs are unable to compete with the fleet wings of a mother's love!" 137 CHAPTER XXIV ■ IT the evening meal, which was served upon an ojxjn balcony because of the intense heat, Ohano kept her eyes as- siduously r on her food. The mood of ' her mother-in-law itad 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, "This is excellent fish, Ohano," she said, pleasantly. "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!" Ohano said nothing. She gave one swift glance at the fish, then turned away, nauseated. Lady Saito grunted and fell to eatin» her meal ui'- THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT as if hungry. Presently, filled and refreshed, she began again: "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." Ohano sat up with a start, and as her mother- in-law continued, the expression of intense fear on her face deepened. "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." 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 : "Pardon my dullness. I do not understand your words." "It is better," counseled the other, sternly, "that you not alone understand my words, but that you study them well! Think awhile, Ohano!" For a time there was silence between them ; then I^dy Saito continued : 139 m i ;i, P=! THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "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!" "That — would be — impossible!" gasped Ohano. "Nay," protested her mother, coldly, "it is done every day in Japan. The honornhle Moonlight will not be the first divorced wife w .o 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." Ohano tried to smile, but it was a ghastly effort. "That is an ancient custom. It is no longer tolerated in Japan. It would be a matter of no- torious gossip. We could not, with honor, she and I, live under the same roof together." "That is true," admitted Lady Saito, calmly, and now she met Ohano's eyes firmly. "I refuse to be 'returned,'" cried Ohano, shrilly. "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 geisha!" "That. too. is true." nuiptK' a^c^pntpH her rnr>fV.oi-_ 140 ill THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT in-l "'. "We, the Saitos, desire to remain on terms of friendship with your most honorable family. Now, therefore, we look to you, Ghano, for a solution of the problem. You are right. These are not the times when honoral le men maintain concubines under the same roofs as their wives. We wish to impress the Western people with our morality! Pla!" she broke off, to laugh bitterly. "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 dovv-n by the Westerners, as I have said. They have taught us to fight! Our people desire to imitate their virtues!" She laughed in hoarse derision. Then she continued: "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?" It 141 tM THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT Saito Gonji may not give up his life for Tenshi- sama. Many soldiers return. In that event — " She stammered piteously. "I am young and very healthy. I will bear him children yet!" "We cannot count upon so unlikely a contingency, my girl. We Japanese women, when we sacrifice our men to the Emperor's service, pray 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." "Duty— and honor!" repeated Ohano, slowly. A long silence fell between thun, during which Ghano'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 stem mother-in-law now meditate, that she should look at the unhappy Ohano with such a peculiar, commanding expression? Finally the older woman said, with quiet force: "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 samourai, which, ai. you know, was as binding upon the women as the men: 'To die with honor, when one can no longer live with honor!"' vShe stood up, and leaned heavily upon her stafT. "Let me recommend," she added, softly, "that 142 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT you study and emulate — and emulate" — she rej)cated the last word with deadly emj)hasis — "the lives of your ancestors!" Ohano's mouth had dropjx'd wide ojK'n. 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. 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: "I challenge you, as the daughter of a samourai. to do your duty!" Ohano gasped out something, she knew not what. "Ho!" cried Lady Saito, fiercely, "it does not matter to the true daughter of a samourai whether the days of suppuku 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 ! " Said Ohano, with chattering teeth: "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 143 %■ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT When she was gone, the Lady Saito Ichigo sum- moned a maid. To her she said curtly: "You will bid the Samourai Asado" — it was the first time in years she had referred to this old retainer as "samourai" — "unlock the doors of the honorable go-down. The Lady Saito Gonji would examine the treasure-chests of her ancestors!" mM CHAPTER XXV N 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 cham- ber with its odor almost as of dead things, a sense of unconquerable repugnance and terror assailed her. From every side, gleaming, softly smiling almost, in the light of the setting sun, the ancient relics of bygone days were h ped. Almost it seemed as if these beautiful objects were living things, their bur- nished and lacquered bodies Oiire in the darkened chamber. 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. 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. MS 1 • .n 'I . ;ii! I4y i"ii; 1 i i 11^ '■■ ii ,j 1 nj J J Mi ii.i THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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 Ghano a new sensation — one of awe, of reverence and pride! She held it in the light that came through the still open door, and for long she looked at it with widened, fascinated eyes. 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. "Courage!" they cried to her. "The gods love thee now!" She pricked her wnst 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. Ghano fled from the go-down Uke one pos- sessed. 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. Alone again in her chamber, with her breath coming in agitated gasps, her wrist burning with an 146 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT unbearable pain, weak from the loss of blood, she swayed by the shoji, her dry lips reiterating the common prayer of the devout Buddhist: "Namu, amida, Butsu!" (Save us, eternal Buddha!) 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 in- exorably had placed the sword within her iiands, demanding of Ghano that she do her duty. 