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diff --git a/58699-0.txt b/58699-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..98529a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/58699-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6709 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58699 *** + + + + + + + + + + SUNNY-SAN + + * * * * * + + ONOTO WATANNA + + + + + SUNNY-SAN + + BY + + ONOTO WATANNA + + AUTHOR OF + "A JAPANESE NIGHTINGALE," "WOOING OF WISTARIA," + "HEART OF HYACINTH," "TAMA," ETC. + + McCLELLAND AND STEWART + PUBLISHERS : : TORONTO + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1922, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + [Illustration] + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + TO + MY FRIENDS + CONSUL AND MRS. SAMUEL C. REAT + IN REMEMBRANCE OF SUNNY ALBERTA DAYS + + + + + SUNNY-SAN + + + + + SUNNY-SAN + + + CHAPTER I + + +Madame Many Smiles was dead. The famous dancer of the House of a +Thousand Joys had fluttered out into the Land of Shadows. No longer +would poet or reveller vie with each other in doing homage to her whose +popularity had known no wane with the years, who had, indeed, become one +of the classic objects of art of the city. In a land where one's +ancestry is esteemed the all important thing, Madame Many Smiles had +stood alone, with neither living relatives nor ancestors to claim her. +Who she was, or whence she had come, none knew, but the legend of the +House was that on a night of festival she had appeared at the +illuminated gates, as a moth, who, beaten by the winds and storms +without, seeks shelter in the light and warmth of the joyhouse within. + +Hirata had bonded her for a life term. Her remuneration was no more than +the geishas' meagre wage, but she was allowed the prerogative of +privacy. Her professional duties over, no admiring patron of the gardens +might claim her further service. She was free to return to her child, +whose cherry blossom skin and fair hair proclaimed clearly the taint of +her white blood. Hirata was lenient in his training of the child, for +the dancer had brought with her into the House of a Thousand Joys, +Daikoku, the God of Fortune, and Hirata could afford to abide the time +when the child of the dancer should step into her shoes. But the day had +come far ahead of his preparations, and while the dancer was at the +zenith of her fame. They were whispering about the gardens that the moth +that had fluttered against the House of Joy had fluttered back into the +darkness from which she had come. With her she had taken Daikoku. + +A profound depression had settled upon the House of a Thousand Joys. +Geishas, apprentices and attendants moved aimlessly about their tasks, +their smiles mechanical and their motions automatic. The pulse and +inspiration of the house had vanished. In the gardens the effect of the +news was even more noticeable. Guests were hurriedly departing, turning +their cups upside down and calling for their clogs. Tea girls slid in +and out on hurried service to the departing guests, and despite the +furious orders of the master to affect a gaiety they did not feel, their +best efforts were unavailing to dispel the strange veil of gloom that +comes ever with death. The star of the House of a Thousand Joys had +twinkled out forever. + +It was the night of the festival of the Full Moon. The cream of the city +were gathered to do honour to the shining Tsuki no Kami in the clear sky +above. But the death of the dancer had cast its shadow upon all, and +there was a superstitious feeling abroad that it was the omen of a bad +year for the city. + +In the emptying gardens, Hirata saw impending ruin. Running hither and +thither, from house to garden, snapping his fingers, with irritation and +fury, he cursed the luck that had befallen him on this night of all +nights. The maids shrank before his glance, or silently scurried out of +his path. The geishas with automatic smile and quip vainly sought to +force a semblance of exhilaration, and the twang of the samisen failed +to drown that very low beat of a Buddhist drum in the temple beyond the +gardens, where especial honour was to be paid to the famous dancer, who +had given her services gratuitously to the temple. + +In fury and despair, Hirata turned from the ingratiating women. Again he +sought the apartments where the dead dancer lay in state among her +robes. Here, with her face at her mother's feet, the child of the dancer +prayed unceasingly to the gods that they would permit her to attend her +mother upon the long journey to the Meido. Crushed and hurt by a grief +that nothing could assuage, only dimly the girl sensed the words of the +master, ordering her half peremptorily, half imploringly to prepare for +service to the House. Possibly it was his insinuation that for the sake +of her mother's honour it behooved her to step into her place, and +uphold the fame of the departed one, that aroused her to a mechanical +assent. Soon she was in the hands of the dressers, her mourning robes +stripped, and the skin tights of the trapese performer substituted. + +Hirata, in the gardens, clapping his hands loudly to attract the +attention of the departing guests, took his stand upon the little +platform. Saluting his patrons with lavish compliments, he begged their +indulgence and patience. The light of his House, it was true, so he +said, had been temporarily extinguished, but the passing of a dancer +meant no more than the falling of a star; and just as there were other +stars in the firmament brighter than those that had fallen, so the House +of a Thousand Joys possessed in reserve greater beauty and talent than +that the guests had generously bestowed their favour upon. The successor +to the honourable dancer was bound to please, since she excelled her +mother in beauty even as the sun does the moon. He therefore entreated +his guests to transfer their gracious patronage to the humble descendant +of Madame Many Smiles. + +The announcement caused as much of a sensation as the news of the +dancer's death had done. There was an element of disapproval and +consternation in the glances exchanged in the garden. Nevertheless there +was a disposition, governed by curiosity, to at least see the daughter +of the famous dancer, who appeared on the night of her mother's death. + +A party of American students, with a tutor, were among those still +remaining in the gardens. Madame Many Smiles had been an especial +favourite with them, their interest possibly due to the fact that she +was said to be a half caste. Her beauty and fragility had appealed to +them as something especially rare, like a choice piece of cloisonnè, and +the romance and mystery that seemed ever about her, captivated their +interest, and set them speculating as to what was the true story of this +woman, whom the residents pointed to with pride as the masterpiece of +their city. An interpreter having translated the words of the manager, +there was a general growl of disapproval from the young Americans. +However, they, too, remained to see the daughter of Madame Many Smiles, +and pushed up near to the rope, along which now came the descendant. + +She was a child of possibly fourteen years, her cheeks as vividly red as +the poppies in her hair, her long large eyes, with their shining black +lashes, strangely bright and feverish. She came tripping across the +rope, with a laugh upon her lips, her hair glistening, under the +spotlight, almost pure gold in colour. Bobbed and banged in the fashion +of the Japanese child, it yet curled about her exquisite young face, and +added the last touch of witchery to her beauty. Though her bright red +lips were parted in the smile that had made her mother famous, there was +something appealing in her wide, blank stare at her audience. + +She was dressed in tights, without the customary cape above her, and her +graceful, slender limbs were those of extreme youth, supple as elastic +from training and ancestry, the lithe, pliable young body of the born +trapese performer and dancer. She tossed her parasol to her shoulder, +threw up her delicate little pointed chin and laughed across at that sea +of faces, throwing right and left her kisses; but the Americans, close +to the rope, were observing a phenomenon, for even as her charming +little teeth gleamed out in that so captivating smile, a dewdrop +appeared to glisten on the child's shining face. Even as she laughed and +postured to the music that burst out, there a-tiptoe on the tightrope, +the dewdrop fell down her face and disappeared into the sawdust. + +Like a flower on the end of a long slender stalk, tossing in the wind, +her lovely little head swayed from side to side. Her small, speaking +hands, the wrists of which were lovelier than those celebrated by the +Japanese poet who for fifteen years had penned his one-line poems to her +mother, followed the rhythm of the music, and every part of that +delicate young body seemed to sensitively stir and move to the pantomime +dance of the tightrope. + +In triumph, Hirata heard the loud "Hee-i-i-!" and the sharp indrawing +and expulsions of breaths. Scrambling across the room, puffing and +expressing his satisfaction, came the Lord of Negato, drunk with sake +and amorous for the child upon the rope. He pushed his way past the +besieging tea house maidens, who proffered him sweets and tea and sake. +His hands went deep into his sleeves, and drew forth a shining bauble. +With ingratiating cries to attract her attention, he flung the jewel to +the girl upon the rope. Returning his smile, she whirled her fan wide +open, caught the gift upon it, and, laughing, tossed it into the air. +Juggling and playing with the pretty toy, she kept it twirling in a +circle above her, caught it again on her fan, and dropped it down onto +the sawdust beneath. Then, like a naughty child, pleased over some +trick, she danced back and forth along the rope, as it swung wide with +her. + +A grunt of anger came from Hirata, who approached near enough for her to +see and be intimidated by him, but she kept her gaze well above his +head, feigning neither to see him, nor the still pressing Negato. He was +calling up to her now, clucking as one might at a dog, and when at last +her glance swept his, he threw at her a handful of coin. This also she +caught neatly on her opened fan, and then, acting upon a sudden +impetuous and impish impulse, she threw right in the face of her +besieging admirer. Jumping from the rope to the ground, she smiled and +bowed right and left, kissed her hands to her audience, and vanished +into the teahouse. + +With an imprecation, Hirata followed her into the house. The little +maiden, holding the tray, and pausing to solicit the patronage of the +Americans, had watched the girl's exit with troubled eyes, and now she +said in English: + +"_Now_ Hirata will beat her." + +"What do you mean?" demanded the young man, who had rejected the +proffered cup, and was staring at her with such angry eyes that Spring +Morning dropped her own, and bobbed her knees in apology for possible +offence. + +"What do you mean?" repeated Jerry Hammond, determined upon securing an +answer, while his friends crowded about interested also in the reply. + +Half shielding her face with her fan, the girl replied in a low voice: + +"Always the master beats the apprentice who do wrong. When her mother +live, he do not touch her child, but now Madame Many Smiles is dead, and +Hirata is very angry. He will surely put the lash to-night upon her." + +"Do you mean to tell me that that little girl is being beaten because +she threw back that dirty gorilla's coin to him?" + +Spring Morning nodded, and the tears that came suddenly to her eyes +revealed that the girl within had all of her sympathy. + +"The devil she is!" Jerry Hammond turned to his friends, "Are we going +to stand for this?" demanded Jerry. + +"Not by a dashed sight!" shrilly responded the youngest of the party, a +youth of seventeen, whose heavy bone-ribbed glasses gave him a +preternaturally wise look. + +The older man of the party here interposed with an admonitory warning: + +"Now, boys, I advise you to keep out of these oriental scraps. We don't +want to get mixed up in any teahouse brawls. These Japanese girls are +used----" + +"She's not a Japanese girl," furiously denied Jerry. "She's as white as +we are. Did you see her hair?" + +"Nevertheless----" began Professor Barrowes, but was instantly silenced +by his clamouring young charges. + +"I," said Jerry, "propose to go on a privately conducted tour of +investigation into the infernal regions of that house of alleged joys. +If any of you fellows have cold feet, stay right here snug with papa. +I'll go it alone." + +That was quite enough for the impetuous youngsters. With a whoop of +derision at the idea of their having "cold feet," they were soon +following Jerry in a rush upon the house that was reminiscent of +football days. + +In the main hall of the teahouse a bevy of girls were running about +agitatedly, some of them with their sleeves before their faces, crying. +Two little apprentices crouched up against a screen, loudly moaning. +There was every evidence of upset and distress in the House of a +Thousand Joys. To Jerry's demand for Hirata, he was met by a frightened +silence from the girls, and a stony faced, sinister-eyed woman attempted +to block the passage of the young men, thus unconsciously revealing the +direction Hirata had gone. Instantly Jerry was upon the screen and with +rough hand had shoved it aside. They penetrated to an interior room that +opened upon an outbuilding, which was strung out like a pavilion across +the garden. At the end of this long, empty structure, lit only by a +single lantern, the Americans found what they sought. Kneeling on the +floor, in her skin tights, her hands tied behind her with red cords that +cut into the delicate flesh, was the girl who had danced on the rope. +Through the thin silk of her tights showed a red welt where one stroke +of the lash had fallen. Before her, squatting on his heels, Hirata, one +hand holding the whip, and the other his suspended pipe, was waiting for +his slave to come to terms. She had felt the first stroke of the lash. +It should be her first or last, according to her promise. + +As the Americans broke into the apartment, Hirata arose partly to his +knees and then to his feet, and as he realized their intention, he began +to leap up and down shouting lustily: + +"Oi!--Oi! Oi-i-i-!" + +Jerry's fist found him under the chin, and silenced him. With murmurs of +sympathy and anger, the young men cut the bonds of the little girl. She +fell limply upon the floor, breathlessly sighing: + +"Arigato! Arigato! Arigato!" (Thank you.) + +"Hustle. Did you hear that gong! They're summoning the police. Let's +beat it." + +"And leave her here at his mercy? Nothing doing." + +Jerry had lifted the child bodily in his arms, and tossed her across his +shoulder. They came out of the house and the gardens through a hue and +cry of alarmed attendants and inmates. Hirata had crawled on hands and +knees into the main dance hall, and every drum was beating upon the +place. Above the beat of the drums came the shrill outcry of Hirata, +yelling at the top of his voice: + +"Hotogoroshi!" (Murder.) + +Through a protecting lane made by his friends, fled Jerry Hammond, the +girl upon his shoulder, a chattering, clattering, screeching mob at his +heels, out of the gardens and into the dusky streets, under the +benignant eye of the Lady Moon, in whose honour a thousand revellers and +banquetters were celebrating. Fleet of foot and strong as a young Atlas, +Jerry, buoyed up with excitement and rage, fled like the wind before his +pursuers, till presently he came to the big brick house, the building of +which had been such a source of wonder and amusement to the Japanese, +but which had ever afterwards housed white residents sojourning in the +city. With one foot Jerry kicked peremptorily upon the door, and a +moment later a startled young Japanese butler flung the heavy doors +apart, and Jerry rushed in. