"Why, silly boy, of course I will," she cried. "Have not I always been your friend and Yuki's,—even to the point of what Cyrus called 'entangling alliances'?"
"It is because of its preciousness that I want to hear you say it, dear Mrs. Todd. After all, I am ignorant of Japan, and of what social phantoms Yuki and I may have to fight. But with your championship, I am strong, invincible!" He gave her fat hand just the most delicate of pressures. It might have been the touch of a devoted son; it might, had Mrs. Todd been twenty years younger, have been—well, almost anything. His dark, impassioned eyes, the color of new-opened violets, hung on her kindly face.
If fault could be found with Pierre, it would be in excess of beauty. From the old blood of France he had received refinement, poise, delicacy,—the throbbing of purple veins in temples as satin-smooth as young leaves, and thin nostrils that shivered at every passing gust of emotion. From the more barbaric, vivid Russian mother had come depth of coloring, the flash of sudden animation, deep blue in the eyes, and gold in the hair. Yet with all its fairness the face was not effeminate. One could think of it, without offence, in the armor of a young crusader, or even behind the mediæval visor of a robber-baron. There might be a hint of cruelty behind the wet crimson of the perfect mouth. To Yuki that face was the epitome of all earthly beauty. Before it, the artist in her knelt, in adoration.
Shortly after twilight came the reverberating clamor of the first dinner-gong. Mrs. Todd and her feminine satellites had agreed to "dress." Mrs. Todd had never made acquaintance with a décolleté gown until her entrance into Washington, not so many years before. Now she was wont to declare loudly that she could not really enjoy her evening meal in covered shoulders,—a statement which always brought the twinkles to Todd's eyes. He openly loathed his "tombstone shirt-front;" but Gwendolen, of a later and more favored generation, wore her pretty low-cut frocks as unconsciously as a flower wears its sheath.
Pierre sat through the interminable courses, scarcely knowing what he ate or to whom he spoke. His thoughts were all with Yuki. He was to see her again after three endless days! The little cool, slim palm would lie, perhaps, in his. He would hear her voice, as different from these chattering table women all around him as is the sound of running water to the whirr of machines. The past ten days of journeying—though indeed they had not been for a moment entirely alone—left a delicious aroma of familiarity, almost of married friendship. What hours the future was to hold for them in Japan, in Europe, in India!
Mrs. Todd's half-teasing voice drew him back from the dear reverie. "Come, Mister Le Beau, dinner is over at last. I noticed that you ate nothing. The Captain has been telling us the most delightful jokes. But we must not forget our promise to Miss Onda. Gwendolen, dear, will you go on deck and see that a chair is made ready for the poor child?" The speaker had been rising ponderously. She turned again to the Captain. "These Japanese are always wretched sailors, I am told."
"No good, any of them!" corroborated the Captain, with emphasis. "The sight of a floral anchor at a landlubber's funeral is enough to make them ill."
"I wonder how it will be with their admirals before the Russian navy," mused Todd, with pensive eyes on a blue-gowned Chinese steward.
"It wouldn't matter either way," sneered the Captain. "No fight is going to come off! I've known these Yokohama Japs for seventeen years, Mr. Todd. A bad lot! They are just trying a game of bluff borrowed from—no offence, gentlemen—from America." The Captain was a Liverpool Englishman.
"Just so!" grinned Dodge, "the kind of bluff that works,—recipe handed down by one G. Washington."