As the others lifted brittle stems, she, emptying swiftly the sunny fluid, poured a little water into her glass. The drinking of water as a pledge is used between Japanese as a token of death, of love, in death and beyond it. Dodge, his bright eyes swimming in tenderness, did as she had done. While the company drained the conventional felicity,—this young couple, in silence, unnoticed by those who crowded most closely, drank the pledge of love and loyalty to Yuki's freed spirit. Had it been possible for any face to be more beautiful than Gwendolen's, she—on catching sight of her husband as the water touched his lips—now outrivalled herself.
Todd had seen but could not join them. He was self-constituted master of ceremonies. "Next, my new son, Mr. Dodge!" he cried aloud.
"Hear! hear!" clamored the company.
"And next," said Todd, "to that great man, the Japanese Emperor!"
"The Emperor, the Emperor!" ejaculated Dodge, with such vehemence that the assembly had to join or be deafened. "Banzai Nippon!" roared Dodge. "Banzai Nippon!" vociferated Todd.
"Banzai Nippon!" the servants echoed in excited underbreaths as they hurried back to pantry and kitchen.
"Banzai Nippon!" cried the waiting betto and the kuruma men outside, at first hint of the call.
"Banthai Nip-pon!" lisped the the cook's baby, who sat well under the kitchen-table to escape being trod upon, and scraped out a foreign cake-bowl with a single chopstick.
But Yuki—a snowflake fallen on the windy slope of Aoyama—slept on, smiling, with Haganè's dagger in her heart; and on a rocky promontory across from the impregnable fortress of Liau Tung, a grim, quiet warrior sat alone, with field-glasses dangling limply from his hands, and eyes that saw only a white, white face upturned to his, and lips that murmured, "I know you now, my husband,—and shall wait! Banzai Nippon!" while the cold steel crept nearer to a warm and shrinking heart.