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + +She awoke on a great soft bed that seemed to her wondering eyes as large +as a room. She was sunk in a veritable nest of down, and, sitting up, +she put out a little cautious hand and felt and punched the great pillow +to reassure herself as to its reality. There was a vague question +trembling in the girl's mind as to whether she might not, in fact, have +escaped from Hirata through the same medium as her adored mother, and +was now being wafted on a snowy cloud along the eternal road to +Nirvanna. + +Then the small statue like figure at the foot of the great mahogany bed +moved. Memory flooded the girl. She thought of her mother, and a sob of +anguish escaped her. Crowding upon the mother came the memory of that +delirious moment upon the rope, when feeling that her mother's spirit +was animating her body, she had faced the revellers. Followed the +shivering thought of Hirata--the lash upon her shoulder, its sting +paining so that the mere recollection caused her face to blanch with +terror, dissipated by the memory of what had followed. Again she felt +the exciting thrill of that long flight through the night on the +shoulder of the strange young barbarian. He had burst into the room like +a veritable god from the heavens, and it was impossible to think of him +otherwise than some mighty spirit which the gods had sent to rescue and +save the unworthy child of the dancer. In an instant, she was out of +bed, her quick glance searching the big room, as if somewhere within it +her benefactor was. She was still in her sadly ragged tights, the red +welt showing where the silk had been split by the whip of Hirata. + +The maid approached and wrapped the girl in one of her own kimonas. She +was a silent tongued, still faced woman, who spoke not at all as she +swiftly robed her charge. A servant in the household of the Americans, +she had been summoned in the night to attend the strange new visitor. +Goto, the house boy, had explained to Hatsu that the girl was a dancer +from a neighbouring teahouse, whom his young masters had kidnapped. She +was a great prize, jealously to be guarded, whispered the awed and +gossiping Goto. Hatsu at first had her doubts on this score, for no +dancer or teahouse maiden within her knowledge had ever worn hair of +such a colour nor had skin which was bleached as that of the dead. Hatsu +had discovered her charge in a sleep of complete exhaustion, her soft +fair hair tossed about her on the pillow like that of a child. + +Now as the maid removed the tawdry tights, and arrayed the strange girl +in a respectable kimona, she recognised that those shapely and supple +limbs could only be the peculiar heritage of a dancer and performer. A +warmth radiated lovingly through her hands as she dressed the young +creature confided to her charge. It had never been the lot of Hatsu to +serve one as beautiful as this girl, and there was something of maternal +pride in her as she fell to her task. There was necessity for haste, for +the "Mr. American sirs" were assembled in the main room awaiting her. +Hatsu's task completed, she took the girl by the sleeve, and led her +into the big living room, where were her friends. + +Even in the long loose robes of the elderly maid, she appeared but a +child, with her short hair curling about her face, and her frankly +questioning eyes turning from one to the other. There was an expression +of mingled appeal and childish delight in that expressive look that she +turned upon them ere she knelt on the floor. She made her obeisances +with art and grace, as a true apprentice of her mother. Indeed, her head +ceased not to bob till a laughing young voice broke the spell of silence +that her advent had caused with: + +"Cut it out, kid! We want to have a look at you. Want to see what sort +of prize we pulled in the dark." + +Promptly, obediently she rested back upon her heels, her two small hands +resting flatly on her knees. She turned her face archly, as if inviting +inspection, much to the entertainment of the now charmed circle. The +apprentice of the House of a Thousand Joys upheld the prestige of her +mother's charm. Even the thin, elderly man, with the bright glasses over +which he seemed to peer with an evidently critical and appraising air, +softened visibly before that mingled look of naïve appeal and glowing +youth. The glasses were blinked from the nose, and dangled by their gold +string. He approached nearer to the girl, again put on his glasses, and +subjected her through them to a searching scrutiny, his trained eye +resting longer upon the shining hair of the girl. The glasses blinked +off again at the unabashed wide smile of confidence in those +extraordinary eyes; he cleared his throat, prepared to deliver an +opinion and diagnosis upon the particular species before his glass. +Before he could speak, Jerry broke in belligerently. + +"First of all, let's get this thing clear. She's not going to be handed +back to that blanketty blank baboon. I'm responsible for her, and I'm +going to see that she gets a square deal from this time on." + +The girl's eyes widened as she looked steadily at the kindling face of +the young man, whom she was more than ever assured was a special +instrument of the gods. Professor Barrowes cleared his throat noisily +again, and holding his glasses in his hand, punctuated and emphasised +his remarks: + +"Young gentlemen, I suggest that we put the matter in the hands of Mr. +Blumenthal, our consul here at Nagasaki. I do not know--I will not +express--my opinion of what our rights are in the matter--er as to +whether we have in fact broken some law of Japan in--er--thus forcibly +bringing the--ah--young lady to our home. I am inclined to think that we +are about to experience trouble--considerable trouble I should say--with +this man Hirata. If my memory serves me right, I recall hearing or +reading somewhere that a master of such a house has certain property +right in these--er--young--ah--ladies." + +"That may be true," admitted the especial agent of the gods. "Suppose +she is owned by this man. I'll bet that Japan is not so dashed mediæval +in its laws, that it permits a chimpanzee like that to beat and ill-use +even a slave, and anyway, we'll give him all that's coming to him if he +tries to take her from us." + +"He'll have his hands danged full trying!" + +The girl's champion this time was the youthful one of the bone ribbed +glasses. Looking at him very gravely, she perceived his amazing youth, +despite the wise spectacles that had at first deceived her. There was +that about him that made her feel he was very near to her own age, which +numbered less than fifteen years. Across the intervening space between +them, hazily the girl thought, what a charming playmate the boy of the +bone ribbed glasses would make. She would have liked to run through the +temple gardens with him, and hide in the cavities of the fantastic +rocks, where Japanese children loved to play, and where the wistful eyes +of the solitary little apprentice of the House of a Thousand Joys had +often longingly and enviously watched them. Her new friend she was to +know as "Monty." He had a fine long name with a junior on the end of it +also, but it took many years before she knew her friends by other than +the appellations assigned to them by each other. + +Now the elderly man--perhaps he was the father, thought the girl on the +mat--was again speaking in that emphatic tone of authority. + +"Now my young friends, we have come to Japan with a view to studying the +country and people, and to avail ourselves of such pleasures as the +country affords to its tourists, etc., and, I may point out, that it was +no part of our programme or itinerary to take upon ourselves the +responsibility and burden, I may say, of----" + +"Have--a heart!" + +The big slow voice came from the very fat young man, whose melancholy +expression belied the popular conception of the comical element +associated with those blessed with excessive flesh. "Jinx," as his chums +called him, was the scion of a house of vast wealth and fame, and it was +no fault of his that his heritage had been rich also in fat, flesh and +bone. But now the girl's first friend, with that manner of the natural +leader among men, had again taken matters into his own evidently +competent hands. + +"I say, Jinx, suppose you beat it over to the consul's and get what +advice and dope you can from him. Tell him we purpose carrying the case +to Washington and so forth. And you, Monty and Bobs, skin over to the +teahouse and scare the guts out of that chimpanzee. Hire a bunch of Japs +and cops to help along with the noise. Give him the scare of his life. +Tell him she--she is--dying--at her last gasp and----" + +(Surely the object of their concern understood the English language, for +just then several unexpected dimples sprang abroad, and the little row +of white teeth showed that smile that was her heritage from her mother.) + +"Tell him," went on Jerry, a bit unevenly, deviated from his single +track of thought by that most engaging and surprising smile--"that we'll +have him boiled in oil or lava or some other Japanese concoction. Toddle +along, old dears, or that fellow with the face supporting the Darwinian +theory will get ahead of us with the police." + +"What's your hurry?" growled Jinx, his sentimental gaze resting +fascinatedly upon the girl on the floor. + +The young man Jerry had referred to as Bobs now suggested that there was +a possibility that the girl was deaf and dumb, in view of the fact that +she had not spoken once. This alarming suggestion created ludicrous +consternation. + +"Where's that dictionary, confound it!" Jerry sought the elusive book in +sundry portions of his clothing, and then appealed to the oracle of the +party. + +"I suggest," said Professor Barrowes didactically, "that you try +the--ah--young lady--with the common Japanese greeting. I believe you +all have learned it by now." + +Promptly there issued from four American mouths the musical morning +greeting of the Japanese, reminiscent to them of a well known State +productive of presidents. + +"O--hi--o!" + +The effect on the girl was instantaneous. She arose with grace to her +feet, put her two small hands on her two small knees, bobbed up and down +half a dozen times, and then with that white row of pearls revealed in +an irresistible smile, she returned: + +"Goog--a--morning!" + +There was a swelling of chests at this. Pride in their protégé aroused +them to enthusiastic expressions. + +"Can you beat it?" + +"Did you hear her?" + +"She's a cute kid." + +And from Monty: + +"I could have told you from the first that a girl with hair and eyes +like that wouldn't be chattering any monkey speech." + +Thereupon the girl, uttered another jewel in English, which called forth +not merely approbation, but loud and continuous applause, laughter, and +fists clapped into hands. Said the girl: + +"I speag those mos' bes' Angleesh ad Japan!" + +"I'll say you do," agreed Monty with enthusiasm. + +"Gosh!" said Jinx sadly. "She's the cutest kid _I've_ ever seen." + +"How old are you?" Jerry put the question gently, touched, despite the +merriment her words had occasioned, by something forlorn in the little +figure on the mat before them, so evidently anxious to please them. + +"How ole?" Her expressive face showed evidence of deep regret at having +to admit the humiliating fact that her years numbered but fourteen and +ten months. She was careful to add the ten months to the sum of her +years. + +"And what's your name?" + +"I are got two names." + +"We all have that--Christian and surname we call 'em. What's yours?" + +"I are got Angleesh name--Fleese. You know those name?" she inquired +anxiously. "Thas Angleesh name." + +"Fleese! Fleese!" Not one of them but wanted to assure her that "Fleese" +was a well known name in the English tongue, but even Professor +Barrowes, an authority on the roots of all names, found "Fleese" a new +one. She was evidently disappointed, and said in a slightly depressed +voice: + +"I are sawry you do not know thad Angleesh name. My father are give me +those name." + +"I have it! I have it!" Bobs, who had been scribbling something on +paper, and repeating it with several accents, shouted that the name the +girl meant was undoubtedly "Phyllis," and at that she nodded her head so +vigorously, overjoyed that he threw back his head and burst into +laughter, which was loudly and most joyously and ingenuously entered +into by "Phyllis" also. + +"So that's your name--Phyllis," said Jerry. "You _are_ English then?" + +She shook her head, sighing with regret. + +"No, I sawry for those. I _lig'_ be Angleesh. Thas nize be Angleesh; but +me, I are not those. Also I are got Japanese name. It are Sunlight. My +mother----" Her face became instantly serious as she mentioned her +mother, and bowed her head to the floor reverently. "My honourable +mother have give me that Japanese name--Sunlight, but my father are +change those name. He are call me--Sunny. This whad he call me when he +go away----" Her voice trailed off forlornly, hurt by a memory that went +back to her fifth year. + +They wanted to see her smile again, and Jerry cried enthusiastically: + +"Sunny! Sunny! What a corking little name! It sounds just like you look. +We'll call you that too--Sunny." + +Now Professor Barrowes, too long in the background, came to the fore +with precision. He had been scratching upon a pad of paper a number of +questions he purposed to put to Sunny, as she was henceforth to be known +to her friends. + +"I have a few questions I desire to ask the young--ah--lady, if you have +no objection. I consider it advisable for us to ascertain what we +properly can about the history of Miss--er--Sunny--and so, if you will +allow me." + +He cleared his throat, referred to the paper in his hand and propounded +the first question as follows: + +"Question number one: Are you a white or a Japanese girl?" + +Answer from Sunny: + +"I are white on my face and my honourable body, but I are Japanese on my +honourable insides." + +Muffled mirth followed this reply, and Professor Barrowes having both +blown his nose and cleared his throat applied his glasses to his nose +but was obliged to wait a while before resuming, and then: + +"Question number two: Who were or are your parents? Japanese or white +people?" + +Sunny, her cheeks very red and her eyes very bright: + +"Aexcuse me. I are god no parents or ancestors on those worl'. I sawry. +I miserable girl wizout no ancestor." + +"Question number three: You had parents. You remember them. What +nationality was your mother? I believe Madame Many Smiles was merely her +professional pseudonym. I have heard her variously described as white, +partly white, half caste. What was she--a white woman or a Japanese?" + +Sunny was thinking of that radiant little mother as last she had seen +her in the brilliant dancing robes of the dead geisha. The questions +were touching the throbbing cords of a memory that pierced. Over the +sweet young face a shadow crept. + +"My m-mother," said Sunny softly, "are god two bloods ad her insides. +Her father are Lussian gentleman and her mother are Japanese." + +"And your father?" + +A far-away look came into the girl's eyes as she searched painfully back +into that past that held such sharply bright and poignantly sad memories +of the father she had known such a little time. She no longer saw the +eager young faces about her, or the kindly one of the man who questioned +her. Sunny was looking out before her across the years into that +beautiful past, wherein among the cherry blossoms she had wandered with +her father. It was he who had changed her Japanese name of Sunlight to +"Sunny." A psychologist might have found in this somewhat to redeem him +from his sins against his child and her mother, for surely the name +revealed a softness of the heart which his subsequent conduct might have +led a sceptical world to doubt. Moreover, the first language of her baby +lips was that of her father, and for five years she knew no other +tongue. She thought of him always as of some gay figure in a bright +dream that fled away suddenly into the cruel years that followed. There +had been days of real terror and fear, when Sunny and her mother had +taken the long trail of the mendicant, and knew what it was to feel +hunger and cold and the chilly hand of charity. The mere memory of those +days set the girl shivering, for it seemed such a short time since when +she and that dearest mother crouched outside houses that, lighted +within, shone warmly, like gaudy paper lanterns in the night; of still +darker days of discomfort and misery, when they had hidden in bush, +bramble and in dark woods beyond the paths of men. There had been a +period of sweet rest and refuge in a mountain temple. There everything +had appealed to the imaginative child. Tinkling bells and whirring wings +of a thousand doves, whose home was in gilded loft and spire; bald heads +of murmuring bonzes; waving sleeves of the visiting priestesses, dancing +before the shrine to please the gods; the weary pilgrims who climbed to +the mountain's heart to throw their prayers in the lap of the peaceful +Buddha. A hermitage in a still wood, where an old, old nun, with gentle +feeble voice, crooned over her rosary. All this was as a song that +lingers in one's ears long after the melody has passed--a memory that +stung with its very sweetness. Even here the fugitives were not +permitted to linger for long. + +Pursuing shadows haunted her mother's footsteps and sent her speeding +ever on. She told her child that the shadows menaced their safety. They +had come from across the west ocean, said the mother. They were +barbarian thieves of the night, whose mission was to separate mother +from child, and because separation from her mother spelled for little +Sunny a doom more awful than death itself, she was wont to smother back +her child's cries in her sleeve, and bravely and silently push onward. +So for a period of time of which neither mother nor child took reckoning +the days of their vagabondage passed. + +Then came a night when they skirted the edges of a city of many lights; +lights that hung like stars in the sky; lights that swung over the +intricate canals that ran into streets in and out of the city; harbour +lights from great ships that steamed into the port; the countless little +lights of junks and fisher boats, and the merry lights that shone warmly +inside the pretty paper houses that bespoke home and rest to the +outcasts. And they came to a brilliantly lighted garden, where on long +poles and lines the lanterns were strung, and within the gates they +heard the chattering of the drum, and the sweet tinkle of the samisen. +Here at the gates of the House of a Thousand Joys the mother touched the +gongs. A man with a lantern in his hand came down to the gates, and as +the woman spoke, he raised the light till it revealed that delicate +face, whose loveliness neither pain nor privation nor time nor even +death had ravaged. + +After that, the story of the geisha was well known. Her career had been +an exceptional one in that port of many teahouses. From the night of her +début to the night of her death the renown of Madame Many Smiles had +been undimmed. + +Sunny, looking out before her, in a sad study, that caught her up into +the web of the vanished years, could only shake her head dumbly at her +questioner, as he pressed her: + +"Your father--you have not answered me?" + +"I kinnod speag about my--father. I sawry, honourable sir," and suddenly +the child's face drooped forward as if she humbly bowed, but the young +men watching her saw the tears that dropped on her clasped hands. + +Exclamations of pity and wrath burst from them impetuously. + +"We've no right to question her like this," declared Jerry Hammond +hotly. "It's not of any consequence who her people are. She's got us +now. We'll take care of her from this time forth." At that Sunny again +raised her head, and right through her tears she smiled up at Jerry. It +made him think of an April shower, the soft rain falling through the +sunlight. