The House of the Misty Star, Frances Little [great reads .TXT] 📗

progress cost us countless lives and sickening humiliations? Has not the breaking of traditions threatened the very foundations of our homes? Small wonder the foreign nations offer careless insult when we stoop to make monkeys of ourselves and adopt customs and assume a civilization that can no more be grafted on to our nation than cabbage can be grown on plum trees. Take what is needful to strengthen and uplift. Make the highest and best of any land your own standard and live thereby. But remember, in long years ago the divine gods created you Japanese, and to the end of eternity, struggle as you may, as such you cannot escape your destiny!"

  As he finished his impassioned speech, a ray of sun fell upon his face, lifted in stern warning to his opponents. He was like a figure of the Past demanding reverence and a hearing from the Present.

  For the time he won his point and I was glad, for it was Kishimoto San's last public speech. Soon after he was stricken with a lingering illness.

  In previous talks he had neither asked after his granddaughter nor referred to her. But this afternoon, taking advantage of his look of half-pleasure caused by the victory he had won single handed, I took occasion, when offering congratulations, to give him every opportunity to inquire as to Zura and her progress. I was very proud of what I had done with the girl, of the change her affection for Jane and me had accomplished.

  Naturally I was anxious to exhibit my handiwork. As well tempt a mountain lion to inspect a piece of beautiful tapestry in the process of weaving.

  However tactfully I led up to the subject he walked around it without touching it. To him she was not. Reconciliation was afar off. I said good-by and left. It was this and the speech I had heard in the afternoon that occupied my mind as I wended my way home.

  Of course the country must go forward; but it was a pity that, even if progress were not compatible with tradition, it could not be tempered with beauty. Why must the youth of the land adopt those hideous imitations of foreign clothes? The flower-like children wear on their heads the grotesque combinations of muslin and chicken feathers they called hats? There are miles of ancient moats around the city, filled with lotus, the great pink-and-white blossoms giving joy to the eye as its roots gave food for the body. Slowly these stretches of loveliness were being turned into dreary levels of sand for the roadbed of a trolley. Even now the quiet of the city was broken by the clang of the street-car gong. I was taking my first ride that day.

  With Kishimoto San's plea for progress of the right kind still ringing in my ears, my eyes fell upon some of the rules for the conduct of the passengers, printed in large type, and hung upon the front door of the car:

  "Please do not stick your knees or your elbows out of the windows."

  "Fat people must ride on the platform."

  "Soiled coolies must take a bath before entering."

  An advertisement in English emphasized the talk of the afternoon: "Invaluable most fragrant and nice pills, especially for sudden illness. For refreshing drooping minds and regulating disordered spirits, whooping cough and helping reconvalescents to progress."

  The force of Kishimoto's appeal was strong upon me.

  I alighted at my street and began the climb that led to my house. Halfway up a picture-book tea-house offered hospitality; in its miniature garden I paused to rest and faced the sea in all its evening beauty. Happily the glory of the skies and the tender loveliness of the hills still belonged to their Maker, untouched by commercialism.

  The golden track of the setting sun streamed across the mountain tops and turned to fiery red a feathery shock of distant clouds. High and clear came the note of a wild goose as he called to his mate on their homeward flight. In the city below a thousand lights danced and beckoned through the soft velvet shadows of coming night. There fluttered up to me many sounds—a temple bell, the happy call of children at play, cheerful echoes of home-like content, the gentle gaiety of simple life. It was for these, the foundations of the Empire, that Kishimoto San feared ruin, with the coming of too sudden a transition.

  But I forgot the man and his woes. The spell of heavenly peace that spread upon land and sea fell like a benediction.

  It crept into my heart and filled me with thankfulness that I had known this land and its people and for all the blessings that had fallen to me in the coming of Zura Wingate. Gratitude for my full understanding of her was deep. If only the shadows could be cleared away from the boy I loved, life would be complete.

  Exalted by the beauty of the evening, and by my spiritual communings, I entered my house and faced the door of the study. It was ajar. Silhouetted against the golden light, which had so filled me with joy and peace, stood two figures. And the man held the hands of the girl against his breast, and looked down into her glad eyes as a soul in the balance must look into Paradise.

  It was Page Hanaford and Zura Wingate!

  As quietly as possible I went around another way and dropped into the first handy chair. The truth was as bare as a model. The force of it came to me like a blow between the eyes. Long ago, because of chilblains, I had adopted felt shoes. In that second of time I stood at the door the noiseless footgear cured me of all the egotism I ever possessed.

