“Tojin-san, thou too! thou too!”
It was as if she knew no other words of her father’s language. He pondered their meaning. What was it she asked of him? Of what accused and reproached him? Did she hold him responsible for the manner of her capture—its cruelty? He told her in slow, forceful words that he had known nothing of this, and waited in anxiety for some word or sound from her to indicate that at least she understood. She only laughed, that soft, mocking, tremulous little laugh with its inner sound of tears.
The burning, humid days of June slipped by on drowsy wing. School was closed for the season, and the foreign sensei was at liberty to travel if he wished upon his vacation. The samourai body-guard were anxious to attend him upon any expedition that would take them away from the Shiro. Genji Negato was available, outside the place. Every cringing, fearful, cowardly servant, who still drew wages from the Daimio’s high officer, was anxious again to serve him. They made up deputations and committees, which fearfully approached the mansion, and threw their messages in little balls that pelted against the paper summer walls of the shoji and pierced their way into the Tojin-san’s apartment. And still not once did he venture forth.
Every sliding door and screen he had himself put in place. He did not venture outside the house, even to step into the grounds. And a strange restless rumor began to float about the little town below, which told of the spell which chained the white man.
Meanwhile within the mansion itself, the Tojin-san was winning a strange victory. Timidly, like a fascinated wild bird, now approaching, now retreating, nearer and yet nearer, had come the fox-woman. There came a day when, though he did not turn to look at her, fearing instantly to lose her, she stood at last revealed. Only a few paces from him, there of her own free will, timorous, trembling, but unafraid.
Her name was Tama (Jewel). She told it to him voluntarily, her hand upon her breast. He had not even asked her, nor did he by the slightest motion reveal the eager emotion her words aroused when he found they were spoken in his own tongue. Haltingly, uncertainly, like a child for the first time feeling for its words, she essayed to speak.
“I am Tama,” softly she said, and then, as if enchanted by her ability to speak actual words to one who might hear and understand, she lapsed into excited, trembling speech, wholly unintelligible to the Tojin-san, for it was a medley of both her father and her mother tongue, neither of which she could properly speak.
Suddenly she stopped abruptly, as if affrighted by her own bravado, and her fears again besetting her panically she retreated behind the screens. For the rest of that day, at least, he saw nothing further of her. But he was well pleased with matters as they were. It was worth waiting for this, he told himself. As he paced his chamber, he made no effort to curb the exhilarating excitement that pervaded his whole being.