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + +Only one who has been in bondage all of his days can appreciate that +thrill that comes with sudden freedom. The Americans had set Sunny free. +She had been bound by law to the man Hirata through an iniquitous bond +that covered all the days of her young life--a bond into which the +average geisha is sold in her youth. Sunny's mother had signed the +contract when starvation faced them, and reassured by the promises of +Hirata. + +What price and terms the avaricious Hirata extracted from the Americans +is immaterial, but they took precautions that the proceeding should be +in strict accord with the legal requirements of Japan. The American +consul and Japanese lawyers governed the transaction. Hirata, gloated +with the unexpected fortune that had come to him through the sale of the +apprentice-geisha, overwhelmed the disgusted young men, whom he termed +now his benefactors, with servile compliments, and hastened to comply +with all their demands, which included the delivery to Sunny of the +effects of her mother. Goto bore the box containing her mother's +precious robes and personal belongings into the great living room. + +Life had danced by so swiftly and strangely for Sunny in these latter +days, that she had been diverted from her sorrow. Now, as she slowly +opened the bamboo chest, with its intangible odour of dear things, she +experienced a strangling sense of utter loss and pain. Never again would +she hear that gentle voice, admonishing and teaching her; never again +would she rest her tired head on her mother's knee and find rest and +comfort from the sore trials of the day; for the training of the +apprentice-geisha is harsh and spartan like. As Sunny lifted out her +mother's sparkling robe, almost she seemed to see the delicate head +above it. A sob broke from the heart of the girl, and throwing herself +on the floor by the chest, she wept with her face in the silken folds. A +moth fluttered out of one of the sleeves, and hung tremulously above the +girl's head. Sunny, looking up, addressed it reverently: + +"I will not hurt you, little moth. It may be you are the spirit of my +honourable mother. Pray you go upon your way," and she softly blew up at +the moth. + +It was that element of helplessness, a feminine quality of appeal about +Sunny, that touched something in the hearts of her American friends that +was chivalrous and quixotic. Always, when Sunny was in trouble, they +took the jocular way of expressing their feelings for their charge. To +tease, joke, chaff and play with Sunny, that was their way. So, on this +day, when they returned to the house, to find the girl with her tear-wet +face pressed against her mother's things, they sought an instant means, +and as Jerry insisted, a practical one, of banishing her sadness. After +the box had been taken from the room, Goto and Jinx told some funny +stories, which brought a faint smile to Sunny's face. Monty proffered a +handful of sweets picked up in some adjacent shop, while Bobs sought +scientifically to arouse her to a semblance of her buoyant spirits by +discussing all the small live things that were an unfailing source of +interest always to the girl, and pretended an enthusiasm over white +rabbits which he declared were in the garden. Jerry broached his +marvellous plan, pronounced by Professor Barrowes to be preposterous, +unheard of and impossible. In Jerry's own words, the scheme was as +follows: + +"I propose that we organise and found a company or Syndicate, all +present to have the privilege of owning stock in said company; its +purpose being to take care of Sunny for the rest of her days. Sooner or +later we fellows must return to the U. S. We are going to provide for +Sunny's future after we are gone." + +Thus the Sunny Syndicate Limited came into being. It was capitalised at +$10,000, paid in capital, a considerable sum in Japan, and quite +sufficient to keep the girl in comfort for the rest of her days. +Professor Timothy Barrowes was unanimously elected President, J. Lyon +Crawford (Jinx) treasurer; Robert M. Mapson (Bobs), secretary of the +concern, and Joseph Lamont Potter, Jr. (Monty), though under age, after +an indignant argument was permitted to hold a minimum measure of stock +and also voted a director. J. Addison Hammond, Jr. (Jerry), held down +the positions of first vice-president, managing director and general +manager and was grudgingly admitted to be the founder and promoter of +the great idea, and the discoverer of Sunny, assets of aforesaid +Syndicate. + +At the initial Board meeting of the Syndicate, which was riotously +attended, the purpose of the Syndicate was duly set forth in the minutes +read, approved and signed by all, which was, to wit, to feed, clothe, +educate and furnish with sundry necessities and luxuries the aforesaid +Sunny for the rest of her natural days. + +The education of Sunny strongly appealed to the governing president, +who, despite his original protest, was the most active member of the +Syndicate. He promptly outlined a course which would tend to cultivate +those hitherto unexplored portions of Sunny's pliable young mind. A girl +of almost fifteen, unable to read or write, was in the opinion of +Professor Barrowes a truly benighted heathen. What matter that she knew +the Greater Learning for Women by heart, knew the names of all the gods +and goddesses cherished by the Island Empire; had an intimate +acquaintance with the Japanese language, and was able to translate and +indite epistles in the peculiar figures intelligible only to the +Japanese. The fact remained that she was in a state of abysmal ignorance +so far as American education was concerned. Her friends assured her of +the difficulty of their task, and impressed upon her the necessity of +hard study and co-operation on her part. She was not merely to learn the +American language, she was, with mock seriousness, informed, but she was +to acquire the American point of view, and in fact unlearn much of the +useless knowledge she had acquired of things Japanese. + +To each member of the Syndicate Professor Barrowes assigned a subject in +which he was to instruct Sunny. Himself he appointed principal of the +"seminary" as the young men merrily named it; Jerry was instructor in +reading and writing, Bobs in spelling, Jinx in arithmetic, and to young +Monty, aged seventeen, was intrusted the task of instructing Sunny in +geography, a subject Professor Barrowes well knew the boy was himself +deficient in. He considered this an ideal opportunity, in a sort of +inverted way, to instruct Monty himself. To the aid and help of the +Americans came the Reverend Simon Sutherland, a missionary, whose many +years of service among the heathen had given to his face that sadly +solemn expression of martyr zealot. His the task to transform Sunny into +a respectable Christian girl. + +Sunny's progress in her studies was eccentric. There were times when she +was able to read so glibly and well that the pride of her teacher was +only dashed when he discovered that she had somehow learned the words by +heart, and in picking them out had an exasperating habit of pointing to +the wrong words. She could count to ten in English. Her progress in +Geography was attested to by her admiring and enthusiastic teacher, and +she herself, dimpling, referred to the U. S. A. as being "over cross +those west water, wiz grade flag of striped stars." + +However, her advance in religion exceeded all her other attainments, and +filled the breast of the good missionary with inordinate pride. An +expert and professional in the art of converting the heathen, he +considered Sunny's conversion at the end of the second week as little +short of miraculous, and, as he explained to the generous young +Americans, who had done so much for the mission school in which the +Reverend Simon Sutherland was interested, he was of the opinion that the +girl's quick comprehension of the religion was due to a sort of +reversion to type, she being mainly of white blood. So infatuated indeed +was the good man by his pupil's progress that he could not forbear to +bring her before her friends, and show them what prayer and sincere +labour among the heathen were capable of doing. + +Accordingly, the willing and joyous convert was haled before an admiring +if somewhat sceptical circle in the cheerful living room of the +Americans. Here, her hands clasped piously together, she chanted the +prepared formula: + +"Gentlemens"--Familiar daily intercourse with her friends brought easily +to the girl's tongue their various nicknames, but "Gentlemens" she now +addressed them. + +"I stan here to make statements to you that I am turn Kirishitan." + +"English, my dear child. Use the English language, please." + +"--that I am turn those Christian girl. I can sing those--a-gospel song; +and I are speak those--ah--gospel prayer, and I know those +cat--cattykussem like--like----" + +Sunny wavered as she caught the uplifted eyebrow of the missionary +signalling to her behind the back of Professor Barrowes. Now the words +began to fade away from Sunny. Alone with the missionary it was +remarkable how quickly she was able to commit things to memory. Before +an audience like this, she was as a child who stands upon a platform +with his first recitation, and finds his tongue tied and memory failing. +What was it now the Reverend Simon Sutherland desired her to say? +Confused, but by no means daunted, Sunny cast about in her mind for some +method of propitiating the minister. At least, she could pray. Folding +her hands before her, and dropping her Buddhist rosary through her +fingers, she murmured the words of that quaint old hymn: + + "What though those icy breeze, + He blow sof' on ze isle + Though evrything he pleases + And jos those man he's wild, + In vain with large kind + The gift of those gods are sown, + Those heathen in blindness + Bow down to wood and stone." + +They let her finish the chant, the words of which were almost +unintelligible to her convulsed audience, who vainly sought to strangle +their mirth before the crestfallen and sadly hurt Mr. Sutherland. He +took the rosary from Sunny's fingers, saying reprovingly: + +"My dear child, that is not a prayer, and how many times must I tell you +that we do not use a rosary in our church. All we desire from you at +this time is a humble profession as to your conversion to Christianity. +Therefore, my child, your friends and I wish to be reassured on that +score." + +"I'd like to hear her do the catechism. She says she knows it," came in +a muffled voice from Bobs. + +"Certainly, certainly," responded the missionary. "Attention, my dear. +First, I will ask you: What is your name?" + +Sunny, watching him with the most painful earnestness indicative of her +earnest desire to please, was able to answer at once joyously. + +"My name are Sunny--Syndicutt." + +The mirth was barely suppressed by the now indignant minister, who +glared in displeasure upon the small person so painfully trying to +realise his ambitions for her. To conciliate the evidently angry Mr. +Sutherland, she rattled along hurriedly: + +"I am true convert. I swear him. By those eight million gods of the +heavens and the sea, and by God-dam I swear it that I am nixe Kirishitan +girl." + + * * * * * + +A few minutes later Sunny was alone, even Professor Barrowes having +hastily followed his charges from the room to avoid giving offence to +the missionary, whose angry tongue was now loosened, and flayed the +unhappy girl ere he too departed in dudgeon via the front door. + + * * * * * + +That evening, after the dinner, Sunny, who had been very quiet during +the meal, went directly from the table to her room upstairs, and to the +calls after her of her friends, she replied that she had "five thousan +words to learn him to spell." + +Professor Barrowes, furtively wiping his eyes and then his glasses, +shook them at his protesting young charges and asserted that the +missionary was quite within his rights in punishing Sunny by giving her +500 lines to write. + +"She's been at it all day," was the disgusted comment of Monty. "It's a +rotten shame, to put that poor kid to copying that little hell of a +line." + +"Sir," said the Professor, stiffening and glaring through his glasses at +Monty, "I wish you to know that line happens to be taken from +a--er--book esteemed sacred, and I have yet to learn that it had its +origin in the infernal regions as suggested by you. What is more, I may +say that Miss Sunny's progress in reading and spelling, arithmetic, and +geography has not been what I had hoped. Accordingly I have instructed +her that she must study for an hour in the evening after dinner, and I +have further advised the young lady that I do not wish her to leave the +house on any pleasure expedition this evening." + +A howl of indignant protest greeted this pronouncement and the air was +electric with bristling young heads. + +"Say, Proff. Sunny promised to go out with me this evening. She knows a +shop where they sell that sticky gum drop stuff that I like, and we're +going down Snowdrop Ave. to Canal Lane. Let her off, just this time, +will you?" + +"I will not. She must learn to spell Cat, Cow, Horse and Dog and such +words as a baby of five knows properly before she can go out on pleasure +trips." + +Jinx ponderously sat up on his favourite sofa, the same creaking under +him as the big fellow moved. In an injured tone he set forth his rights +for the evening to Sunny. + +"Sunny has a date with me to play me a nice little sing-song on that Jap +guitar of hers. I'm not letting her off this or any other night." + +"She made a date with me too," laughed Bobs. "We were to star gaze, if +you please. She says she knows the history of all the most famous stars +in the heavens, and she agreed to show me the exact geographical spot in +the firmament where that Amaterumtumtum, or whatever she calls it, +goddess, lost her robes in the Milky Way just while she was descending +to earth to be an ancestor to the Emperor of Japan." Mockingly Bobs +bowed his head in solemn and comical imitation of Sunny at the mention +of the Emperor. + +Jerry was thinking irritably that Sunny and he were to have stolen away +after supper for a little trip in a private junk, owned by a friend of +Sunny's, and she said that the rowers would play the guitar and sing as +the gondoliers of Italy do. Jerry had a fancy for that trip in the +moonlight, with Sunny's little hand cuddled up in his, and the child +chattering some of her pretty nonsense. Confound it, the little baggage +had promised her time to every last one of her friends, and so it was +nearly every night in the week. Sunny had much ado making and breaking +engagements with her friends. + +"It strikes me," said Professor Barrowes, stroking his chin humorously, +"that Miss Sunny has in her all the elements that go to the making of a +most complete and finished coquette. For your possible edification, +gentlemen, I will mention that the young lady also offered to accompany +me to a certain small temple where she informs me a bonze of the +Buddhist religion has a library of er--one million years, so claims Miss +Sunny, and this same bonze she assured me has a unique collection of +ancient butterflies which have come down from prehistoric days. +Ahem!--er--I shall play fair with you young gentlemen. I desire very +much to see the articles I have mentioned. I doubt very much the +authenticity of the same, but have an open mind. I shall, however, +reserve the pleasure of seeing these collections till a more convenient +period. In the meanwhile I advise you all to go about your respective +concerns, and I bid you good-night, gentlemen, I bid you good-night." + + * * * * * + +The house was silent. The living room, with its single reading lamp, +seemed empty and cold, and Professor Barrowes with a book whose contents +would have aforetime utterly absorbed him, as it dealt with the +fascinating subject of the Dinornis, of post-Pliocene days, found +himself unable to concentrate. His well-governed mind had in some +inexplicable way become intractable. It persisted in wandering up to the +floor above, where Professor Barrowes knew was a poor young girl, who +was studying hard into the night. Twice he went outdoors to assure +himself that Sunny was still studying, and each time the glowing light, +and the chanting voice aroused his further compunction and remorse. +Unable longer to endure the distracting influence that took his mind +from his favourite study, the Professor stole on tiptoe up the stairs to +Sunny's door. The voice inside went raucously on. + +"C-a-t--dog. C-a-t--dog. C-a-t--dog!" + +Something about that voice, devoid of all the charm peculiar to Sunny, +grated against the sensitive ear at the keyhole, and accordingly he +withdrew the ear and applied the eye. What he saw inside caused him to +sit back solidly on the floor, speechless with mirthful indignation. + +Hatsu, the maid, sat stonily before the little desk of her mistress, and +true to the instructions of Sunny, she was loudly chanting that C-a-t +spelled Dog. + +Outside the window--well, there was a lattice work that ascended +conveniently to Sunny's room. Her mode of exit was visible to the +simplest minded, but the question that agitated the mind of Professor +Barrowes, and sent him off into a spree of mirthful speculation was +which one of the members of the Sunny Syndicate Limited had Miss Sunny +Sindicutt eloped with? + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + +To be adopted by four young men and one older one; to be surrounded by +every care and luxury; to be alternately scolded, pampered, admonished +and petted, this was the joyous fate of Sunny. Life ran along for the +happy child like a song, a poem which even Takumushi could not have +composed. + +Sunny greeted the rising sun with the kisses that she had been taught to +throw to garden audiences, and hailed the blazing orb each morning, +having bowed three times, hands on knees, with words like these: + +"Ohayo! honourable Sun. I glad you come again. Thas a beautiful day you +are bring, an I thang you thad I are permit to live on those day. Hoh! +Amaterasuoho-mikami, shining lady of the Sun, I are mos' happiest girl +ad those Japan!" + +The professional geisha is taught from childhood--for her apprenticeship +begins from earliest youth--that her mission in life is to bring joy and +happiness into the world, to divert, to banish all care by her own +infectious buoyancy, to heal, to dissipate the cares of mere mortals; to +cultivate herself so that she shall become the very essence of joy. If +trouble comes to her own life, to so exercise self-control that no trace +of her inner distress must be reflected in her looks or conduct. She +must, in fact, make a science of her profession. To laugh with those who +laugh and weep with those who find a balm in tears--that is the work of +the geisha. + +Sunny, a product of the geisha house, and herself apprentice to the joy +women of Japan, was of another race by blood, yet always there was to +cling to her that intangible charm, that like a strange perfume bespeaks +the geisha of Japan. In her odd way Sunny