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 samourai. 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. I- i )i h ^ CHAPTER XXVI lEANWHILE, within the war-torn heart lof Manchuria, the last words of Ohano § ^NgsK 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. 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! He recalled, with anguish, the first d lys 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 incom- parably worse than those of the wounded soldiers. 148 I jii>^ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT To think of Moonlight as an inmate of the Yoshi- wara, as Ghano 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 Ijloodiest encounters could even temporarily efface. 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. A*^ first he had bitterly regretted the fact that the ^ods had not mercifully permitted him to give up his life; now he realized that per-^hance they had saved it for another puqxxse— the purjjose of finding his lost wife. He would devote the rest of his life, he promised himself, to this imdertaking; and, ah! wh.n once again they two should meet, nothing should part them. They would go away to a new land — a better hmd 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 ofT 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! Gonji dreamed unceasingly of this land of promise, \\ hither he intended to go when once he had found his beloved Moonlight. Incognito, finally, the Lord Gonji returned to 11 149 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT ;^ •fr I •' M :|if Japan. He did not, as became a dutiful and honor- able son, proceed straightway to his home, there to permit the members of his family to celebrate and rejoice over his return. At last Lord Gonji felt free of the thrall of the ancestors. He was a son of the New Japan, master of his OUT! 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. It led, instead, to that "hell city" 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. 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. 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. ISO THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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. The geisha 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. 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 Ghano, that undoubtedly it v;as into some such resort that the unhappy outcast had finally been driven. 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 enthu- siasm 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. 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. 151 I THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT I ^•i* ^7 They marched in single file, their long, silken robes, heavily embroidered, held up by their maids, and accompanied by their diminutive, toddling ap- prentices, often little girls as young as six and seven. Yet, small as they were, each was a miniature reproduction and understudy of her mistress, in her elaborate coiffure with its glittering ornaments (the geisha wears flowers), her obi 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 tx'ains and masters would exhibit them like animals in public cages. 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 scru- tiny. And, as he studied the faces of these "hell women," as his countr>'mcn 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: "No nation," the American had said, "can honor- ably 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 fath^''= ^52 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT A great and illuminating light broke uix)n 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 in- si)iration for the most knightly act that had ever been performed in the history of his nation. It should be his task to effect the abolishment of the Yoshiwora! 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. He would show the ancestors that there were deeds even more worthy and heroic than those of the sword. ■i:t WL m P CHAPTER XXVII F 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 .vcie 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. 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. 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 154 lit J . i ^m^ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT permitted to intrude uix)n her volurtary retirement. Whatever were the thoughts that tormented and haunted the mother-in-law of Ohano, she emerged, in the end, still resolute and stem, though her hair had turned as white as snow. From day to day now the aged lady crouched over the kotatsu, warming her withcrtd fid fingers, lighting and relighting her pipe, ai. always seaming to listen, to watch for some one she expected to return. Q)uriers and agents had oeen 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 geisha 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. 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 vsliding walls) in place; and still, with a stony, frozen look uix)n her face, the Lady Saito waited. Gradually the proud and strong spirit within her began to weaken under the strain. Supported by ]lf u r>: Ni=' THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT a maid on cither 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 whis- pered a confession to the chief priest, and entreated him to help her with spiritual advice and prayers. Though the lives of the priests arc 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 Ghano. As the family had not, up to the present, however, sought his advice in the matter, he had expressed no opinion. An acolyte had quite recently come to the chief priest with a strange story. It concerned a very beautiful geisha 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 geisha; 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 156 i)f THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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. She listened with mixed feelings; and when the Ixjy 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 stem and fur- rowed cheeks of the lady, nor could she speak for the sobs that tore her. CHAPTER XXVIII ■'■!f, fi HE trees had dropped their leaves, and, with naked arms extended, seemed to speak voicelessly of the winter ahnost 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. 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 geisha had lost her way. 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. 