University of Virginia Library

16. Chapter XVI

“What are you doing?”

He had come upon his wife doubled over before a little foot-high table. Propped up on it was a single scroll, in the center of which was a picture of the Emperor. Beside the scroll, propped up also, was a photograph of a Japanese soldier.

Jamison picked up the picture and examined it, his brows tightly drawn in a very ugly frown.

Spring-morning did not move. She was holding her breath, her face averted, one little hand held slightly up, almost as if she feared he might strike her.

A curious change had come over the girl since that day in the Zuiganjii[11] woods, when they had come across the regiment of drilling soldiers. Since their return to Yokohama, but a few weeks since, the young people had been anything but happy. The man was unable to understand the change in his wife. From being gay, loving, happy one day, she was morose, tearful and silent the next, seemingly brooding over some secret trouble, concerning which she refused to take her husband into her confidence. This aroused both his resentment and his sorrow.

He longed at this time to go to his mother, who had never left Japan, and who—his friend Miss Latimer assured him—waited for him to come to her; but he did not wish her to see this new Spring-morning he had brought back to

Yokohama with him. He wished to show her the Spring-morning of their early honeymoon days, and he waited each day hoping she would become as before.

Now, as he looked at the girl, the soldier's picture in his hand, the old suspicion that she had a lover flitted across his mind. At the thought, a blind, jealous fury against her took full possession of him, and his hand dropped heavily upon her shoulder. Shrinking under its weight, she raised a terrified face. He thrust the picture before her.

“You've been uncommonly interested in the war. Every day you've been running out to learn the latest news. The house is full of papers. You read nothing else. I thought it patriotism. I hope it is nothing else.”

She turned from white to red, her eyes furtively going from the picture to her husband's face. She tried to speak, but her fluttering tongue failed her.

“Well?” he prompted. “Are you going to tell me who this is?”

By an effort of will she had recovered her composure. Her face was blank, as inscrutable as that of a Japanese doll. Her half closed eyes even smiled as they met her husband's, and there was no more fear in them.

“Thas picture my honorable brother,” she said. “He soldier of Tenshi-sama.” And she bowed at the name of the Emperor.

“You told me once,” he said hoarsely, “that you were the only child. Were you lying to me then or are you now?”

She was quite calm under the accusation.

“I tell you truth. I only child my honorable parent got. My brother belong to Emperor. He not come bag aeny more from those war. He going mek a die for hees country!”

Her cheeks flushed with a sudden excitement. She moved around on her knees and held out her hands imploringly to her husband.

“Be not angery wiz me account that soldier of Mikado. Ah, think! He give his honorable life for Japan! The gods reward him splendidly. I pray unto them—every day and every nide that they so kindly give him those honorable death for Emperor—that gloriously naever he may come bag ad Japan!”

“You pray for your brother to die?”

“Thas glorious die!” she said fervently.

He made a mute motion of disbelief.

“What is his name?”

“Omi,” said the girl softly.

He looked at the picture thoughtfully, then picked up his hat.

“It may be,” he said, “you have told me the truth, dear; but I am not—satisfied, and it means a great deal to me. I have got to know. I will know no peace otherwise. Spring-morning—I am going to find out who this is.”

She followed him to the door, holding to his arm, and entreating him not to leave her this evening; she declared she was very lonely and there was a pain throbbing right there in her little head, where she placed his hands. Wouldn't he please, please, remain, just for this single evening, that she might have the comfort of his presence? But he was firm in his resolve, and, though he yielded sufficiently to her blandishments to kiss her lovingly before departing, she could not hold him, and, once in the street, he hastened upon his errand.