laid out her campaign to charm +and please the ones who had befriended her, and toward whom she felt a +gratitude that both touched and embarrassed them. + +Her new plan of life, however, violated all the old rules which had +governed in the teahouse. Sunny was sore put to it to adjust herself to +the novelty of a life that knew not the sharp and imperative voice, +which cut like a whip in staccato order, from the master of the geishas; +nor the perilous trapeze, the swinging rope, to fall from which was to +bring down upon her head harsh rebuke, and sometimes the threatening +flash of the whip, whirling in the air, and barely scraping the girl on +the rope. She had been whipped but upon that one occasion, for her +mother was too valuable an asset in the House of a Thousand Joys for +Hirata to risk offending; but always he loved to swing the lash above +the girl's head, or hurl it near to the feet that had faltered from the +rope, so that she might know that it hung suspended above her to fall at +a time when she failed. There were pleasant things too in the House of a +Thousand Smiles that Sunny missed--the tap tap of the drum, the pat pat +of the stockinged feet on the polished dance matting; the rising and +falling of the music of the samisen as it tinkled in time to the swaying +fans and posturing bodies of the geishas. All this was the joyous part +of that gaudy past, which her honourable new owners had bidden her +forget. + +Sunny desired most earnestly to repay her benefactors, but her offers to +dance for them were laughingly joshed aside, and she was told that they +did not wish to be repaid in dancing coin. All they desired in return +was that she should be happy, forget the bitter past, and they always +added "grow up to be the most beautiful girl in Japan." This was a +joking formula among them. To order Sunny to be merely happy and +beautiful. Happy she was, but beauty! Ah! that was more difficult. + +Beauty, thought Sunny, must surely be the aim and goal of all Americans. +Many were the moments when she studied her small face in the mirror, and +regretted that it would be impossible for her to realise the ambition of +her friends. Her face, she was assured, violated all the traditions and +canons of the Japanese ideal of beauty. That required jet black hair, +lustrous as lacquer, a long oval face, with tiny, carmine touched lips, +narrow, inscrutable eyes, a straight, sensitive nose, a calmness of +expression and poise that should serve as a mask to all internal +emotions; above all an elegance and distinction in manners and dress +that would mark one as being of an elevated station in life. Now Sunny's +hair was fair, and despite brush and oil generously applied, till +forbidden by her friends, it curled in disobedient ringlets about her +young face. The hair alone marked her in the estimation of the Japanese +as akin to the lower races, since curly hair was one of the marks +peculiar to the savages. Neither were her eyes according to the Japanese +ideal of beauty. They were, it is true, long and shadowed by the +blackest of lashes, and in fact were her one feature showing the trace +of her oriental taint or alloy, for they tipped up somewhat at the +corners, and she had a trick of glancing sideways through the dark +lashes that her friends found eerily fascinating; unfortunately those +eyes were large, and instead of being the prescribed black, were pure +amber in colour, with golden lights of the colour of her hair. Her skin, +finally, was, as the mentor of the geisha house had primly told her, +bleached like the skin of the dead. Save where the colour flooded her +cheeks like peach bloom, Sunny's skin was as white as snow, and all the +temporary stains and dark powder applied could not change the colour of +her skin. To one accustomed to the Japanese point of view, Sunny +therefore could see nothing in her own lovely face that would realise +the desire of her friends that she should be beautiful; but respectfully +and humbly she promised them that she would try to obey them, and she +carried many gifts and offerings to the feet of Amaterasu-ohomikami, +whose beauty had made her the supreme goddess of the heavens. + +"Beauty," said Jerry Hammond, walking up and down the big living room, +his hair rumpled, and his hands loosely in his pockets, "is the aim and +end of all that is worth while in life, Sunny. If we have it, we have +everything. Beauty is something we are unable to define. It is elusive +as a feather that floats above our heads. A breath will blow it beyond +our reach, and a miracle will bring it to our hand. Now, the gods +willing, I am going to spend all of the days of my life pursuing and +reaching after Beauty. Despite my parents' fond expectations of a +commercial career for their wayward son, I propose to be an artist." + +From which it will be observed that Jerry's idea of beauty was hardly +that comprehended by Sunny, though in a vague way she sensed also his +ideal. + +"An artist!" exclaimed she, clasping her hands with enthusiasm. "Ho! +_how_ thad will be grade. I thing you be more grade artist than +Hokusai!" + +"Oh, Sunny, impossible! Hokusai was one of the greatest artists that +ever lived. I'm not built of the same timber, Sunny." There was a touch +of sadness to Jerry's voice. "My scheme is not to paint pictures. I +propose to beautify cities. To the world I shall be known merely as an +architect, but you and I, Sunny, we will know, won't we, that I am an +artist; because, you see, even if one fails to create the beautiful, the +hunger and the desire for it is just as important. It's like being a +poet at heart, without being able to write poetry. Now some fellows +_write_ poetry of a sort--but they are not poets--not in their thought +and lives, Sunny. I'd rather be a poet than write poetry. Do you +understand that?" + +"Yes--I understand," said Sunny softly. "The liddle butterfly when he +float on the flower, he cannot write those poetry--but he are a poem; +and the honourable cloud in those sky, so sof', so white, so loavely he +make one's heart leap up high at chest--thas poem too!" + +"Oh, Sunny, what a perfect treasure you are! I'm blessed if you don't +understand a fellow better than one of his own countrywomen would." + +To cover a feeling of emotion and sentiment that invariably swept over +Jerry when he talked with Sunny on the subject of beauty, and because +moreover there was that about her own upturned face that disturbed him +strangely, he always assumed a mock serious air, and affected to tease +her. + +"But to get back to you, Sunny. Now, all you've got to do to please the +Syndicate is to be a good girl _and_ beautiful. It ought not to be hard, +because you see you've got such a bully start. Keep on, and who knows +you'll end not only by being the most beautiful girl in Japan, but the +Emperor himself--the Emperor of Japan, mark you, will step down from his +golden throne, wave his wand toward you and marry you! So there you'll +be--the royal Empress of Japan." + +"The Emperor!" Sunny's head went reverently to the mats. Her eyes, very +wide, met Jerry's in shocked question. "You want me marry wiz--the Son +of Heaven? _How_ I can do those?" + +Again her head touched the floor, her curls bobbing against flushed +cheeks. + +"Easy as fishing," solemnly Jerry assured her. "They say the old dub is +quite approachable, and you've only to let him see you once, and that +will be enough for him. Just think, Sunny, what that will mean to you, +and to us all--to be Empress of Japan. Why, you will only need to wave +your hand or sleeve, and all sorts of favours will descend upon our +heads. You will be able to repay us threefold for any insignificant +service we may have done for you. Once Empress of Japan, you can summon +us back to these fair isles and turn over to us all the political plums +of the Empire. As soon as you give us the high sign, old scout, we'll be +right on the job." + +"Jerry, you like very much those plum?" + +"You better believe I do." + +Sunny, chin in hand, was off in a mood of abstraction. She was thinking +very earnestly of the red plum tree that grew above the tomb of the +great Lord of Kakodate. He, that sleeping lord, would not miss a single +plum, and she would go to the cemetery in the early morning, and when +she had accomplished the theft, she would pray at the temple for +absolution for her sin, which would not be so bad because Sunny would +have sinned for love. + +"A penny for your thoughts, Sunny!" + +"I are think, Jerry, that some things you ask me I can do; others, +no--thas not possible. Wiz this liddle hand I cannod dip up the ocean. +Thas proverb of our Japan. I cannod marry those Emperor, and me? I +cannod also make beauty on my face." + +"Give it a try, Sunny," jeered Jerry, laughing at her serious face. "You +have no idea what time and art will do for one." + +"Time--and--art," repeated Sunny, like a child learning a lesson. She +comprehended time, but she had inherited none of the Japanese traits of +patience. She would have wished to leap over that first obstacle to +beauty. Art, she comprehended, as a physical aid to a face and form +unendowed with the desired beauty. She carried her problem to her maid. + +"Hatsu, have you ever seen the Emperor?" + +Both of their heads bobbed quickly to the mat. + +Hatsu had not. She had, it is true, walked miles through country roads, +on a hot, dry day, to reach the nearest town through which the Son of +Heaven's cortege had once passed. But, of course, as the royal party +approached, Hatsu, like all the peasants who had come to the town on +this gala day, had fallen face downward on the earth. It was impossible +for her therefore to see the face of the Son of Heaven. However, Hatsu +had seen the back of his horse--the modern Emperor rode thus abroad, +clear to the view of subjects less humble than Hatsu, who dared to raise +their eyes to his supreme magnificence. Sunny sighed. She felt sure that +had she been in Hatsu's place, she would at least have peeped through +her fingers at the mikado. Rummaging among her treasures in the bamboo +chest, Sunny finally discovered what she sought--a picture of the +Emperor. This she laid before her on the floor, and for a long, long +time she studied the features thoughtfully and anxiously. After a while, +she said with a sigh, unconscious of the blasphemy, which caused her +maid to turn pale with horror, + +"I do not like his eye, and I do not like his nose, and I do not like +his mouth. Yet, Hatsusan, it is the wish of Jerry-sama that I should +marry this Emperor, and now I must make myself so beautiful that it will +not hurt his eye if he deigns to look at me." + +Hatsu, at this moment was too overcome with the utter audacity of the +scheme to move, and when she did find her voice, she said in a +breathless whisper: + +"Mistress, the Son of Heaven already has a wife." + +"Ah, yes," returned Sunny, with somewhat of the careless manner toward +sacred things acquired from her friends, "but perhaps he may desire +another one. Come, Hatsusan. Work very hard on my face. Make me look +like ancient picture of an Empress of Japan. See, here is a model!" She +offered one of her mother's old prints, that revealed a court lady in +trailing gown and loosened hair, an uplifted fan half revealing, half +disclosing a weirdly lovely face, as she turned to look at a tiny dog +frolicking on her train. + +It was a long, a painful and arduous process, this work of beautifying +Sunny. There was fractious hair to be darkened and smoothed, and false +hair to help out the illusion. There was a small face that had to be +almost completely made over, silken robes from the mother's chest to +slip over the girlish shoulders, shining nails to be polished and hidden +behind gold nail protectors, paint and paste to be thickly applied, and +a cape of a thousand colours to be thrown over the voluminous many +coloured robes beneath. + +The sky was a dazzling blaze of red and gold. Even the deepening shadows +were touched with gilt, and the glory of that Japanese sunset cast its +reflection upon the book-lined walls of the big living room, where the +Americans, lingering over pipe and hook, dreamily and appreciatively +watched the marvellous spectacle through the widely opened windows. But +their siesta was strangely interrupted, for, like a peacock, a strange +vision trailed suddenly into the room and stood with suspended breath, +fan half raised, in the manner of a court lady of ancient days, awaiting +judgment. They did not know her at first. This strange figure seemed to +have stepped out of some old Japanese print, and was as far from being +the little Sunny who had come into their lives and added the last touch +of magic to their trip in Japan. + +After the first shock, they recognised Sunny. Her face was heavily +plastered with a white paste. A vivid splotch of red paint adorned and +accentuated either slightly high cheek bone. Her eyebrows had +disappeared under a thick layer of paste, and in their place appeared a +brand new pair of intensely black ones, incongruously laid about an inch +above the normal line and midway of her forehead. Her lips were painted +to a vivid point, star shaped, so that the paint omitted the corners of +Sunny's mouth, where were the dimples that were part of the charm of the +Sunny they knew. Upon the girl's head rested an amazing ebony wig, one +long lock of which trailed fantastically down from her neck to the hem +of her robe. Shining daggers and pins, and artificial flowers completed +a head dress. She was arrayed in an antique kimona, an article of stiff +and unlimited dimensions, under which were seven other robes of the +finest silk, each signifying some special virtue. A train trailed behind +Sunny that covered half the length of the room. Her heavily embroidered +outer robe was a gift to her mother from a prince, and its magnificence +proclaimed its antiquity. + +It may be truly said for Sunny that she indeed achieved her own peculiar +idea of what constituted beauty, and as she swept the fan from before +her face with real art and grace there was pardonable pride in her voice +as she said: + +"Honourable Mr. sirs, mebbe _now_ you goin' say I are beautifullest +enough girl to make those Emperor marry wiz me." + +A moment of tense silence, and then the room resounded and echoed to the +startled mirth of the young barbarians. But no mirth came from Sunny, +and no mirth came from Jerry. The girl stood in the middle of the room, +and through all her pride and dazzling attire she showed how deeply they +had wounded her. A moment only she stayed, and then tripping over her +long train and dropping her fan in her hurry, Sunny fled from the room. + +Jerry said with an ominous glare at the convulsed Bobs, Monty and even +the aforesaid melancholy Jinx: + +"It was my fault. I told her art and time would make her beautiful." + +"The devil they would," snorted Bobs. "I'd like to know how you figured +that art and time could contribute to Sunny's natural beauty. By George, +she got herself up with the aid of your damned art, to look like a +valentine, if you ask me." + +"I don't agree with you," declared Jerry hotly. "It's all how one looks +at such things. It's a symptom of provincialism to narrow our admiration +to one type only. Such masters as Whistler of our own land, and many of +the most famous artists of Europe have not hesitated to take Japanese +art as their model. What Sunny accomplished was the reproduction of a +living work of art of the past, and it is the crassest kind of ignorance +to reward her efforts with laughter." + +Jerry was almost savage in his denunciation of his friends. + +"I agree with you," said Professor Barrowes snapping his glasses back on +his nose, "absolutely, absolutely. You are entirely right, Mr. Hammond," +and in turn he glared upon his "class" as if daring anyone of them to +question his own opinion. Jinx indeed did feebly say: + +"Well, for my part, give me Sunny as we know her. Gosh! I don't see +anything pretty in all that dolled-up stuff and paint on her." + +"Now, young gentleman," continued Professor Barrowes, seizing the moment +to deliver a gratuitous lecture, "there are certain cardinal laws +governing art and beauty. It is not a matter of eyes, ears and noses, or +even the colour of the skin. It is how we are accustomed to look at a +thing. As an example, we might take a picture. Seen from one angle, it +reveals a mass of chaotic colour that has no excuse for being. Seen from +another point, the purpose of the artist is clearly delineated, and we +are trapped in the charm of his creation. Every clime has its own +peculiar estimate, but it comes down each time to ourselves. Poetically +it has been beautifully expressed as follows: 'Unless we carry the +beautiful with us, we will find it not.' Ahem!" Professor Barrowes +cleared his throat angrily, and scowled, with Jerry, at their +unappreciative friends. + +Goto, salaaming deeply in the doorway, was sonorously announcing +honourable dinner for the honourable sirs, and coming softly across the +hall, in her simple plum coloured kimona with its golden obi, the paint +washed from her face, and showing it fresh and clean as a baby's, +Sunny's April smile was warming and cheering them all again. + +Jinx voiced the sentiment of them all, including the angry professor and +beauty loving Jerry: + +"Gosh! give me Sunny just as she is, without one plea." + + + + + CHAPTER V + + +There comes a time in the lives of all young men sojourning in foreign +lands when the powers that be across the water summon them to return to +the land of their birth. + +Years before, letters and cablegrams not unsimilar to those that now +poured in upon her friends came persistently across the water to the +father of Sunny. Then there was no Professor Barrowes to govern and lay +down the law to the infatuated man. He was able to put off the departure +for several years, but with the passage of time the letters that +admonished and threatened not only ceased to come, but the necessary +remittances stopped also. Sunny's father found himself in the novel +position of being what he termed "broke" in a strange land. + +As in the case of Jerry Hammond, whose people were all in trade, there +was a strange vein of sentiment in the father of Sunny. To his people +indeed, he appeared to be one of those freaks of nature that sometimes +appear in the best regulated families, and deviate from the proper paths +followed by his forbears. He had