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 158 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT even the widc-spreadii; .anches of the pine- trees, her heart ached heavily 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 r,nd hoarse singing, and cheering of the soldiers and the citizens was heard. "Why perish in the cold hills?" asked the httle apprentice-geisha, "when the warm, happy city calls to us? Oh, let us go! Let us go!" Feeling the cold hands of her baby, the geisha shivered; yet as she looked ofif 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. "How much colder it is getting," reproached Omi, crossly; "and see, graciousness, your kimono is not even padded." "Undo my obi, Omi. Wrap it about yourself and his lordship. It is seven yards long, and will protect you both amply." "But you, sweet mistress? I will not take your obi. Your hands are cold. The august clogs are broken even!" She knelt to tie the thong firmer, and while still kneeling Omi continued her beseeching. 159 If ;!!i THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT "Now, if we start downward, wc 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 speid the night. With warm rice and sake and — " "Hush, Omi, it is impossible." Omi threw back her head and began to wail aloud, just as a child v;ould have done. The burden of her cry was tb-'^t she was cold, very cold, and she was very sure that they would all perish in the wet and horrible mountains. The geisha tried vainly to quiet her. At last she said: "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 — " her voilo broke, and she turned her face away. Omi caught at her hand and clung to her joyously. "Oh, you have promised!" 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 geisha made no re- sponse, Omi, already regretting her generous out- burst, 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 geisha- i6o a THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT house, the chatter and the movement, the dance and the song, the warm quilt under which was hidden the glowing kotatsu, close to which, Omi knew, the geishas would creep at night for comfort. As she felt the drizzling rain and wind and saw nothing but the dark trees about her, her litHc head drooped upon her breast, and she began to sob dreari'y again. Suddenly the Spider bent above the child and patted her softly upon the head. "Play a little tune upon your samisen, my Omi, and I will sing to you a little song I myself have composed to the honorable baby-san." 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: Neneko, neneko, ya! Sleep, my little one, sleep, As the bottomless pit of the ocean, So is my love so deep! Neneko, neneko, ya! Sleep, my '.iti.le one, sleep! As the unerplored vasts of Nirvana, So is my love so deep! As the softly croonine voice of tl^.e dancer stole out upon the air a little cortege which had found its way up the intricate mountain-path halted there in the ivoods. In silence the runners dropped rhe shafts of the vehicles. Supported by her maids, i6i !!f M U THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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. The little Onii 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. As she looked at the once dreaded lady, Moon- light 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. 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. "Thou art unprotected from the rain. I pray you take my place, honorable Lady Saito!" 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 163 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT hated each other so deeply, looked at one another with white faces. Said the Lady Saito Ich'go, with quivering lips: "I have made a long journey!" Said Moonlight, cahnly: "You come to seek your son's son?" "Nay," said the aged womar and ,he put out a trembling hand and caught beseechingly at the arm of the geisha. "I have come for thee, too, my daughter!" A silence, unbroken ..ave by the ^obs of the little Omi, fell now between them. Tiien said the geisha, ver>' gentl> . "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." 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 lelt 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. Suddenly .she felt the shaking fingers of the aged 163 p-M»- m^ THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT woman upon her shoulder. She said, with her face still hidden and her voice muffled by sobs: "I pray you ^o, hastily, lest my love prove greater than my strength." "The journey is long," said Lady Saito. "Let us set out at once, my daughter. I go not back without thee." Slowly Moonlight put the sheltering arms of Omi from her and turned and looked wistfully, almost hungrily, at her mother-in-law. "It is— unnecessary," she said, gently. "I prav you forgive the dissension I have already caused in your honorable family. Say to Ghano, 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." A curious look was on the face of the mother-in- law. For a long moment she stood staring up blankly at the geisha. Then she said, in a tone of deadly quiet : "My daughter Ghano has gone upon— a journey!" "A journey!" repeated the geisha, lowly. Then, as she saw that look upon the other's face: "Ah,* you mean not surely the Long Journey to the Meido? " she cried out, piteously. Lady Saito's head dropped upon her breast. Moonlight felt over- whelmed, dazed, awed. Ghano gone! Ghano, the strong, the triumphant one! "I entreat you to come with me now," said 164 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT Lady Saito, simply. "It was the wish of Ohano that you — that you should take her place." She paused, and added quietly: "It was she, my daugh- ter, who made a place for you in the house of the ancestors." 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: "See how the gods love you, sweet mistress. See how they have avenged you. See how they destroy your enemies and — " "Do not speak so," cried her mistress entreat- ingly. "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." 12 m CHAPTER XXIX T was the season of greatest cold. The hills of Kioto were enwrapped in a gar- ment 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. 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. As the young man entered, Kiyo dropped upon his knees, and bumped his bald head repeatedly upon the frozen ground, emitting strange little cries 1 66 i; THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT of excitement and joy over the return of the long- absent one. 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 in- quiries 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 be- coming almost peremptory in tone. "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?" "lya, iya! (No, noO" hastily protested Kiyo. "All is well. It is good health within the shiro, praise be to the gods!" 