To the new-comer, or the casual observer, she appeared the very incarnation of trustful candor, speaking of her domestic affairs and those of her neighbors with a simplicity and directness that startled while they convinced. Mrs. Stunt, however, had her secrets. One of these, unshared even by the conjugal ear of timid Mr. Stunt, was her connection,—virtually that of foreign editor,—with a Tokio newspaper, called, of course in Japanese terms, "The Hawk's Eye." In addition to voluminous printed sheets of hurrying ideographs this journal dispensed each day a page of excellent English, and for weekly supplement issued a pamphlet entirely in the borrowed tongue. Mrs. Stunt was never seen to enter the shabby gates of the "Hawk's Eye" building. She turned her face away even in passing the place. She often denounced newspaper women, and, more than once in the company of a friend who tingled or wept under the lash of a personal item, joined in indignation against the cowardly villain, and wondered aloud, "Who on earth that man could be!"
The very brief notice of Lord Haganè's coming marriage, tucked away in important Japanese papers like a small spark in a chimney, might have been altogether overlooked, for news of war came in daily, and political excerpts from European papers took much space. But "The Hawk's Eye" found that smouldering spark, the mysterious breath of the foreign editor blew it into new heat, piling tinder of comment high about it, fanned it with the wind of gentle persistency, and lo, the social world of Tokio leaped into flames!
Long since, the demure little lady,—having in mind spring clothes for four lanky daughters,—had extracted from her new intimate, saleable particulars concerning Pierre's betrothal, Onda's persecution, and now Yuki's forced acceptance of Prince Haganè. "Nonsense, my dear," had Mrs. Stunt retorted to this concluding bit of romanticism. "Japanese girls don't give a fig who they marry! For a catch like old Haganè your Yuki would have thrown over a dozen spry young Frenchmen, blue eyes and all."
From the first instant of meeting Mrs. Stunt and Gwendolen had been inimical. To herself Gwendolen had called the little lady a "bargain-counter snob." In return Mrs. Stunt, keenly aware of the impression she had produced and resentful of it as people usually are of truth, began assorting items for the coming Saturday "Hawk's Eye." Gwendolen's affair with Dodge, their quarrel, his immediate transfer of outward devotion to the shrine of Carmen Gil y Niestra, and Gwendolen's irritability ever since the disagreement, were as bill-boards to the mental gaze of Mrs. Stunt. Kindly injudicious Mrs. Todd did not betray her daughter. There was no need for it. When she wept above a "Hawk's Eye" paragraph that called her idol a "raw Western heiress, who naturally cultivated her acquaintance with ploughs and harrows," it was the part of Mrs. Stunt to comfort her. That small lady, sitting near some more generous and less judicious female friend, her eyes drooping tenderly over a "pinafore for Nan," or a knitted sock for "Baby Tom," absorbed scandal as a sponge absorbs warm water.
Yet let us be just. Too much may have been ascribed to Mrs. Stunt. Perhaps even without her thrifty and unfriendly zeal the marriage of so great a lord as Haganè must inevitably have filled the papers and overflowed in irresponsible wide tides of talk. Yet scarcely without her would Pierre's hinted personality have been so openly involved, his parentage stated, and his future course of action philosophized about. The story in its parent "Hawk's Eye" was given with a wealth of imaginative detail possible only to the born "society reporter." In substance it was as follows: Miss Onda had come from America with the Todds. With their approbation she had been openly betrothed, in Washington, to a young Frenchman of pleasing appearance and high connections. (Here a secret marriage, twisted about an interrogation mark, found place.) When asked for his blessing the Japanese father, hitherto unsuspicious of French designs, fell into a fit, out of which three eminent physicians were required to haul him. Yuki was forbidden to hold communication with her lover. The next step was to adorn her in sacrificial and becoming robes and offer her in marriage,—or anything else,—to a certain powerful nobleman, whose third wife,—or was it really his sixth?—had recently, by a fortuitous occurrence, been "returned." Touched by the sorrow of his faithful knight, and influenced perhaps by the lackadaisical beauty of the girl, the nobleman agreed to take her on trial, even going through the form of a legal marriage, that the aspirations of the French lover might be the more certainly destroyed. Pierre, who read and brooded morbidly on these things, was neither soothed nor ennobled thereby. But what of it? Mrs. Stunt's four lanky daughters each had a new spring dress with hats to match!
Japanese of the better class, brushing aside like gnats these stinging personalities, approved openly of the father's conduct and of Yuki's swift acquiescence. It was the only thing conceivable. Their only blame for Yuki was that she had listened to a foreigner without first obtaining her father's approbation, an encouragement that might now urge him to be troublesome. They felt indignant that the rejected one should continue to repine for what a Japanese prince had deigned to accept. Old samurai blood grew warm. The daughter of Onda Tetsujo marry a Frenchman with a Russian mother! The very gods held their Asiatic noses.
English and American men took, for the most part, the Japanese view. Many Europeans, on the contrary, said openly that they hoped Le Beau would yet "get even" with old Haganè for stealing his sweetheart. With few exceptions, indeed, all women sympathized with Pierre. Pierre was the beau ideal of a despairing lover. His sensitive, beautiful face took on with ease the lines of sleepless grief. His blue eyes, at a moment's warning, could darken from melancholy to tragic anguish. He could sigh in such a manner that his quivering listeners, should Donne happen to be familiar, might have quoted, "When thou so sighest thou sighest not wind, thou sighest my soul away." Pierre's sorrow was genuine enough, but he liked witnesses to his grief. Needless to say that Mrs. Todd and her satellite Stunt were among Pierre's most vociferous supporters. Gwendolen fought many a battle for her school-friend, but the bitterest were pitched under her own roof.
"Now, my very dear Miss Todd," expostulated the "Hawk's Eye," "do you not consider at all the misery of Monsheer Le Beau? Miss Onda is to be a princess, happy, courted, with a position in the highest circles. Life can offer her no more. On the other hand look at the jilted lover. I never saw a face that expressed such patient grief. When he turns to me those slow, beautiful blue eyes I'll declare I feel as if I'd like to kill that girl for making him suffer."
"Pooh!" said Gwendolen, rudely; "and when he slowly turns them round to me I want to open my parasol and say 'Shoo!' thinking it a cow. I like Pierre well enough. A good deal better than you, I think, if the truth were known, but he is among men what Chopin is among musicians. He enjoys his sufferings and makes music out of them. Of course you wouldn't understand that." Rudely she wheeled and walked away, Mrs. Stunt following with venomous eyes.
Gwendolen scarcely recognized herself during these days of trial. She, the joyous one, the sun-maid, now wished to quarrel with the whole world. Of course Dodge's defection, and the ridiculous paragraphs appearing in "The Hawk's Eye," had nothing to do with her nervous condition. The causes were obvious,—Yuki's hurried marriage and Pierre's mischievous pose of despair.