acquired a sentiment not merely for the +land, but for the woman he had taken as his wife; above all, he was +devoted to his little girl. It is hard to judge of the man from his +subsequent conduct upon his return to America. His marriage to the +mother of Sunny had been more or less of a mercenary transaction. She +had been sold to the American by a stepfather anxious to rid himself of +a child who showed the clear evidence of her white father, and greedy to +avail himself of the terms offered by the American. It was, in fact, a +gay union into which the rich, fast young man thoughtlessly entered, +with a cynical disregard of anything but his own desires. The result was +to breed in him at the outset a feeling that he would not have analysed +as contempt, but was at all events scepticism for the seeming love of +his wife for him. + +It was different with his child. His affection for her was a beautiful +thing. No shadow of doubt or criticism came to mar the love that existed +between father and child. True, Sunny was the product of a temporary +union, a ceremony of the teacup, which nevertheless is a legal marriage +in Japan, and so regarded by the Japanese. Lightly as the American may +have regarded his union with her mother, he looked upon the child as +legally and fully his own, and was prepared to defend her rights. + +In America, making a clean breast to parents and family lawyers, he +assented to the terms made by them, on condition that his child at least +should be obtained for him. The determination to obtain possession of +his child became almost a monomania with the man, and he took measures +that were undeniably ruthless to gratify his will. It may be also that +he was at this time the victim of agents and interested parties. +However, he had lived in Japan long enough to know of the proverbial +frailty of the sex. The mercenary motives he believed animated the woman +in marrying him, her inability to reveal her emotions in the manner of +the women of his own race; her seeming indifference and coldness at +parting, which indeed was part of her spartan heritage to face dire +trouble unblenching--the sort of thing which causes Japanese women to +send their warrior husbands into battle with smiles upon their lips--all +these things contributed to beat the man into a mood of acquiescence to +the demands of his parents. He deluded himself into believing that his +Japanese wife, like her dolls, was incapable of any intense feeling. + +In due time, the machinery of law, which works for those who pay, with +miraculous swiftness in Japan, was set into motion, and the frail bonds +that so lightly bound the American to his Japanese wife, were severed. +At this time the mother of Sunny had been plastic and apparently +complacent, though rejecting the compensation proffered her by her +husband's agents. The woman, who was later to be known as Madame Many +Smiles, turned cold as death, however, when the disposition of her child +was broached. Nevertheless her smiling mask betrayed no trace to the +American agents of the anguished turmoil within. Indeed her amiability +aroused indignant and disgusted comment, and she was pronounced a +soulless butterfly. This diagnosis of the woman was to be rudely +shattered, when, beguiled by her seeming indifference, they relaxed +somewhat of their vigilant espionage of her, and awoke one morning to +find that the butterfly had flown beyond their reach. + +The road of the mendicant, hunger, cold, and even shame were nearer to +the gates of Nirvanna than life in splendour without her child. That was +all part of the story of Madame Many Smiles. + +History, in a measure, was to repeat itself in the life of Sunny. She +had come to depend for her happiness upon her friends, and the shock of +their impending departure was almost more than she could bear. + +She spent many hours kneeling before Kuonnon, the Goddess of Mercy, +throwing her petitions upon the lap of the goddess, and bruising her +brow at the stone feet. It is sad to relate of Sunny, who so avidly had +embraced the Christian faith, and was to the proud Mr. Sutherland an +example of his labours in Japan, that in the hour of her great trouble +she should turn to a heathen goddess. Yet here was Sunny, bumping her +head at the stone feet. What could the Three-in-one God of the Reverend +Mr. Sutherland do for her now? Sunny had never seen his face; but she +knew well the benevolent comprehending smile of the Goddess of Mercy, +and in Her, Sunny placed her trust. And so: + +"Oh, divine Kuonnon, lovely Lady of Mercy, hear my petition. Do not +permit my friends to leave Japan. Paralyse their feet. Blind their eyes +that they may not see the way. Pray you close up the west ocean, so no +ships may take my friends across. Hold them magnetised to the honourable +earth of Japan." + +Sitting back on her heels, having voiced her petition anxiously she +scanned the face of the lady above her. The candles flickered and +wavered in the soft wind, and the incense curled in a spiral cloud and +wound in rings about the head of the celestial one. Sunny held her two +hands out pleadingly toward the unmoving face. + +"Lovely Kuonnon, it is true that I have tried magic to keep my friends +with me, but even the oni (goblins) do not hear me, and my friends' +boxes stand now in the ozashiki and the cruel carts carry them through +the streets." + +Her voice rose breathlessly, and she leaned up and stared with wide eyes +at the still face above her, with its everlasting smile, and its lips +that never moved. + +"It is true! It is true!" cried Sunny excitedly. "The mission sir is +right. There is no living heart in your breast. You are only stone. You +cannot even hear my prayer. How then will you answer it?" + +Half appalled by her own blasphemy, she shivered away from the goddess, +casting terrified glances about her, and still sobbing in this gasping +way, Sunny covered her face with her sleeve, and wended her way from the +shrine to her home. + +Here the dishevelled upset of the house brought home to her the +unalterable fact of their certain going. Restraint and gloom had been in +the once so jolly house, ever since Professor Barrowes had announced the +time of departure. To the excited imagination of Sunny it seemed that +her friends sought to avoid her. She could not understand that this was +because they found it difficult to face the genuine suffering that their +going caused their little friend. Sunny at the door of the living room +sought fiercely to dissemble her grief. Never would she reveal uncouth +and uncivilised tears; yet the smile she forced to her face now was more +tragic than tears. + +Jinx was alone in the room. The fat young man was in an especially +gloomy and melancholy mood. He was wracking his brain for some solution +to the problem of Sunny. To him, Sunny went directly, seating herself on +the floor in front of him, so that he was obliged to look at the +imploring young face, and had much ado to control the lump that would +rise in Jinx's remorseful throat. + +"Jinx," said Sunny persuasively, "I do not like to stay ad this Japan +all alone also. I lig' you stay wiz me. Pray you do so, Mr. dear Jinx!" + +"Gosh! I only wish I could, Sunny," groaned Jinx, sick with sympathy, +"but, I can't do it. It's impossible. I'm not--not my own master yet. I +did the best I could for you--wrote home and asked my folks if--if I +could bring you along. Doggone them, anyway, they've kept the wires hot +ever since squalling for me to get back." + +"They do nod lig' Japanese girl?" asked Sunny sadly. + +"Gosh, what do they know about it? I do, anyway. I think you're a peachy +kid, Sunny. You suit me down to the ground, I'll tell the world, and you +look-a-here, I'm coming back to see you, d'ye understand? I give you my +solemn word I will." + +"Jinx," said Sunny, without a touch of hope in her voice, "my father are +say same thing; but--he never come bag no more." + +Monty and Bobs, their arms loaded with sundry boxes of sweets and pretty +things that aforetime would have charmed Sunny, came in from the street +just then, and with affected cheer laid their gifts enticingly before +the unbeguiled Sunny. + +"See here, kiddy. Isn't this pretty!" + +Bobs was swinging a long chain of bright red and green beads. Not so +long before Sunny had led Bobs to that same string of beads, which +adorned the counter of a dealer in Japanese jewelry, and had expressed +to him her ambition to possess so marvellous a treasure. Bobs would have +bought the ornament then and there; but it so happened that his finances +were at their lowest ebb, his investment in the Syndicate having made a +heavy inroad into the funds of the by no means affluent Bobs. The +wherewithal to purchase the beads on the eve of departure had in fact +come from some obscure corner of his resources, and he now dangled them +enticingly before the girl's cold eyes. She turned a shoulder expressive +of aversion toward the chain. + +"I do nod lig' those kind beads," declared Sunny bitterly. Then upon an +impulse, she removed herself from her place before Jinx, and kneeled in +turn before Bobs, concentrating her full look of appeal upon that +palpably moved individual. + +"Mr. sir--Bobs, I do nod lig' to stay ad Japan, wizout you stay also. +Please you take me ad America wiz you. I are not afraid those west +oceans. I lig' those water. It is very sad for me ad Japan. I do nod +lig' Japan. She is not Clistian country. Very bad people live on Japan. +I lig' go ad America. Please you take me wiz you to-day." + +Monty, hovering behind Bobs, was scowling through his bone-ribbed +glasses. Through his seventeen-year-old brain raced wild schemes of +smuggling Sunny aboard the vessel; of choking the watchful professor; of +penning defiant epistles to the home folks; of finding employment in +Japan and remaining firmly on these shores to take care of poor little +Sunny. The propitiating words of Bobs appeared to Monty the sheerest +drivel, untrue slush that it was an outrage to hand to a girl who +trusted and believed. + +Bobs was explaining that he was the beggar of the party. When he +returned to America, he would have to get out and scuffle for a living, +for his parents were not rich, and it was only through considerable +sacrifice, and Bobs' own efforts at work (he had worked his way through +college, he told Sunny) that he was able to be one of the party of +students who following their senior year at college were travelling for +a year prior to settling down at their respective careers. Bobs was too +chivalrous to mention to Sunny the fact that his contribution to the +Sunny Syndicate had caused such a shrinkage in his funds that it would +take many months of hard work to make up the deficit; nor that he had +even become indebted to the affluent Jinx in Sunny's behalf. What he did +explain was the fact that he expected soon after he reached America, to +land a job of a kind--he was to do newspaper work--and just as soon as +ever he could afford it, he promised to send for Sunny, who was more +than welcome to share whatever two-by-four home Bobs may have acquired +by that time. + +Sunny heard and understood little enough of his explanation. All she +comprehended was that her request had been denied. Her own father's +defective promises had made her forever sceptical of those of any other +man in the world. Jinx in morose silence pulled fiercely on his pipe, +brooding over the ill luck that dogged a fellow who was fat as a movie +comedian and was related to an army of fat-heads who had the power to +order him to come and go at their will. Jinx thought vengefully and +ominously of his impending freedom. He would be of age in three months. +Into his own hands then, triumphantly gloated Jinx, would fall the +fortune of the house of Crawford, and _then_ his folks would see! He'd +show 'em! And as for Sunny--well, Jinx was going to demonstrate to that +little girl what a man of his word was capable of doing. + +Sunny, having left Bobs, was giving her full attention to Monty, who +showed signs of panic. + +"Monty, I wan' go wiz you ad America. _Please_ take me there wiz you. I +nod make no trobble for you. I be bes' nize girl you ever goin' see +those worl. Please take me, Monty." + +"Aw--all right, I will. You bet your life I will. That's settled, and +you can count on me. _I'm_ not afraid of _my_ folks, if the other +fellows are of theirs. I can do as I choose. I'll rustle up the money +somehow. There's always a way, and they can say what they like at home, +I intend to do things in my own way. My governor's threatening to cut me +off; all the fellows' parents are--they're in league together, I +believe, but I'm going to teach them all a lesson. I'll not stir a foot +from Japan without you, Sunny. You can put that in your pipe and swallow +it. _I_ mean every last word _I_ say." + +"Now, now, now--not so hasty, young man, not so hasty! Not so free with +promises you are unable to fulfil. Less words! Less words! More deeds!" + +Professor Barrowes, pausing on the threshold, had allowed the junior +member of the party he was piloting through Japan to finish his fiery +tirade. He hung up his helmet, removed his rubbers, and rubbing his +chilled hands to bring back the departed warmth, came into the room and +laid the mail upon the table. + +"Here you are, gentlemen. American mail. Help yourselves. All right, all +right. Now, if agreeable, I desire to have a talk alone with Miss Sunny. +If you young gentlemen will proceed with the rest of your preparations I +daresay we will be on time. That will do, Goto. That baggage goes with +us. Loose stuff for the steamer. Clear out." + +Sunny, alone with the professor, made her last appeal. + +"Kind Mr. Professor, please do not leave me ad those Japan. I wan go ad +America wiz you. Please you permit me go also." + +Professor Barrowes leaned over, held out both his hands, and as the girl +came with a sob to him, he took her gently into his arms. She buried her +face on the shabby coat of the old professor who had been such a good +friend to her, and who with all his eccentricities had been so curiously +loveable and approachable. After she had cried a bit against the old +coat, Sunny sat back on her heels again, her two hands resting on the +professor's knees and covered with one of his. + +"Sunny, poor child, I know how hard it is for you; but we are doing the +best we can. I want you to try and resign yourself to what is after all +inevitable. I have arranged for you to go to the Sutherlands' home. You +know them both--good people, Sunny, good people, in spite of their pious +noise. Mr. Blumenthal has charge of your financial matters. You are +amply provided for, thanks to the generosity of your friends, and I may +say we have done everything in our power to properly protect you. You +are going to show your appreciation by--er--being a good girl. Keep at +your studies. Heed the instructions of Mr. Sutherland. He has your good +at heart. I will not question his methods. We all have our peculiarities +and beliefs. The training will do you no harm--possibly do you much +good. I wish you always to remember that my interest in your welfare +will continue, and it will be a pleasure to learn of your progress. When +you can do so, I want you to write a letter to me, and tell me all about +yourself." + +"Mr. Professor, if I study mos' hard, mebbe I grow up to be American +girl--jos same as her?" + +Sunny put the question with touching earnestness. + +"We-el, I am not prepared to offer the American girl as an ideal model +for you to copy, my dear, but I take it you mean--er--that education +will graft upon you our western civilisation, such as it is. It may do +so. It may. I will not promise on that score. My mind is open. It has +been done, no doubt. Many girls of your race have--ah--assimilated our +own peculiar civilisation--or a veneer of the same. You are yourself +mainly of white blood. Yes, yes, it is possible--quite probable in fact, +that if you set out to acquire western ways, you will succeed in making +yourself--er--like the people you desire to copy." + +"And suppose I grow up lig' civilised girl, _then_ I may live ad +America?" + +"Nothing to prevent you, my dear. Nothing to prevent you. It's a free +country. Open to all. You will find us your friends, happy--I may +say--overjoyed to see you again." + +For the first time since she had learned the news of their impending +departure a faint smile lighted up the girl's sad face. + +"I stay ad Japan till I get--civil--ise." + +She stood up, and for a moment looked down in mournful farewell on the +seamed face of her friend. Her soft voice dropped to a caress. + +"Sayonara, _mos_ kindes' man ad Japan. I goin' to ask all those million +gods be good to you." + +And Professor Barrowes did not even chide her for her reference to the +gods. He sat glaring alone in the empty room, fiercely rubbing his +glasses, and rehearsing some extremely cutting and sarcastic phrases +which he proposed to pen or speak to certain parents across the water, +whose low minds suspected mud even upon a lily. His muttering reverie +was broken by the quiet voice of Jerry. He had come out of the big +window seat, where he had been all of the afternoon, unnoticed by the +others. + +"Professor Barrowes," said Jerry Hammond, "if you have no objection, I +would like to take Sunny back with me to America." + +Professor Barrowes scowled up at his favourite pupil. + +"I do object, I do object. Emphatically. Most emphatically. I do not +propose to allow you, or any of the young gentlemen entrusted to my +charge, to commit an act that may be of the gravest consequences to your +future careers." + +"In my case, you need feel under no obligations to my parents. I am of +age as you know, and as you also know, I purpose to go my own way upon +returning home. My father asked me to wait till after this vacation +before definitely deciding upon my future. Well, I've waited, and I'm +more than ever determined not to go into the shops. I've a bit of money +of my own--enough to give me a start, and I purpose to follow out my own +ideas. Now as to Sunny. I found that kid. She's my own, when it comes +down to that. I practically adopted her, and I'll be hanged if I'm going +to desert her, just because my father and mother have some false ideas +as to the situation." + +"Leaving out your parents from consideration, I am informed that an +engagement exists between you and a Miss--ah--Falconer, I believe the +name is, daughter of