CHAPTER VI
THE BAYING OF THE WOLF-HOUND
Barbara stood in her room at the Embassy. It was spacious and airy, the high walls paneled in ivory-white, with draperies of Delft blue. The bed and dressing-table were early Adams. A generous bay-window set with flower-boxes filled a large part of one side, and its deep seat was upholstered in blue crepe, the tint of the draperies, printed with large white chrysanthemums. The floor was laid with thin matting of rice-straw in which was braided at intervals a conventional pattern in old-rose. Opposite the bay-window stood a Sendai chest on which was a small Japanese Buddha of gold-lacquer, Amida, the Dweller-in-Light, seated in holy meditation on his lotos-blossom. At first sight this had recalled to Barbara a counterpart image which she had unearthed in a dark corner of the garret in her pinafore days, and which for a week had been her dearest possession.
To this room Mrs. Dandridge herself had taken her, presenting to her Haru, whom the bishop's note had brought—a vivid, eager figure from a Japanese fan, who had sunk suddenly prone, every line of her slender form bowed, hands palm-down on the floor and forehead on them, in a ceremonious welcome to the foreign Ojo-San. Her mauve kimono was woven with camelias in silver, set off by an obi, showing a flight of storks on a blue background and clasped in front with a silver firefly. The heavy jet hair was rolled into wings on either side, and a high puff surmounted her forehead. Thin twin spirals, stiff with pomade, joined at the back like the pinions of a butterfly, and against the blue-black loops lay a bright knot of ribbon. She was now moving about the room with silent padding of light feet in snowy, digitated tabi, admiring the gowns which the maid had taken from Barbara's trunks. Occasionally she passed a slim hand up and down a soft wrap with a graceful, purring regard, or held a fleecy boa under her small oval chin and stole a glance in the cheval glass with a little ecstatic quiver of shoulder. Once she paused to look at the lacquer image on the Sendai chest. "Buddha," she said. "Japan man think very good for die-time."
"Haru," said Barbara as the maid's busy Japanese fingers went searching for elusive hooks and eyes, "is it true that every Japanese name has a meaning?"
"So, Ojo-San! That mos' indeed true. All Japan name mean something. 'Haru' mean spring, for because my born that time. Very funny—né?"
"It is very pretty," said Barbara.
"How tha's nize!" was the delighted exclamation. "Mama-San give name. My like name yella-ways for because mama-San no more in this world. My house little lonesome now."
"Where is your house, Haru? Near by?"