Saturday of the first week came. Pierre Le Beau had not been mentioned to the Princess Haganè, nor had she found a printed notice of him containing a hint of information. Cleverly insulated wires of venom, it is true, attached to her name and Haganè's. Sometimes Pierre was subtly referred to, but never openly. Next day, thought Yuki, she would go to church. Perhaps something would be said of him by the ladies who always crowded so eagerly about her carriage door. This weekly service, in the Episcopal church at Tsukijii, formed now the closest tie that bound Yuki to her Western memories. It was anticipated with eagerness. This link, at least, she told herself should not be snapped. Haganè's consent that she continue openly her Christian devotions had been unqualified.
The mail that Saturday morning proved unusually large. An American mail-ship was in. Several letters and papers came from trans-Pacific friends, a great many Tokio social invitations, a few notes relating to Red Cross matters, and one folded pamphlet with a Japanese postmark. She knew from its pink wrapping that it was "The Weekly Hawk's Eye." With a slight shudder she put the evil thing aside, with a vague reawakening of the intention to burn it unopened. Slowly she read her letters and invitations. She glanced through the few American papers for any blue markings. All were finished. She leaned to gather them up and have them taken to her private desk upstairs, when the sun, pointing one bright finger through a blind, fell upon the pink wrapper and rested on her name. "Princess Sanètomo Haganè." It looked very cheerful and suggestive. The dull pink of the cheap paper glowed into a rosy hue. Perhaps it was an omen. Perhaps if she were brave and opened the sheet boldly she would find, instead of the usual malicious innuendoes, the announcement that Pierre was leaving for France. Thinking of Haganè's eyes as they had probed her own she flushed, trembled a little, and murmured aloud, "Oh, if he would only go—if Pierre would only go—how happy—" She broke off. A wave of compunction, pity for Pierre, scorn of her own fickleness, rushed upon her. She took the paper hastily, set her lips for what might be in store, and opened at random.
Her name was plain enough, and Prince Haganè's. This time headlines had been dared. "Prince Haganè soon to leave his young wife. The Nation demands his presence at the centre of martial differences. Haganè loath to leave his young wife. Who knows what may happen? M. Le Beau raving in delirium at the German hospital in Yokohama."
So much she read and paused. Very quietly she folded the paper and slipped it within a gray silk sleeve. She stooped for the crumpled pink wrapping, smoothed it also, and dropped it in her sleeve. Next she gathered into a neat package the mail she had been reading, rang for a maid-servant, and sent the mail up to her boudoir. Her orders were given in the usual low, pleasant voice. In closing, she said, "Should visitors come I am to be found in this room."
Again alone, she walked to a western window and stared out at the great square shadow of the house thrown across the awkward garden. Beyond the straight line of the shadow, paths shone brilliantly in the sun, and flowers danced. Spring had come a little early. Everything that had a blossom to show rushed, it would seem, to the perfumed exhibition.
Yuki shivered slightly. For the first time she knew that her hands were growing cold. She moved slowly toward the fireplace, an ordinary foreign grate with coal fire burning. Nearer the warmth she drew out again the pamphlet, unfolded and deliberately read the article from the first word to the last. Some passages she dwelt upon, extracting to its full flavor the bitterness of frustrated hope.
According to the "Hawk's Eye" correspondent, Pierre had caught germs of malignant malaria, perhaps of typhus, while wandering in a state of great mental agony along the moats that border a certain official dwelling. He was now at the crisis of his malady. Two nurses watched him night and day, for his dementia had made of him a cunning schemer, full of sly efforts to escape. When detained he raved fearfully, saying that he had "things to do." "The Hawk's Eye" ingenuously marvelled as to what these "things" could possibly be. As is usual with articles so inspired the suggestions were far more damaging than any actual statement.
She let her hands fall limp. One still clasped the ugly journal. Only a few moments before she had accused herself of heartlessness toward one she had wronged. In her generosity she had almost demanded a deeper suffering, if only it could be directed personally to her offending self, and not include, in its consequences, that great man whose name she now bore. Well, here was her punishment,—a fetid, scalding stream of venom, hurled full and straight at her. Attacks like this were, she knew, less to Haganè than the mud children throw against the base of a lofty statue. His mind moved in a stratum far above such contamination. The nation spoke direct to him. His ear was for his Emperor, the old gods of his race. "Yes," thought the young wife, "I wished to suffer for the wrong I have done, but these writhings of a polluted personality can scarcely be dignified by the name of suffering. It is as if one went forth bravely to combat a knight in armor and encountered a filthy swine. One cannot retaliate upon a beast. Nor,"—here, with a nervous transition to energy, she tore out the offending page,—"nor can I, being his wife, attempt punishment for this defilement." The sound of tearing paper soothed her. One by one she snatched the sheets, crumpling them loosely, and threw each in turn upon the coals, where it twisted, opened its angles, caught in a little puff of smoke, and burned quickly. A sound came to the front door. Some one opened it. She gathered the remaining pages, rolled them hastily into a pithy sphere, and tossed the whole mass to the grate. A soft explosion of smoke and brightness followed. Red light fawned upward to the slender gray figure and excited face. A door of the drawing-room opened, and the draught pulled out from the grate before her a long, pliant tongue of flame. She felt Haganè catch her backward. "That is a risk, to burn papers in these great, ill-constructed chimneys, my little one," he said. Yuki clung to him, staring up into his face to try to judge whether he had already seen the offensive article. He had an unusual animation. She even fancied that his voice shook; but it was not the excitement of anger or disgust. Some national crisis had come. His next words proved the truth of this supposition. "I wish you not cremated this day of all days," he smiled, trying, as she could see, to speak with some lightness. "I need my wife. An opportunity for service has come, more important than all that has gone before. Are you ready, my Princess?"
"Lord, I live but to serve you and my land."
"We are in a national crisis, Yuki," said her husband. He began to walk up and down the long room with an abandonment to agitation which she had not seen in him before. "A crisis," he repeated. "I shall not explain the matter of it. You need not have the weight and burden of such knowledge, but you can aid me greatly." He paused now near a window. Yuki followed. "I await your pleasure, Lord," she said.