your father's partner, I understand." + +"What difference does that make?" demanded Jerry, setting his chin +stubbornly. + +"Can it be possible that you know human nature so little then, that you +do not appreciate the feelings your fiancée is apt to feel toward any +young woman you choose to adopt?" + +"Why, Sunny's nothing but a child. It's absurd to refer to her as a +woman, and if Miss Falconer broke with me for a little thing like that, +I'd take my medicine I suppose." + +"You are prepared, then, to break an engagement that has the most hearty +approval of your parents, because of a quixotic impulse toward one you +say is a child, but, young man, I would have you reflect upon the +consequences to the child. Your kindness would act as a boomerang upon +Sunny." + +"What in the world do you mean?" + +"I mean that Sunny is emphatically not a child. She was fifteen years +old the other day. That is an exceedingly delicate period in a girl's +life. We must leave the bloom upon the rose. It is a sensitive period in +the life of a girl." + +A long silence, and then Jerry: + +"Right-oh! It's good-bye to Sunny!" + +He turned on his heel and strode out to the hall. Professor Barrowes +heard him calling to the girl upstairs in the cheeriest tone. + +"Hi! up there, Sunny! Come on down, you little rascal. Aren't you going +to say bye-bye to your best friend?" + +Sunny came slowly down the stairs. At the foot, in the shadows of the +hall she looked up at Jerry. + +"Now remember," he rattled along with assumed merriment, "that when next +we meet I expect you to be the Empress of Japan." + +"Jerry," said Sunny, in a very little voice, her small eerie face +seeming to shine with some light, as she looked steadily at him, "I lig' +ask you one liddle bit favour before you go way from these Japan." + +"Go to it. What is it, Sunny. Ask, and thou shalt receive." + +Sunny put one hand on either of Jerry's arms, and her touch had a +curiously electrical effect upon him. In the pause that ensued he found +himself unable to remove his fascinated gaze from her face. + +"Jerry, I wan' ask you, will you please give me those +American--kiss--good-a-bye." + +A great wave of tingling emotions swept over Jerry, blinding him to +everything in the world but that shining face so close to his own. Sunny +a child! Her age terrified him. He drew back, laughing huskily. He +hardly knew himself what it was he was saying: + +"I don't want to, Sunny--I don't----" + +He broke away abruptly and, turning, rushed into the living room, seized +his coat and hat, and was out of the house in a flash. + +Professor Barrowes stared at the door through which Jerry had made his +hurried exit. To his surprise, he heard Sunny in the hall, laughing +softly, strangely. To his puzzled query as to why she laughed, she said +softly: + +"Jerry are afraid of me!" + +And Professor Barrowes, student of human nature as he prided himself +upon being, did not know that Sunny had stepped suddenly across the gap +that separates a girl from a woman, and had come into her full stature. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + +Time and environment work miracles. It is interesting to study the +phases of emotion that one passes through as he emerges from youth into +manhood. The exaggerated expressions, the unalterable conclusions, the +tragic imaginings, the resolves, which he feels nothing can shake, how +sadly and ludicrously and with what swiftness are they dissipated. + +It came to pass that Sunny's friends across the sea reached a period +where they thought of her vaguely only as a charming and amusing episode +of an idyllic summer in the Land of the Rising Sun. Into the oblivion of +the years, farther and farther retreated the face of the Sunny whose +April smile and ingenuous ways and lovely face had once so warmed and +charmed their young hearts. + +New faces, new scenes, new loves, work and the claims and habits that +fasten upon one with the years--these were the forces that engrossed +them. I will not say that she was altogether forgotten in the new life, +but at least she occupied but a tiny niche in their sentimental +recollections. There were times, when a reference to Japan would call +forth a murmur of pleasureable reminiscences, and humorous references to +some remembered fantastic trick or trait peculiar to the girl, as: + +"Do you remember when Sunny tried to catch that nightingale by putting +salt near a place where she thought his tail might rest? I had told her +she could catch him by putting salt on his tail, and the poor kid took +me literally." + +Jinx chuckled tenderly over the memory. In the first year after his +return to America Jinx had borne his little friend quite often in mind, +and had sent her several gifts, all of which were gratefully +acknowledged by the Reverend Simon Sutherland. + +"Will you ever forget" (from Bobs) "her intense admiration for Monty's +white skin? She sat on the bank of the pool for nearly an hour, with the +unfortunate kid under water, waiting for her to go away, while she +waited for him to come out, because she said she wanted to see what a +white body looked like 'wiz nothing but skin on for clothes.' I had to +drag her off by main force. Ha, ha! I'll never forget her indignation, +or her question whether Monty was 'ashamed his body.' The public baths +of Nagasaki, you know, were social meeting places, and introductions +under or above water quite the rule." + +"I suppose," said Jerry, pulling at his pipe thoughtfully, "we never +will get the Japanese point of view anent the question of morals." + +"It's the shape of their eyes. They see things slant-wise," suggested +Jinx brilliantly. + +"But Sunny's eyes, as I recall them," protested Bobs, "were not +slanting, and she had their point of view. You'll recall how the Proff +had much ado to prevent her taking her own quaint bath in our 'lake' in +beauty unadorned." + +A burst of laughter broke forth here. + +"Did he now? He never told me anything about that." + +"Didn't tell me either, but I _heard_ him. He explained to Sunny in the +most fatherly way the whole question of morals from the day of Adam +down, and she got him so tangled up and ashamed of himself that he +didn't know where he was at. However, as I recall it, he must have won +out in the contention, for you'll recall how she voiced such scathing +and contemptuous criticism later on the public bathers of Japan, whom +she said were 'igrant and nod god nize Americazan manner and wear dress +cover hees body ad those bath.'" + +"Ah, Sunny was a darling kid, take it from me. Just as innocent and +sweet as a new-born babe." This was Jinx's sentimental contribution, and +no voice arose to question his verdict. + +So it will be perceived that her friends, upon the rare occasions when +she was recalled to memory, still held her in loving, if humorous +regard, and it was the custom of Jerry to end the reminiscences of Sunny +with a big sigh and a dumping of the ash from his pipe, as he dismissed +the subject with: + +"Well, well, I suppose she's the Empress of Japan by now." + +All of them were occupied with the concerns and careers that were of +paramount importance to them. Monty, though but in his twenty-first +year, an Intern at Bellevue; Bobs, star reporter on the _Comet_; Jinx, +overwhelmingly rich, the melancholy and unwilling magnet of all aspiring +mothers-in-law; Jerry, an outlaw from the house of Hammond, though his +engagement to Miss Falconer bade fair to reinstate him in his parents' +affections. He was doggedly following that star of which he had once +told Sunny. Eight hours per day in an architect's office, and four or +six hours in his own studio, was the sum of the work of Jerry. He "lived +in the clouds," according to his people; but all the great deeds of the +world, and all of the masterpieces penned or painted by the hand of man, +Jerry knew were the creations of dreamers--the "cloud livers." So he +took no umbrage at the taunt, and kept on reaching after what he had +once told Sunny was that Jade of fortune--Beauty. + +Somewhere up the State, Professor Barrowes pursued the uneven tenor of +his way as Professor of Archeology and Zoology in a small college. +Impetuous and erratic, becoming more restless with the years, he escaped +the irritations and demands of the class room at beautiful intervals, +when he indulged in a passion of research that took him into the far +corners of the world, to burrow into the earth in search of things +belonging to the remote dead and which he held of more interest than +mere living beings. His fortunes were always uncertain, because of this +eccentric weakness, and often upon returning from some such quest his +friends had much ado to secure him a berth that would serve as an +immediate livelihood. Such position secured, after considerable wire +pulling on the part of Jerry and other friends, Professor Barrowes would +be no sooner seated in the desired chair, when he would begin to lay +plans for another escape. An intimate friendship existed between Jerry +and his old master, and it was to Jerry that he invariably went upon his +return from his archeological quests. Despite the difference in their +years, there was a true kinship between these two. Each comprehended the +other's aspirations, and in a way the passion for exploration and the +passion for beauty is analogous. Jerry's parents looked askance at this +friendship, and were accustomed to blame the Professor for their son's +vagaries, believing that he aided and abetted and encouraged Jerry, +which was true enough. + +Of all Sunny's friends, Professor Barrowes, alone, kept up an irregular +communication with the Sutherlands. Gratifying reports of the progress +of their protégé came from the missionary at such times. Long since, it +had been settled that Sunny should be trained to become a shining +example to her race--if, in fact, the Japanese might be termed her race. +It was the ambition of the good missionary to so instruct the girl that +she would be competent to step into the missionary work, and with her +knowledge of the Japanese tongue and ways, her instructor felt assured +they could expect marvels from her in the matter of converting the +heathen. + +It is true the thought of that vivid little personality in the grey rôle +of a preacher, brought somewhat wry faces to her friends, and +exclamations even of distaste. + +"Gosh!" groaned Jinx sadly, "I'd as lieves see her back on the +tightrope." + +"Imagine Sunny preaching! It would be a raving joke. I can just hear her +twisting up her eight million gods and goddesses with our own deity," +laughed Bobs. + +"Like quenching a firefly's light, or the bruising of a butterfly's +wings," murmured Jerry, dreamily, his head encircled with rings of +smoke. + +But then one becomes accustomed to even a fantastic thought. We accredit +certain qualities and actions to individuals, and, in time, in our +imaginations at least, they assume the traits with which we have +invested them. After all, it was very comforting to think of that +forlorn orphan child in the safe haven of a mission school. + +So the years ran on and on, as they do in life, and as they do in +stories such as this, and it came to pass, as written above, that Sunny +disappeared into the fragrant corners of a pretty memory. There is where +Sunny should perhaps have stayed, and thus my story come to a timely +end. + +Consider the situation. A girl, mainly of white blood, with just a drop +of oriental blood in her--enough to make her a bit different from the +average female of the species, enough, say, to give a snack of that +savage element attributed to the benighted heathen. Rescued by men of +her father's race from slavery and abuse; provided for for the rest of +her days; under the instruction of a zealous and conscientious +missionary and his wife, who earnestly taught her how to save the souls +of the people of Japan. Sunny's fate was surely a desirable one, and as +she progressed on the one side of the water, her friends on the other +side were growing in sundry directions, ever outward and upward, +acquiring new responsibilities, new loves, new claims, new passions with +the passing of the years. What freak of fate therefore should interpose +at this juncture, and thrust Sunny electrically into the lives of her +friends again? + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + +On a certain bleak day in the month of March, J. Addison Hammond, Jr., +tenaciously at work upon certain plans and drawings that were destined +at a not far distant date to bring him a measure of fame and fortune, +started impatiently from his seat and cursed that "gosh-ding-danged +telephone." + +Jerry at this stage of his picturesque career occupied what is known in +New York City, and possibly other equally enlightened cities, as a +duplex studio. Called "duplex" for no very clear reason. It consists of +one very large room (called "atelier" by artistic tenants and those who +have lived or wanted to live in France). This room is notable not merely +for its size, but its height, the ceiling not unsimilar to the vaulted +one of a church, or a glorified attic. Adjustable skylights lend the +desired light. About this main room, and midway of the wall, is a +gallery which runs on all four sides, and on this gallery are doors +opening into sundry rooms designated as bedrooms. The arrangement is an +excellent one, since it gives one practically two floors. That, no +doubt, is why we call it "duplex." We have a weakness for one floor +bungalows when we build houses these days, but for apartments and +studios the epicure demands the duplex. + +In this especial duplex studio there also abode one t, or as he was +familiarly known to the friends of Jerry Hammond, "Hatty." Hatty, then, +was the valet and man of all work in the employ of Jerry. He was a +marvellous cook, an extraordinary house cleaner, an incomparable valet, +and to complete the perfections of this jewel, possessed solely by the +apparently fortunate Jerry, his manners, his face and his form were of +that ideal sort seen only in fiction and never in life. Nevertheless the +incomparable Hatton, or Hatty, was a visible fact in the life and studio +of Jerry Hammond. + +Having detailed the talents of Hatty, it is painful here to admit a flaw +in the character of the otherwise perfect valet. This flaw he had very +honestly divulged to Jerry at the time of entering his employ, and the +understanding was that upon such occasions when said flaw was due to +have its day, the master was to forbear from undue criticism or from +discharging said Hatton from his employ. Hatton, at this time, earnestly +assured the man in whose employ he desired to enter, that he could +always depend upon his returning to service in a perfectly normal state, +and life would resume its happy way under his competent direction. + +It so happened upon this especial night, when that "pestiferous" +telephone kept up its everlasting ringing--a night when Jerry hugged his +head in his hands, calling profanely and imploringly upon Christian and +heathen saints and gods to leave him undisturbed--that Hatton lay on his +bed above, in a state of oblivion from which it would seem a charge of +dynamite could not have awakened him. + +For the fiftieth or possibly hundredth time Jerry bitterly swore that he +would fire that "damned Englishman" (Hatton was English) on the +following day. He had had enough of him. Whenever he especially needed +quiet and service, that was the time the "damned Englishman" chose to +break loose and go on one of his infernal sprees. For the fourth time +within half an hour Jerry seized that telephone and shouted into the +receiver: + +"What in hades do you want?" + +The response was a long and continuous buzzing, through which a +jabbering female tongue screeched that it was Y. Dubaday talking. It +sounded like "Y. Dubaday," but Jerry knew no one of that name, and so +emphatically stated, adding to the fact that he didn't know anyone of +that name and didn't want to, and if this was their idea of a joke----" + +He hung up at this juncture, seized his head, groaned, walked up and +down swearing softly and almost weeping with nervousness and +distraction. Finally with a sigh of hopelessness as he realised the +impossibility of concentrating on that night, Jerry gathered up his +tools and pads, packed them into a portfolio, which he craftily hid +under a mass of papers--Jerry knew where he could put his hands on any +desired one--got his pipe, pulled up before the waning fire, gave it a +shove, put on a fresh log, lit his pipe, stretched out his long legs, +put his brown head back against the chair, and sought what comfort there +might be left to an exasperated young aspirant for fame who had been +interrupted a dozen times inside of an hour or so. Hardly had he settled +down into this comparative comfort when that telephone rang again. Jerry +was angry now--"hopping mad." He lifted that receiver with ominous +gentleness, and his voice was silken. + +"What can I do for you, fair one?" + +Curiously enough the buzzing had completely stopped and the fair one's +reply came vibrating clearly into his listening ear. + +"Mr. Hammond?" + +"Well, what of it?" + +"Mr. Hammond, manager of some corporation or company in Japan?" + +"What are you talking about?" + +"If you'll hold the wire long enough to take a message from a friend +I'll deliver it." + +"Friend, eh? Who is he? I'd like to get a look at him this moment. Take +your time." + +"Well, I've no time to talk nonsense. This is the Y. W. C. A. speaking, +and there's a young lady here, who says she--er--belongs to you. +She----" + +"What? Say that again, please." + +"A young lady that appears to be related to you--says you are her +guardian or manager or something of the sort. She was delivered to the +Y. by the Reverend Miss Miriam Richardson, in whose care she was placed +by the Mission Society of--er--Naggysack, Japan. One minute, I'll get +her name again." + +A photograph of Jerry at this stage would have revealed a young man +sitting at a telephone desk, registering a conflict of feelings and +emotions indicative of consternation, guilt, tenderness, fear, terror, +compunction, meanness and idiocy. When that official voice came over the +wire a second time, Jerry all but collapsed against the table, holding +the receiver uncertainly in the direction of that ear that still heard +the incredible news and confirmed his fears: + +"Name--Miss Sindicutt." + +Silence, during