CHAPTER THIRTY
Night in Japan, when the day has been all or partly clear, is a deepening mystery, a revelation of purple tones and velvet shadows. In the French Legation garden (designed originally for the delight of a feudal daimyo and afterward given as part of the French concession for official buildings) the soft blurred dusk concealed all but the vaguest suggestions of copse and path and hillock. A wanderer on the dew-drenched gravel might perceive about him, as by instinct, the beauty of line and mass. The smell of daphne and azalea flowers rose with pungent sweetness. Higher trees and mounds, set with rolling shrubs, rose against the sky-line and the stars like great crouching earth-clouds.
Pierre moved up and down the driveway just below the steps that led down from a balcony on the quiet west side of the house. Ignoring the doctor's orders, he had come a full hour before the appointed time. Ronsard, seeing his intention, had expostulated vehemently, using both language and gesticulation, but soon shrugged off the obligation with the reviving thought, "Only an hour more, and it will be over!"
So Pierre had walked at will. He drew in heavy breaths of the scented, humid air. He believed himself impervious now to further illness. He would not have listened or believed if one had told him that his present interlude of fictitious strength was like the shade of a upas-tree in a scorching desert. One cigarette after another was smoked and thrown at random among the shrubs, where each in turn lay like a malicious glow-worm, hissing and winking away an acrid spite. In the west a faint shining stirred the advent of the moon.
At ten minutes to eight o'clock Mr. Todd arrived. He was ushered at once, by order, into the small drawing-room where Ronsard sat. His face had new lines of struggle, and was very pale, but self-possession was evident in every gesture. His first act on reaching Ronsard was to draw out the paper, saying, "This, sir, has not left my body, or been touched by any hand but mine, or been referred to by any speech, since the moment, a few hours since, when I left you."
In his long, earnest explanation to Gwendolen and Dodge, Todd had, indeed, carefully refrained from letting them know that he was personal guardian of the document. It might have opened for them another blind trail of argument. During that agonizing interview he had thanked fate a hundred times for the part that Dodge had so opportunely been qualified to play. The clear judgment, intense sympathy, and clever resourcefulness of the young diplomat delighted him even in the midst of tragic exercise. It had taken the utmost skill of both men to overpower Gwendolen's first keen desire to go to her friend, to make the girl see that interference on her part had become impossible. He had left her half-fainting, though still insistent in her belief that God could not allow such a crime!
Ronsard rose as the guest entered. He, too, had gained a certain fatalistic calm. In reply to Todd's elaborate explanation, he had said simply, "Return the paper to its place, your Excellency. The farce will soon be over. Shall we not join our young imbecile in the garden?"
They paced together wide dimly lighted rooms, and emerged upon the uncovered western balcony. Pierre looked up and, wordless, continued his rapid, nervous strides.