  Now I knew by what magic the transformation had been wrought in Zura. And the castle of dreams, built on my supposed understanding of youth and the way it grew, was swept away by a single breath from the young god of love. What a silly old jay bird I had been! Was that what Jane Gray had been smiling to herself about? I felt like shaking her for seeing it before I did.

  At dinner Jane was the only one of the three of us without an impediment in her silence. I was glad when the meal was over and we went to the study.

  Zura buried herself in a deep windowseat, to watch the lights on the water, she said. When there was not another glimmer to be seen, from the shadows came a voice with a soft little tremble in it, or possibly I had grown suddenly sensitive to trembles: "Ursula, Mr. Hanaford was here this afternoon."

  Now, thought I, it's coming. Steadying myself I asked: "Was he? What did he have to say?"

  "Oh-h!"—indifferently—"nothing much. He brought back an armful of books."

  An armful of books—aye, and his heart full of love! How dared he speak of it with his life wrapped in the dark shadows of some secret?

  Talk to me of progress! That day I could have raced neck-and-neck with a shooting star!

XV PINKEY CHALMERS CALLS AGAIN

  Never having been within hailing distance before of the processes of love and proceedings of courtship there were no signposts in my experience to guide me as to what should be my next step, if it were mine to take. I had been too busy a woman to indulge in many novels, but in the few I had read the hero lost no time in saying, "Will you?" and at once somebody began to practise the wedding march. I suppose the fashion in lovemaking changes as much as the styles; nothing I ever thought or dreamed on the subject seemed to fit the case in hand.

  I waited for Zura to tell me, but she didn't. She only sang the more as she went about her work, doubling her efforts in making sweet the home and herself. She seemed to find fresh joy in every hour.

  Any thoughts I'd cherished that young Hanaford would come at once, clear up all the confusion about himself, frankly declare his love for Zura and be happy forever afterward died from lack of nourishment.

  Only my deep affection for the boy restrained my anger at his silence. The love and sympathy which bolstered up my faith in him were reinforced by his gentle breeding and high mental quality; but circumstances forced me reluctantly to admit that the story he told when he first came was not true. Page Hanaford was not only under a shadow, but also was undoubtedly seeking to conceal his whereabouts. And why? The question sat on the foot of my bed at night and made faces at me, scrawled itself all over my work and met me around every corner.

  It was next to impossible to connect him with dishonesty or baseness when looking into his face, or hearing him talk. But why didn't he speak out, and why hide his talents in this obscure place? He was gifted. His classes had increased to large numbers, and so excellent were his methods his fame had gone abroad. The Department of Education had offered him a lucrative position as teacher in the Higher Normal College in a neighboring city. But, instead of snatching at this good fortune, he asked for time to consider.

  He came frequently to talk it over with me; at least that's what he said he came for. The law required the applicant for such a position to answer questions concerning himself and all his ancestors. In my talks with Page about this law I emphasized every detail of the intimate questions that would be put to him. I tried to impress upon him the necessity of having either a clean record, or a very clever tongue when he went before the judgment seat of the Japanese authorities. I hoped my seriousness would bring about a speedy explanation, denial, declaration—anything, so it came quickly. The truth is I don't believe he ever heard a word of what I said on the subject.

  If Zura was out of the room, his eyes were glued to the door watching for it to open. If she were present, his eyes would be fixed on her face. If I made an excuse to leave the room, Page made another to keep me, as if he feared the thing he most desired. What did it all mean? If Page Hanaford could not explain himself honorably, what right had he to look at the girl with his heart in his eyes? If no explanation could be given, what right had Zura Wingate to grow prettier and happier every day?

  I had always believed that love was as simple and straightforward as finding the end of a blind alley. There was good reason for me to change my belief as the days passed and nothing was said on the subject.

  Of course, I could have hauled the two up before me, like children, and told them what I had seen and was still seeing; but I dreaded to force the man's secret and I had to acknowledge that, for the time, I was no more equal to guiding this thing called "love" than I was to instructing birds to build a nest.

  Jane was not a bit of help to me. Refusing to discuss anything except the sentimental side of the affair, she repeated verse till I was almost persuaded this poetical streak was a disease rather than a habit. Between stanzas she proffered food and drink to Page, in quantities sufficient to end quickly both man and mystery, had he accepted. Her attitude to Zura was one of perfect understanding and entire sympathy. Every time she looked at the girl, she sighed and went off into more poetry.

  Troubled thoughts stormed