Then, all at once, from below came the irate voice of Mr. Initogo calling Kiku the “Heedless One.” If he could have used a stronger expression he would have used it, for the dinner ought to be cooking at this moment, and the fish and seaweed had not arrived. The Heedless One had been, as a matter of fact, playing at Pigs-in-Clover all the morning instead of marketing.
The Complete Geographer rose to her feet in a hurry, for filial obedience resided in her breast, not so much as a virtue, but rather as a sort of mainspring put in by nature—or rather, I should say, heredity.
They went out together, and Kiku bought the fish and the seaweed and a few other important items, and then they parted, Kiku returned home laden with marketings, and Campanula to the House of the Clouds.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE STRUGGLE
Leslie walked back to the hotel that day with Jane. When he left her he was vastly troubled in his mind. Troubled about Jane, troubled about Campanula, troubled about himself, and troubled about a vast, vague, tragic something: a shadow stealing up from his past and already tingeing his future with the twilight that comes before eclipse.
What demon had called Jane up from the past?
Unconsciously during the last five years he had been altering for the better. The friendliness and kindness of Japan, the frank friendliness of M’Gourley, that most unconscionable Scot, the beauty of the flowers and seasons, and Campanula—above all, Campanula—these things had worked upon him with slow but sure effect.