"It is of that the tragedy come. But do not trouble. If I can serve Nippon, I asks no more of this life."
"Yuki, what can you mean?" cried the other, holding her back.
"Hush, dearest; do not trouble," smiled Yuki. "See, the guests turn their heads to listen. I must go to them. I have no fear at all."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Throughout the months of March and early April this strange hiatus in war bulletins hung, like a gray sky, above national enthusiasm. The more dignified of the newspapers still adjured the populace to patience, still exhorted them to have faith in their wise and careful leaders. "The Hawk's Eye," on the other hand, bereft of inflammatory battle themes, served up, with new condiment of ingenious suggestion, the personal gossip of the hour. Few of the weekly issues (those printed entirely in English) omitted a guarded slur upon the conjugal felicity of the Haganè household. Gwendolen came in for her share of veiled allusion. Yuki-ko, each week stung by the contemptible malice of the attack, promised herself that never again should the paper be opened in her home. Gwendolen, at the American Legation, weekly did the same. The results of both resolutions were equally humiliating.
This was not a happy time for Gwendolen, creature of sunshine and spring breezes as she seemed. The continued strained relations between herself and Dodge interfered quite seriously at times with the young man's official duties. Mr. Todd leaned more heavily than he knew upon his attaché's four past years of experience in Tokio life, and resented an attitude of one of his own family, which kept Dodge so rigidly within the paling of mere officialdom. Mrs. Todd, who had never professed great friendship for the secretary, now most loudly denounced his "outrageous flirtation" with the Spanish girl, and even declared it an affront upon her Legation. Gwendolen, urged one moment to stop the affair, "as she certainly could by the lifting of a finger," was, the instant after, taunted by her inability to do so.
The public friendship between Dodge and the charming Señorita deepened obviously with each day. Hints of an early marriage flecked "The Hawk's Eye." Mrs. Todd began to feel herself personally injured by her wilful daughter. Finally, goaded into action and spurred by her own restless heart, the girl made a counter-move of a sudden and desperate intimacy with Carmen herself. Such things are not unknown in the history of adolescence. Carmen yielded to the American's bright fascination with the caressing languor characteristic of her. The two girls lunched together, dined, drove, and had tea together, and spoke of each other in exaggerated terms of endearment. Dodge, whatever his private surmises, retained an unaltered front. Naturally he and Gwendolen were more often together. She showed to him an air of cherished hostility, varied by small lightning-flashes of appeal. Two feminine currents blew full upon him. Dodge kept his hat on. The beautiful Castilian bore toward him the attitude of an indulgent conqueror. Gwendolen aided this, and whenever possible threw Dodge into the position of Carmen's accepted lover. Also, for some reason known only to herself, she encouraged the Spanish girl in her belief in Dodge's overwhelming adoration.
Gwendolen soon discovered that her new friend had an uncontrollable yearning for "dulces," and eagerly embraced this opportunity for demonstrating her new affection. Gwendolen scoured the alleys of old Yedo for novel sweetmeats; she purveyed from the French shops of Yokohama imported dainties; she sent a telegraphic order to a certain New York confectioner. Carmen appreciated and devoured all results. The Japanese confections, which many other European ladies might (without, of course, having tasted) pretend to despise, she declared delicious. The "ama-natto," or small purple bean, boiled and sugar-coated with lilac frosting, she called "fairy marron." Mikan, or small oranges preserved whole, with a flake of cinnamon and ginger, gained an established place on the Spanish Legation table. "Hakka ame," that delicious triangle of peppermint cream, improved from an American missionary's original recipe, vied in public favor, as a hors-d'œuvre with French bonbons, salted almonds, and olives.