Yes, again, in the smallest voice this time.
He hesitated, and she asked, quickly, You wan me do so?
Thats just what I want, Yuki, dear, he whispered, drawing her hands to his lips.
All ride. She trembled—perhaps shivered is the better word—as she said this, but gave no other sign of emotion.
Before Jack could so much as touch his lips to her forehead, Ido entered smiling his professional blessing. It was evident that in the other room he had found no drawing to distract his attention, and a large new peephole in the immaculate shoji indicated where he had given all his eyes and ears to what was going on, and he could wait no longer to press his claim.
Jack, seeing an unpleasant duty before him, and desiring to have done with it at once, told Yuki that he would be back in a minute, and led the nakoda into the room out of which he had just come.
Ido immediately began to make terms. This part was loathsome to the young man.
Why, he said, hotly, if were to be married, she can have all she wants and needs.
That wouldnt do at all, the nakoda told him, warily. There would have to be a marriage settlement and a stated allowance agreed upon. He would have to pay more, also, as she was a maid and not a widow.
When the ugly terms of the agreement were completed, the nakoda bowed himself out, and Jack went back to Yuki. He found her changed; her simplicity had left her, and her coquetry had returned. She stood off from him, and he felt constrained and awkward. After a time she demanded of him, with a shrewd inflection in her voice: