"Shall I draw the hood of the kuruma?" asked Onda.
"Yes, cover her face,—her small white face; the very night may weep and falter at that smile."
Onda tucked up his robe, put on the wide hat and the straw sandals, placed himself between the shafts, and started along the driveway.
Haganè, moving always slowly, abstractedly, folded his arms, bowed his head, and followed in the attitude of a mourner immediately behind the covered vehicle.
"Take my burden for a moment," pleaded Ronsard, when the sound of wheels had quite died away. "I can support—no longer. Let me summon aid. Mon Dieu! this night has made of me an old man."
"It has made of me a prophet," said Todd, "for I have met Immortals face to face."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The sumptuous obsequies of the young Princess Haganè, become so suddenly and so securely a leading figure in Tokio's official life; her mysterious death (heart failure, the obliging papers called it); Haganè's immediate departure for the seat of war; Pierre Le Beau's re-capture and long, desperate illness (with relapses brought on by further crafty flights, terminating always in a certain hillside grave),—these events co-existent, co-related, formed, inevitably, dazzling bits of speculation pieceable together into various strange patterns.