The carriage was full of flowers that those friendly inclined had sent her, and the white hands of the fox-woman now aimlessly held a sheaf of poems and of love-letters penned her by ardent and impetuous youths, who found their warm hearts and imaginations suddenly fired by her appealing history and beauty.
She spoke not at all, neither to answer the occasional word of re-assurance from the Be-koku-jin, nor the sometimes sobbing utterances of Obun, who seemed to find in her triumphal progress through the city an occasion for tears.
It grew darker, the air chillier. It was the Season of Cold Dew, when even the last gasping, fading beauty of the autumn ceased to appeal.
As the cortège reached the city’s limits the crowds following gradually drew back, and as it passed out into the great road whereon they were to travel on the long journey, the last of the followers departed.
Besides the Be-koku-jin and the maid Obun there were three students, proudly acting as body-guard. Several dozen bearers and servants also accompanied the party. No halt was made until the last rays of the setting sun had disappeared entirely from the sky. Then the runners rested, and the Be-koku-jin alighting walked with his head bent, his hands behind him, as if plunged in some troubled thought. The students drew together in a whispering group and watched the famous surgeon, or threw furtive glances in the direction of the fox-woman, whom none of them, as yet, had found the courage to look upon unmoved.
She was sitting upright in her norimon. The veil had blown back partly from her head, and her hair shone like the moon above her. Obun entreated her to rest, and when she received no response, herself drew the hangings about them, and prepared the carriage for the night. As if she had been a child, she laid the fox-woman down among the quilts, and then herself crept under the covers, falling into a heavy sleep which lasted without a break the long night through as jerking, swinging, tossing on high upon the shoulders of the kurumaya they travelled on and on toward Tokio.
XXIX
In the Shiro Matsuhaira the Tojin sat alone. They had taken away the untasted meal upon the trays; his pipe lay unlit upon the hibachi; upon a table hard by his American mail and papers lay untouched, unopened. He sat staring at something he held in his hands. It was no larger than his hand, worn, ragged, and soiled—a little sandal of straw! This was all he had left of her. She had passed out of his life as completely as the mist vanishes into the clouds.
What were her thoughts now, he wondered dully—now that she knew! He had seen her but once, after the operation. She had come like a shadowy little spirit into his chamber; and she had said nothing at all; had merely looked at him out of her wide, hungry eyes. As silently as she had come, so she had gone! Passively, obediently she had gone with the Be-koku-jin. This was what he had wished, had required of her. Then why this aching, harrowing sense of anguish?