"It is a place, too, where I think I could do little good. But she is unharmed; that is certain. Ronsard cannot afford to have violence there."
"Don't fancy things more terrible than they are," said Todd. "I myself am full of hope. If I can get in at all, I can help explain. In the meantime, be very cautious, and go home quietly."
"Yes, go home quietly to wait! Oh, I knew that was coming. To wait, to be stretched out flat on the rack of hours, with every little red-hot minute pinching me. But I will go. I trust you, dad, to do the best. I will wait patiently, as meekly as Yuki herself could wait. That is all I don't like about Yuki,—her meekness. Oh, my poor darling, what will those vile men do to you?"
Again at the Legation gate she dismissed her two coolies, paying them an incredible sum for immunity from bartering, and walked in, along the gravelled driveway, on foot. Dodge, who had never left the neighborhood of his office window, felt a renewed thrill of rapture at the sight of his cap, set like a brown, inverted bird's-nest, on her bright curls. It would be a different cap. No one should wear it after this consecration. He watched the slight figure with yearning tenderness. Something in her walk, a sort of suppressed excitement in her whole person, showed to him. The unusual hung about her. Deliberately he came out from his den to follow. She gave no backward glances.
Across the front of the Legation she hurried, taking a path that led into the garden and wide lawn at the right. At its rim she poised, uncertain; then, as if coming to a swift decision, took a diagonal course across the turf. Exactly in the centre of the wide, green space grew a clump of gigantic mushrooms with white tops and thick blue bodies. As she neared them the mushrooms began to bob and nod in an agitated fashion, while funny little hissing breaths came from the midst. They were the professional lawn-weeders,—little old women with round faces and high cheekbones, each armed with a pygmy sickle. They worked in a tiny grazing squad, devouring, root and all, each intruding tuft of clover, dandelion, pilewort, and even the spring messenger, tsukushimbo, beloved of Japanese children.
"Kon-nichiwa," cried the girl, in her high, sweet voice.
"Kon-nichiwa (good day), o jo san," responded the little company, rising, as corks on a single wave, and bobbing down again as one.
Gwendolen, interested in spite of her anxieties, stood still to watch them. Dodge, unperceived, leaned against a kiri tree at the edge of the lawn, with eyes only for her.
Their blue backs with a white ideograph bore the unanimity of a pack of cards. "I feel just like Alice in Wonderland," thought the girl. "Oh, I know I am Alice. They have been painting all the dandelions white. Was this done by order of the duchess?" she asked aloud, and touched a snowy flower with her foot.
The little dame nearest sent up a shy, sparkling glance, "Hek! hai! Udzukushii tampopo gozaimasu!" (Ha, yes, unusually fine dandelion honorably is!) She flushed crimson, and went feverishly to work again in the shadow of the tall golden one.