which the other end apparently heard not that +exclamation of desperation: "Ye gods and little fishes!" for it resumed +complacently: + +"Shall we send her up to you?" + +"No, no, for heaven's sake don't. That is, wait a bit, will you? Give me +a chance to get over the----" Jerry was about to say "shock," but +stopped himself in time and with as much composure as he could muster he +told the Y. W. C. A. that he was busy just now, but would call later, +and advise them what to do in the--under his breath he said +"appalling"--circumstances. + +Slowly Jerry put the receiver back on the hook. He remained in the chair +like one who has received a galvanic shock. That Japanese girl, of a +preposterous dream, had actually followed him to America! She was +here--right in New York City. It was fantastic, impossible! Ha, ha! it +would be funny, if it were not so danged impossible. In the United +States, of all places! She, who ought to be right among her heathens, +making good converts. What in the name of common sense had she come to +the States for? Why couldn't she let Jerry alone, when he was up to his +neck in plans that he fairly knew were going to create an upheaval in +the architectural world? Just because he had befriended her in his +infernal youth, he could not be expected to be responsible for her for +the rest of her days. Besides, he, Jerry, was not the only one in that +comic opera Syndicate. The thought of his partners in crime, as they now +seemed to him, brought him up again before that telephone, seizing upon +it this time as a last straw. + +He was fortunate to get in touch with all three of the members of the +former Sunny Syndicate Limited. While Monty and Bobs rushed over +immediately, Jinx escaped from the Appawamis Golf Club where for weeks +he had been vainly trying to get rid of some of his superfluous flesh by +chasing little red balls over the still snow bound course, flung himself +into his powerful Rolls Royce, and went speeding along the Boston Post +Road at a rate that caused an alarm to be sent out for him from point to +point. Not swift enough, however, to keep up with the fat man in the +massive car that "made the grade" to New York inside of an hour, and +rushed like a juggernaut over the slick roads and the asphalt pavements +of Manhattan. + +Jerry's summons to his college friends had been in the nature of an S. +O. S. call for help. On the telephone he vouchsafed merely the +information that it was "a deadly matter of life and death." + +The astounding news he flung like a bomb at each hastily arriving member +of the late Syndicate. When the first excitement had subsided, the +paramount feeling was one of consternation and alarm. + +"Gosh!" groaned Jinx, "what in the name of thunderation are you going to +do with a Japanese girl in New York City? I pity you, Jerry, for of +course you are mainly responsible----" + +"Responsible nothing----" from the indignant Jerry, wheeling about with +a threatening look at that big "fathead." "I presume I was the _only_ +member of that--er--syndicate." + +"At least it was your idea," said Monty, extremely anxious to get back +to the hospital, where he had been personally supervising a case of +Circocele. + +"You might have known," suggested Bobs, "that she was bound to turn out +a Frankenstein. Of course, we'll all stand by you, old scout, but you +know how I am personally situated." + +Jerry's wrathful glare embraced the circle of his renegade friends. + +"You're a fine bunch of snobs. I'm not stuck myself on having a Jap girl +foisted on to my hands, and there'll be a mess of explanations to my +friends and people, and the Lord only knows how I'll ever be able to put +my mind back on my work and---- At the same time, I'm not so white +livered that I'm going to flunk the responsibility. We +encouraged--invited her to join us out here. I did. You did, so did you, +and you! I heard you all--every last one of you, and you can't deny it." + +"Well, it was one thing to sentimentalise over a pretty little Jap in +Japan," growled Bobs, who was not a snob, but in spite of his profession +at heart something of a stickler for the conventions, "but it's another +proposition here. Of course, as I said, we fellows all intend to stand +by you." (Grunts of unwilling assent from Monty and Jinx.) "We aren't +going to welch on our part of the job, and right here we may as well +plan out some scheme to work this thing properly. Suppose we make the +most of the matter for the present. We'll keep her down there at that +'Y.' Do you see? Then, we can each do something to--er--make it--well +uncomfortable for her here. We'll freeze her out if it comes down to +that. Make her feel that this U. S. A. isn't all it's cracked up to be, +and she'll get home-sick for her gods and goddesses and at the +psychological moment when she's feeling her worst, why we'll just slip +her aboard ship, and there you are." + +"Great mind! Marvellous intellect you got, Bobs. In the first place, the +'Y' informed me on the 'phone that they are sending her here. They are +waiting now for me to give the word when to despatch her, in fact. Now +the question is"--Jerry looked sternly at his friends--"which one of +your families would be decent enough to give a temporary home to Sunny? +My folks as you know are out of the reckoning, as I'm an outlaw from +there myself." + +Followed a heated argument and explanations. Monty's people lived in +Philadelphia. He himself abode at the Bellevue Hospital. That, so he +said, let him out. Not at all, from Jerry's point of view. Philadelphia, +said Jerry, was only a stone's throw from New York. Monty, exasperated, +retorted that he didn't propose to throw stones at his folks. Monty, who +had made such warm promises to Sunny! + +Bobs shared a five-room bachelor flat with two other newspaper men. +Their hours were uncertain, and their actions erratic. Often they played +poker till the small hours of the morning. Sunny would not fit into the +atmosphere of smoke and disorder, though she was welcome to come, if she +could stand the "gaff." Bobs' people lived in Virginia. His several +sisters, Bobs was amusedly assured, would hardly put the girl from Japan +at her ease. + +Jinx, on whom Jerry now pinned a hopeful eye, blustered shamelessly, as +he tried to explain his uncomfortable position in the world. When not at +his club in New York, he lived with a sister, Mrs. Vanderlump, and her +growing family in the Crawford mansion at Newport. Said sister dominated +this palatial abode and brother Jinx escaped to New York upon occasions +in a true Jiggsian manner, using craft and ingenuity always to escape +the vigilant eye and flaying tongue of a sister who looked for the worst +and found it. It was hard for Jinx to admit to his friends that he was +horribly henpecked, but he appealed to them as follows: + +"Have a heart about this thing. I ask you, what is a fellow to do when +he's got a sister on his back like that? If she suspects every little +innocent chorus girl of the town, what is she going to say to Sunny when +that kid goes up before her in tights?" + +It is extraordinary how we think of people we have not seen in years as +they were when first we saw them. In the heat of argument, no one +troubled to point out to Jinx that the Sunny who had come upon the tight +rope that first night must have long since graduated from that +reprehensible type of dress or rather undress. + +Finally, and as a last resort, a night letter was despatched to +Professor Timothy Barrowes. All were now agreed that he was the one most +competent to settle the matter of the disposition of Sunny, and all +agreed to abide by his decision. + +At this juncture, and when a sense of satisfaction in having "passed the +buck" to the competent man of archæology had temporarily cheered them, a +tapping was heard upon the studio door. Not the thumping of the goblin's +head of the Italian iron knocker; not the shriek of the electric buzzer +from the desk below, warning of the approach of a visitor. Just a soft +taptapping upon the door, repeated several times, as no one answered, +and increasing in noise and persistence. + +A long, a silent, a deadly pause ensued. At that moment each found +himself attributing to that girl they had known in Japan, and whom they +realised was on the other side of that door, certain characteristic +traits and peculiarities charming enough in Japan but impossible to +think of as in America. To each young man there came a mental picture of +a bizarre and curious little figure, adorned with blazingly bright +kimona and obi--a brilliant patch of colour, her bobbed hair and +straight bangs seeming somehow incongruous and adding to her fantastic +appearance. After all, in spite of her hair, she was typical of that +land of crooked streets, and paper houses, and people who walked on the +wrong side and mounted their horses from the front. The thought of that +girl in New York City grated against their sensibilities. She didn't +belong and she never could belong was their internal verdict. + +It may have been only a coincidence, but it seemed weird, that Hatton, +lately so dead to the world, should appear at that psychological moment +on the steps of the gallery, immaculate in dress and with that cool air +of superiority and efficiency that was part of his assets, descend in +his stately and perfect way, approach the door as a butler should, and +softly, imperturbably fling that door open. His back retained its stiff +straight line, that went so well with the uniform Hatton insisted upon +donning, but his head went sideways forward in that inimitable bow that +Hatton always reserved for anything especially attractive in the female +line. + +Upon the threshold there looked back at Hatton, and then beyond him, a +girl whom the startled young men took at first to be a perfect stranger. +She wore a plain blue serge suit, belted at the waist, with a white +collar and jabot. A sailor hat, slightly rolled, crushed down the hair +that still shone above the face whose remarkable beauty owed much to a +certain quaintness of expression. She stood silently, without moving, +for what seemed a long moment to them all, and then suddenly she spoke, +breathlessly and with that little catch in her voice, and her tone, her +look, her words, her quick motions so characteristic of the little girl +they had known, broke the spell of silence and let loose a flood of such +warm memories that all the mean and harsh and contemptible thoughts of +but a moment since were dissipated forever. + +They crowded about her, hanging upon and hungry for her unabashed and +delighted words, and dazzled by the girl's uncanny loveliness. + +"Jinx! Thad are you! I know you by your so nize fat!" + +She had not lost her adorable accent. Indeed, if they could but have +realised it, Sunny had changed not at all. She had simply grown up. + +Jinx's soft hands were holding the two little fragrant ones thrust so +joyously into his own. The fat fellow fought a sudden maddening desire +to hug like a bear the girl whose bright eyes were searching his own so +lovingly. + +"Monty! Oh, you have grow into whole mans. _How_ it is nize. And you +still smile on me troo those glass ad you eye." + +Smile! Monty was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. That case of +Circocele at Bellevue hospital had vanished into the dim regions of +young Monty's mind. Anyway there were a score of other Internes there, +and Monty had his permit in his pocket. + +"Bobs! Is thad youself, wiz those fonny liddle hair grow om your mout'. +_How_ it is grow nize on you face. I lig' him there." + +Any doubt that Bobs had experienced as to the desirability of that +incipient moustache vanished then and there. + +And Jerry! Jerry, for the last, to be looked at with shining eyes, till +something tightened in his throat, and his mind leaped over the years +and felt again that dizzy, tingling, electrical sensation when Sunny had +asked him to kiss her. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + +That "even tenor of their ways," to which reference has already been +made, ceased indeed to bear a remote resemblance to evenness. It may be +recorded here, that for one of them at least, Sunny's coming meant the +hasty despatch of his peace of mind. Their well laid schemes to be rid +of her seemed now in the face of their actions like absurd aberrations +that they were heartily ashamed of. + +It is astonishing how we are affected by mere clothes. Perhaps if Sunny +had appeared at the door of Jerry Hammond's studio arrayed in the +shining garments of a Japanese, some measure of their alarm might have +remained. But she came to their door as an American girl. That Sunny +should have stood the test of American clothes, that she shone in them +with a distinction and grace that was all her own, was a matter of +extreme pride and delight to her infatuated friends. Appearances play a +great part in the imagination and thought of the young American. It was +the fantastic conception they had formed of her, and the imagined effect +of her strange appearance in America that had filled them with misgiving +and alarm--the sneeky sort of apprehension one feels at being made +conspicuous and ridiculous. There was an immense relief at the discovery +that their fears were entirely unfounded. Sunny appeared a finished +product in the art of dressing. Not that she was fashionably dressed. +She simply had achieved the look of one who belonged. She was as natural +in her clothes as any of their sisters or the girls they knew. There was +this difference, however: Sunny was one of those rare beings of earth +upon whom the Goddess of Beauty has ineffaceably laid her hands. Her +loveliness, in fact, startled one with its rareness, its crystal +delicacy. One looked at the girl's face, and caught his breath and +turned to look again, with that pang of longing that is almost pain when +we gaze upon a masterpiece. + +Yet "under the skin" she was the same confiding, appealing, mischievous +little Sunny who had pushed her way into the hearts of her friends. + +Her mission in America, much as it aroused the mirth of her friends, was +a very serious one, and it may be here stated, later, an eminently +successful one. Sunny came as an emissary from the mission school to +collect funds for the impoverished mission. Mr. Sutherland, a Scotchman +by birth, was not without a canny and shrewd streak to his character, +and he had not forgotten the generous contributions in the past of the +rich young Americans whose protégé Sunny had been. + +All this, however, does not concern the devastating effect of her +presence in the studio of Jerry Hammond. There, in fact, Sunny had taken +up an apparently permanent residence, settling down as a matter of +course and right, and indeed assisted by the confused and alternately +dazed and beguiled Jerry. + +Her effects consisted of a bag so small, and containing but a few +articles of Japanese silk clothing and a tiny gift for each of her dear +friends. Indeed, the smallness of Sunny's luggage appealed instantly to +her friends, who determined to purchase for her all the pretty clothes +her heart should desire. This ambition to deck Sunny in the fine raiment +of New York City was satisfactorily realised by each and everyone of the +former Syndicate, Sunny accompanying them with alacrity, overjoyed by +those delicious shopping tours, the results of which returned in Jinx's +Rolls Royce, Monty's taxi, Bobs' messenger boys, and borne by hand by +Jerry. These articles, however, became such a bone of contention among +her friends, each desiring her to wear his especial choice, that Sunny +had her hands full pleasing them all. She compromised by wearing a dress +donated by Monty, hat from Jinx, a coat from Jerry, and stockings and +gloves from Bobs. It was finally agreed by her friends that there should +be a cessation to the buying of further clothes for Sunny. Instead an +allowance of money was voted and quickly subscribed to by all, and after +that, Sunny, with the fatherly aid of a surprisingly new Hatton, did her +own purchasing. + +Of her four friends, Jerry was possibly the happiest and the unhappiest +at this time. He was a prey to both exhilaration and panic. He moved +heaven and earth to make Sunny so comfortable and contented in his +studio, that all thought of returning to Japan would be banished forever +from her mind. On the other hand, he rushed off, panic stricken and sent +telegrams to Professor Barrowes, entreating him to come at once and +relieve Jerry of his dangerous charge. His telegrams, however, were +unfruitful, for after an aggravating delay, during which Sunny became, +like Hatton, one of the habits and necessities of Jerry's life, the +Telegraph Company notified him that Professor Barrowes was no longer at +that particular school of learning, and that his address there was +unknown. Jerry, driven to extremities by the situation in his studio, +made himself such a nuisance to the Telegraph Company, that they +bestirred themselves finally and ascertained that the last address of +Professor Timothy Barrowes was Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. Now Red Deer +represented nothing to Jerry Hammond save a town in Canada where a wire +would reach his friend. Accordingly he despatched the following: + + Professor Timothy Barrowes, + Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. + + Come at once. Sunny in New York. Need you take her charge. Delay + dangerous. Waiting for you. Come at once. Answer at once. + Important. + J. ADDISON HAMMOND. + +Professor Barrowes received this frantic wire while sitting on a rock +very close to the edge of a deep excavation that had recently been dug +on the side of a cliff towering above a certain portion of the old Red +Deer River. Below, on a plateau, a gang of men were digging and scraping +and hammering at the cliff. Not in the manner of the husky workers of +northwestern Canada, but carefully, tenderly. Not so carefully, however, +but the tongue of the Professor on the rock above castigated and nagged +and warned. Ever and anon Sunny's old friend would leap down into the +excavation, and himself assist the work physically. + +As stated, Jerry's telegram came to his hand while seated upon aforesaid +rock, was opened, and absent-mindedly scanned by Jerry's dear friend, +and then thrust hastily into the professor's vest pocket, there to +remain for several days, when it accidentally was resurrected, and he +most thoughtfully