"To-night! It is an eternity away!" cried Pierre. "See, love, the sun already is low. I hear the moat-crows cawing. To-night we shall begin to live!"
"Kwannon Sama—oh, dear Saviour, help me to endure," said Yuki to herself.
"To-morrow I join the army in Manchuria. Whatever is to do must be completed before the dawn."
"To-night! To-night, this very night!" sang Pierre, like a schoolboy. "They called me sick, but I am already a well man! That was a marvellous draught you gave me in the tea-rooms, Yuki."
For the first time Haganè showed a puzzled frown. Yuki explained quickly. "Oh, I had forgotten that you did not know. Pierre wandered delirious into our garden this forenoon, your Highness, just after your instructions to me. I could think of no way to send him off, so I took him to the Cha no yu rooms and gave him a fever mixture and a sleeping-draught. I believed he would remain asleep until after the meeting."
"But I didn't," laughed Pierre. "It must have been the God of Good Luck that woke me when he did."
"I tried to tell your Highness before the meeting, although you had given me orders not to disturb your mind," went on Yuki to her husband in the same quiet way. "Perhaps you will recall my effort."
"I do," said Haganè. "It goes far to exonerate you. Tell me more in detail." Yuki closed her lips. She did not wish to be exonerated, at least by Haganè. This was her one supreme opportunity for full expiation,—for sacrifice. No one should wrest it from her.
"I woke in good time," babbled Pierre, to whose brain the liquor was giving a strange lightness. "I saw the statesmen come and go. They whispered and leaned down. I saw Todd, and Sir Charles,—and Yuki by the window. I saw my Lord Haganè come to her with the great paper in his hand. She was going to betray poor Pierre to him, but first the great lord must have his say. He told her of the paper—and then he made iron love—that old lord. I could hear his joints rasp. 'Yuki, you are my wife! When this time of stress and strain is over I shall teach you something of a brighter hue than duty!' Ah, ha! making love, like any schoolboy! She never kissed you as she has kissed me, Haganè. Oh, she cared for me in the little tearooms. We played we were married. Go there; you will find the cushions, the trinkets strewn around, the broken hairpin."
A dull purple tide rushed upward to Haganè's face and stayed there. No battle-wounds could sting and torture like the mincing mimicry of the Frenchman's words. His control was superhuman. He leaned an instant nearer the fireplace to flip off a cigarette ash, then faced his companions coolly. "I must remember to investigate the scene of romance."