"We've no right to question her like this," declared Jerry Hammond hotly. "It's not of any consequence who her people are. She's got us now. We'll take care of her from this time forth." At that Sunny again raised her head, and right through her tears she smiled up at Jerry. It made him think of an April shower, the soft rain falling through the sunlight.
CHAPTER III
Only one who has been in bondage all of his days can appreciate that thrill that comes with sudden freedom. The Americans had set Sunny free. She had been bound by law to the man Hirata through an iniquitous bond that covered all the days of her young life—a bond into which the average geisha is sold in her youth. Sunny's mother had signed the contract when starvation faced them, and reassured by the promises of Hirata.
What price and terms the avaricious Hirata extracted from the Americans is immaterial, but they took precautions that the proceeding should be in strict accord with the legal requirements of Japan. The American consul and Japanese lawyers governed the transaction. Hirata, gloated with the unexpected fortune that had come to him through the sale of the apprentice-geisha, overwhelmed the disgusted young men, whom he termed now his benefactors, with servile compliments, and hastened to comply with all their demands, which included the delivery to Sunny of the effects of her mother. Goto bore the box containing her mother's precious robes and personal belongings into the great living room.
Life had danced by so swiftly and strangely for Sunny in these latter days, that she had been diverted from her sorrow. Now, as she slowly opened the bamboo chest, with its intangible odour of dear things, she experienced a strangling sense of utter loss and pain. Never again would she hear that gentle voice, admonishing and teaching her; never again would she rest her tired head on her mother's knee and find rest and comfort from the sore trials of the day; for the training of the apprentice-geisha is harsh and spartan like. As Sunny lifted out her mother's sparkling robe, almost she seemed to see the delicate head above it. A sob broke from the heart of the girl, and throwing herself on the floor by the chest, she wept with her face in the silken folds. A moth fluttered out of one of the sleeves, and hung tremulously above the girl's head. Sunny, looking up, addressed it reverently:
"I will not hurt you, little moth. It may be you are the spirit of my honourable mother. Pray you go upon your way," and she softly blew up at the moth.
It was that element of helplessness, a feminine quality of appeal about Sunny, that touched something in the hearts of her American friends that was chivalrous and quixotic. Always, when Sunny was in trouble, they took the jocular way of expressing their feelings for their charge. To tease, joke, chaff and play with Sunny, that was their way. So, on this day, when they returned to the house, to find the girl with her tear-wet face pressed against her mother's things, they sought an instant means, and as Jerry insisted, a practical one, of banishing her sadness. After the box had been taken from the room, Goto and Jinx told some funny stories, which brought a faint smile to Sunny's face. Monty proffered a handful of sweets picked up in some adjacent shop, while Bobs sought scientifically to arouse her to a semblance of her buoyant spirits by discussing all the small live things that were an unfailing source of interest always to the girl, and pretended an enthusiasm over white rabbits which he declared were in the garden. Jerry broached his marvellous plan, pronounced by Professor Barrowes to be preposterous, unheard of and impossible. In Jerry's own words, the scheme was as follows:
"I propose that we organise and found a company or Syndicate, all present to have the privilege of owning stock in said company; its purpose being to take care of Sunny for the rest of her days. Sooner or later we fellows must return to the U. S. We are going to provide for Sunny's future after we are gone."