On the point of reminding him of the fine things they had so often planned to do, a quite wonderful half inspired impulse came to her, and she said: “I’ve heard you speak many times of wanting to settle down somewhere in a cheerful little flat without bothering much if nothing ever happened. It used to seem to me as though I couldn’t endure a life like that; but now it’s really all the same to me. If you’d rather live that kind of a life, then it will suit me too, I guess. Anything you can fix your mind on strong enough, so you....”
In spite of everything, her words sounded a little hollow to her. Yet back of them was such burning sincerity, too; and she felt that she couldn’t go on living at all, after this, if he patted her head and laughed, or if he said: “Don’t worry, little girl!”
He did not laugh, but clung to her—even frantically. He gazed at his wife with wild, brimming eyes, and caressed her hair with gentle trembling fingers. He pressed her passionately against his heart, and with a shaking voice he murmured: “I swear—I swear to you....” There seemed a faint cloud of exaltation about them.
But at evening she saw him again relaxed and ravenous, twirling the little fatal drop above the flame of the spirit lamp. And she saw that it was all irrevocable. And she saw how hopeless it all was....
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
RENDEZVOUS
I
The visit of the old chief, though informally handled, was a really quite momentous affair.
Cha-cha-kamui (English version: Very-Old-and-Very-Wonderful) had dressed up in his robe of state, a most gaudy creation of red and white cloth. He wore a great crown made of cocoanut palm shavings and embellished with beautiful gilt paper and wild cotton. The crown was necessarily a great one, because Cha-cha-kamui possessed a head of enormous dimensions—truly quite the head of some mythical though very mild and somewhat fussy old giant. His hair was getting pretty thin on top—the Ainu were sadly on the toboggan. The crown, therefore, performed a two-fold service.