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 re- sponsible for his unhappincss— nay, who had delib- 167 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT erately cast forth a pure and beautiful soul Never- theless, he experienced a sense of uneasiness at the thought that all had not been well with them. "Come," he urged. "Do not hesitate to confide in your master, good Kiyo-sama. Tell me the news, be it good or bad." "All is well. All is well," almost sobbingly chanted the gateman. "I pray you enter the shiro. There you will see for yourself." Gonji turned a bit uneasily toward the house, then halted abruptly. "I read in your face," he said, "a tale of some calamity to my family. Already I know of my father's glorious sacrifice for Tenshi-sama" — bowing as he spoke the Mikado's name — "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?" 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. Again Kiyo hastened to reassure him, this time eagerly and proudly. "lya, master. Thy mother is in excellent health. Happy, moreover, as never before, with the honor- able Lord Taro, thy son, embraced within her arms!" 1 68 H' f,KJ^0>^i«m;-i -fP^Bit THE HONORABLE MISS MOONI.ICHT The young man was staring at him now strangely. He seemed unable to , })eak or move. A l(X)k as ot almost troubled awakening was in the face of Gonji. It was as if a thought, long thrust aside, had sud- denly 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 gate- man'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! "It is — possible!" he gasped. "I have a — " "Son! Gloriously a son, master!" cried Kiyo, grinning joyously. The young man continued to stare almost in- credulously at the gateman, but in his face was no reflection of the joy visible in that of the faithful retainer. He was overwhe'med with the sense of a new emotion whose very sweetness tore at his heart, and brought unbidden tears to his eyes. 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. How the gods had comforted the unloved wife, was his thought, and with it came a sense of over- 169 *^ S'' -^rf i ' T • ^:::;sS5^':^i: \. :" :ll^.-. 3 MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No 2 1.0 I.I 1.25 II! 2.8 !: m 1.4 2.5 2.2 [ 2.0 1.8 1.6 ^ APPLIED IM^GE Inc '653 cast Mam Street "ochester. Ne« 'o'k '4609 -SA '■ ''fii 48i - C300 - Phone "c,i 288 - 5989 - Fa, THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT i:p whelming grief and bitterness that they .d not shown a similar charity toward the beloved Moon- Hght. He pictured Uhano, 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, uncom- forted, and utterly forlorn. Within the shiro, the Lady Saito Ichigo sat drowsily swaying by the hibachi, ceaselessly smok- ing, 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. 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 obi at the back he was enabled to pull himself to his feet. Now his chubby, warm little face nestled up 170 THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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. Outside the screens Gonji had paused, unable either to enter or to retire. He had resolved, at what- ever 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 ver>' gods them- selves. 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! 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 shoji he could not have told. He debated the advisability of withdrawing without their knowl- edge 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 fi.xcd, he was swept with an anguished longing and desire at least to see, but once, th*^ face of the son the gods had gra- ciously given him. With infinite caution, lest the sound might be 171 It THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT heard by those within, he began to scratch with his nail upon the fusuma, till gradually he had made a small aperture, and to this he applied his eye. He remained motionless at the shoji. 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 wher'^ 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 excite- ment. Suddenly the man outside the screens became ani- mated 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. His mother screamed, hoarsely, wildly. But his glance went over her head and by the little wonder- ing child, who had crawled toward him. Gonji saw nothing in the world save the face of that one who had rushed to meet hi-n. It was much later that they told him of Ghano. 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 172 ;i.i .U THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT of the matter. There was no room for a shadow upon his happiness now. They were sitting in the sunHght, that came in a golden stream through the latticed shoji, 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. 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. Gonji arose and looked at it curiously, where it fluttered against the outside of the paper wall. "Why, it is a cicada — and at this time of year!" he said. Lady Saito laid her pipe upon the hibachi 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. "I dreamed of a cicada last night," said Lady Saito, uneasily. "It kept flying at my ears, whis- pering that it could not rest. It is a bad sign. Open the shoji, my son. We can catch it with the sleeve." He pushed the screen partly open, and the cicada crept along the lacquered latticed wall, beating its little wings and sliding up and down. Lady Saito slapped at it with the end of her 173 m THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT 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. They all hung over the curious little creature, and as they examined it an oppressive feeling of sadness crept upon them. "How strange is this little cicada," murmured Moonlight, troubled. "See, one of its little wings is much smaller than the other." "It is a bad sign," 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. "Do not kill it! Do not kill it!" she cried, in sudden excitement. "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." 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. Said the Lord Saito Gonji, in a very gentle voice : "What can it be my wnfe wishes? I would gladly resign my happiness if I could but make easier the lot of Ohano." "She was always anxious about her next birth," whispered his mother. "Perhaps she desires a Buddhist service especially for her spirit!" 174 It L 4.i THE HONORABLE MISS MOONLIGHT Moonlight had tenderly lifted the little body and put it into a small box. "Come," she said, simply. "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!" THE END