despatched a reply, as follows: + + Jeremy Addison Hammond, + 12 West 67th St., + New York City, U. S. A. + + Collect. + + Glad to hear from you. Especially so this time. Discovered + dinosaur antedating post pleocene days. Of opinion Red Deer + district contains greatest number of fossils of antique period + in world. Expect discoveries prove historical event + archeological world. Will bring precious find New York about one + month or six weeks. Need extra funds transportation dinosaur and + guard for same. Expect trouble Canadian government in re-taking + valuable find across border. Much envy and propaganda take + credit from U. S. for most important discovery of century. Get + in communication right parties New York, Washington if + necessary. Have consul here wired give full protection and help. + Information sent confidential. Do not want press to get word of + remarkable find until fossil set up in museum. See curator about + arrangements. May be quoted as estimating age as quaternary + period. Wire two thousand dollars extra. Extraordinary find. + Greatest moment my life. Note news arrival New York Sunny. Sorry + unable be there take charge. Dinornis more important Sunny. + + TIMOTHY BARROWES. + +What Jerry said when he tore open and read that long expected telegram +would not bear printing. Suffice it to say that his good old friend was +consigned by the wrathful and disgusted Jerry to a warmer region than +Mother Earth. Then, squaring his shoulders like a man, and setting his +chin grimly, Jerry took up the burden of life, which in these latter +days had assumed for him such bewildering proportions. + +That she was an amazing, actual part of his daily life seemed to him +incredible, and beguiling and fascinating as life now seemed to him with +her, and wretched and uncertain as it was away from her, his alarm +increased with every day and hour of her abode in his house. He assured +himself repeatedly that there was no more harm in Sunny living in his +apartment than there was in her living in his house in Japan. What +enraged the befuddled Jerry at this time was the officious attitude of +his friends. Monty took it upon himself to go room hunting for a place +for Sunny, and talked a good deal about the results he expected from a +letter written to Philadelphia. He did not refer to Sunny now as a +stone. Monty was sure that the place for Sunny was right in that +Philadelphia home, presided over by his doting parents and little +brothers and sisters, and where it was quite accessible for week-end +visits. + +Jinx, after a stormy scene with his elder sister in which he endeavoured +to force Sunny upon the indignant and suspicious Mrs. Vanderlump, left +in high dudgeon the Newport home in which he had been born, and which +was his own personal inheritance, and with threats never to speak to his +sister again, he took up his residence at his club, just two blocks from +the 67th Street studio. + +Bobs cleared out two of his friends from the flat, bought some cretonne +curtains with outrageous roses and patches of yellow, purple, red and +green, hung these in dining room and bedroom and parlour, bought a brand +new victrola and some quite gorgeous Chinese rugs, and had a woman in +cleaning for nearly a week. To his friends' gibes and suggestions that +he apparently contemplated matrimony, Bobs sentimentally rejoined that +sooner or later a fellow got tired of the dingy life of a +smoke-and-card-filled flat and wanted a bit of real sweetness to take +away the curse of life. He acquired two lots somewhere on Long Island +and spent considerable time consulting an architect, shamefully ignoring +Jerry's gifts in that line. + +That his friends, who had so savagely protested again sharing the burden +of Sunny, should now try to go behind his back and take her away from +him was in the opinion of Jerry a clue to the kind of characters they +possessed, and of which hitherto he had no slightest suspicion. + +Jerry, at this time, resembled the proverbial dog in the manger. He did +not want Sunny himself--that is, he dared not want Sunny--but the +thought of her going to any other place filled him with anguish and +resentment. Nevertheless he realised the impossibility of maintaining +her much longer in his studio. Already her presence there had excited +gossip and speculation in the studio building, but in that careless and +bohemian atmosphere with which denizens of the art world choose to +surround themselves the lovely young stranger in the studio of Jerry +Hammond aroused merely smiling and indulgent curiosity. Occasionally a +crude joke or inquiry from a neighbouring artist aroused murder in the +soul of the otherwise civilised Jerry. That anyone could imagine +anything wrong with Sunny seemed to him beyond belief. + +Not that he felt always kindly toward Sunny. She aroused his ire more +often than she did his approval. She was altogether too free and +unconventional, in the opinion of Jerry, and in a clumsy way he tried to +teach her certain rules of deportment for a young woman living in the U. +S. A. Sunny, however, was so innocent and so evidently earnest in her +efforts to please him, that he invariably felt ashamed and accused +himself of being a pig and a brute. Jerry was, indeed, like the +unfortunate boatman, drifting toward the rocks, and seeing only the +golden hair of the Lorelei. + +Sunny had settled down so neatly and completely in his studio that it +would have been hard to know how she was ever to be dislodged. Her +satisfaction and delight and surprise at every object upon the place was +a source of immense satisfaction and entertainment to Jerry. It should +be mentioned here, that an unbelievable change could have been observed +also in Hatton. The man was discovered to be human. His face cracked up +in smiles that were real, and clucks that bore a remote resemblance to +human laughter issued at intervals from the direction of the kitchen, +whither he very often hastily departed, his hand over mouth, after some +remark or action of Sunny that appeared to smite his funny bone. + +The buttons on the wall were a never failing source of enchantment to +Sunny. To go into her own room in the dark, brush her hand along the +wall, touch an ivory button, and see the room spring into light charmed +her beyond words. So, too, the black buttons that, pressed, caused bells +to ring in the lower part of the house. But the speaking tube amazed and +at first almost terrified her. Jerry sprang the works on her first. +While in her room, a sudden screech coming from the wall, she looked +panically about her, and then started back as a voice issued forth from +that tube, hailing her by name. Spirits! Here in this so solid and +material America! It was only after Jerry, getting no response to his +calls of "Sunny! Hi! Sunny! Come on down! Come on down! Sunny! I want +you!" ran up the stairs, knocked at her door and stood laughing at her +in the doorway, that the colour came back to her cheeks. He was so +delighted with the experiments, that he led her to the telephone and +initiated her into that mystery. To watch Sunny's face, as with parted +lips, and eyes darkened by excitement, she listened to the voice of +Jinx, Monty or Bobs, and then suddenly broke loose and chattered sweet +things back, was in the opinion of Jerry worth the price of a dozen +telephones. However, he cut short her interviews with the delighted +fellows at the other end, as he did not wish to have them impose on her +good nature and take up too much of the girl's time. + +The victrola and the player-piano worked day and night in Sunny's +behalf, and it was not long before she could trill back some of the +songs. Upon one occasion they pulled up the rugs, and Sunny had her +first lesson in dancing. Jerry told her she took to dancing "like a duck +does to water." He honestly believed he was doing a benevolent and +worthy act in surrounding the young girl with his arms and moving across +the floor with her to the music of the victrola. He would not for worlds +have admitted to himself that as his arms encircled Sunny, Jerry felt +just about as near to heaven as he ever hoped to get, though +premonitions that all was not normal with him came hazily to his mind as +he dimly realised that that tingling sensation that contact with Sunny +created was symptomatic of the chaos within. However, dancing with +Sunny, once she had acquired the step, which she, a professional dancer +in Japan, sensed immediately, was sheer joy, and all would have been +well, had not his friends arrived just when they were not wanted, and, +of course, Sunny, the little fool, had instantly wanted to try her new +accomplishment upon her admiring and too willing friends. The +consequence was Jerry's evening was completely spoiled, and what he +meant just as an innocent diversion was turned into a "riotous occasion" +by a "bunch of roughnecks," who took advantage of a little innocent +girl's eagerness to learn to dance, and handled her "a damn sight too +familiarly" to suit the paternal--he considered it paternal--taste of +Jerry. + +Jerry, as Sunny passed in the arms of the light-footed Jinx, whose +dancing was really an accomplishment, registered several vows. One was +he proposed to give Sunny herself a good calling down. The other he +purposed curtailing some of the visits of the gang, and putting a stop +once and for all to the flow of gifts that were in his opinion rotten +taste on the part of Jinx, a joke coming from Monty, plainly suffering a +bad case of puppy love, and as for Bobs, no one knew better than Jerry +did that he could ill afford to enter into a flower competition with +Jinx. That Rolls Royce, when not bearing the enchanted Sunny through the +parks and even on little expeditions into the byways and highways of the +Great White Road, which runs through Westchester county, was parked not +before Jinx's club, or the garage, but, with amazing impudence before +the door of that duplex studio. Jerry intended to have a heart-to-heart +talk with old Jinx on that score. + +Even at home, Sunny had wrought havoc. Before she had been three days +upon the place, Hatton, the stony faced and spare of tongue, had +confided to her the whole history of his life, and explained how his +missus had driven him to drink. + +"It's 'ard on a man, miss. 'E tries to do 'is best in life, but it's +'ard, miss, when there's a woman 'as believes the worst, and brings out +the worst in a man, miss, and man is only yuman, only yuman, miss, and +all yuman beings 'as their failings, as no doubt you know, miss." + +Sunny did know. She told Hatton that she was full of failings. She +didn't think him a bad man at all because once in a long time he drank a +little bit. Lots of men did that. There was the Count of Matsuyama. He +had made many gifts to the Shiba temple, but he loved sake very much, +and often in the tea-gardens the girls were kept up very late, because +the Count of Matsuyama never returned home till he had drunk all the +sake on the place, and that took many hours. + +Gratuitously, and filled with a sudden noble purpose, Hatton gave Sunny +his solemn promise never again to touch the inebriating cup. She clapped +her hands with delight at this, and cried. + +"Ho! How you are nicer man now. Mebbe you wife she come bag agin unto +you. How thad will be happy for you." + +"No, no, miss," sadly and hastily Hatton rejoined, "you see, miss, there +was another woman in the case also, what the French call, miss: Shershy +la Fam. I'm sorry, miss, but I'm only yuman, beggin' your pardon, miss." + +Sunny had assumed many of the duties that were previously Hatton's. The +kitchenette was her especial delight. Here swathed in a long pongee +smock, her sleeves rolled up, Sunny concocted some of those delectable +dishes which her friends named variously: Sunny Syndicate Cocktail; +Puree al la Sunny; Potatoes au Sunny; Sweet pickles par la Sunny, and so +forth. Her thrift also cut down Jerry's bills considerably, and he was +really so proud of her abilities in this line that he gave a special +dinner to which he generously invited all three of their mutual friends, +and announced at the table that the meal was entirely concocted by Sunny +at a price inconceivably low. + +The piéce de resistance of this especial feast was a potato dish. Served +in a casserole, it might at first sight have been taken for a glorified +potatoes au gratin; but, no, when tasted it revealed its superior +qualities. The flushed and pleased Sunny, sitting at the head of the +table, and dishing out the third or fourth serving to her admiring +friends, was induced to reveal to her friends of what the dish was +composed. The revelation, it is regrettable to state, convulsed and +disconcerted her friends so that they ceased to eat the previously much +appreciated dish. Sunny proudly informed them that her dish was made up +mainly of potato peelings, washed, minced and scrambled in a mess of +odds and ends in the way of pieces of cheese, mushrooms, meat, and +various vegetables garnered from plates of a recently wasteful meal. + +Her explanation caused such a profound silence for a moment, which was +followed by uneasy and then unrepressed mirth, that she was disconcerted +and distressed. Her friends consoled her by telling her that it didn't +matter what she made dishes of; everything she did was exactly right, +which made it a bit harder to explain that the shining pan under the +kitchen sink was the proper receptacle for all leftovers on the plates. +She was reconciled completely moreover, when Jerry assured her that the +janitor was kicking over the empty dinner pails that she had been +sending down the dumbwaiter. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + +Sunny had certain traits that contributed largely to what seemed almost +an unconscious conspiracy to rob Jerry Hammond of his peace of mind. +There was a resemblance in her nature to a kitten. + +To maintain a proper decorum in his relations with his guest, Jerry was +wont, when alone, to form the firm resolution to hold her at arm's +length. This was far from being an easy matter. It was impossible for +him to be in the room with Sunny and not sooner or later find her in +touch with him. She had a habit of putting her hand into his. She +slipped under his most rigid guard, and acquired a bad trick of pressing +close to his side, and putting her arm through his. This was all very +well when they took their long walks through the park or up and down +Riverside Drive. She could not see the reason why if she could walk arm +in arm with Jerry when they climbed on the top of one of the busses that +rolled up the wonderful drive she should not continue linked with her +friend. In fact, Sunny found it far more attractive and comfortable to +drive arm in arm with Jerry than walk thus with him. For, when walking, +she loved to rove off from the paths, to make acquaintance with the +squirrels and the friendly dogs. + +Her near proximity, however, had its most dangerous effect in the +charmed evenings these two spent together, too often, however, marred by +the persistent calls of their mutual friends. At these times, Sunny had +an uncanny trick of coming up at the back of Jerry, when that +unconscious young man by the fireplace was off in a day dream (in which, +by the way, in a vague way, herself was always a part), and resting her +cheek upon the brown comfortable head, there to stay till her warm +presence startled him into wakefulness, and he would explode one of his +usual expressions of these days: + +"Don't do that, I say!" + +"Keep your hands off me, will you?" + +"Don't come so close." + +"Keep off--keep off, I say." + +"I don't like it." + +"For heaven's sake, Sunny, will nothing teach you civilised ways?" + +At these times Sunny always retired very meekly to a distant part of the +room, where she would remain very still and crushed looking, and, +shortly, Jerry, overcome with compunction, would coax her to a nearer +proximity mentally and physically. + +Another disturbing trick which Jerry never had had the heart to ban was +that of kneeling directly in front of him, her two hands upon his own +knees. From this vantage point, with her friendly expressive and so +lovely face raised to his, she would naïvely pour out to him her +innocent confidences. After all, he savagely argued within himself, what +harm in the world was there in a little girl kneeling by your side, and +even laying her head, if it came down to that, at times upon a fellow's +knee? It took a rotten mind to discover anything wrong with that, in the +opinion of Jerry Hammond. + +However, there is a limit to all things, and that limit was reached on a +certain evening in early spring, a dangerous season, as we all know. "If +you give some people an inch they'll take a mile," Jerry at that time +angrily muttered, the humour of the situation not at all appealing to +him. + +He was going over a publication on Spanish Architecture, Catalonian work +of the 14th and 15th centuries. Sunny was enjoying herself very +innocently at the piano player, and Jerry should, as he afterwards +admitted to himself, have "left well enough alone." However it be, +nothing would do but he must summon Sunny to his side to share the +pleasure of looking at these splendid examples of the magnificent work +of the great Spanish architect Fabre. + +Now Sunny possessed, to an uncanny degree, that gift of understanding +which is extremely rare with her sex. She possessed it, in fact, to such +a fine degree, that nearly everyone who met her found himself pouring +out the history of his life into her sympathetic and understanding +little ear. There was something about her way of looking at one, a sort +of hanging absorbedly upon one's narrative of their history, that +assured the narrator that he not only had the understanding but the +sympathy of his pretty listener. + +Jerry, therefore, summoned her from her diversions at the piano-player, +which she hastened to leave, though the record was her favourite, +"Gluhwormchen." Her murmuring exclamations above his shoulder revealed +her instant enthusiasm and appreciation of just those details that Jerry +knew would escape the less artistic eye of an ordinary person. She held +pages open, to prolong the pleasure of looking at certain window +traceries; she picked out easily the Geometrical Gothic type, and wanted +Jerry's full explanation as to its difference to those of another +period. Her little pink forefinger ever found points of interest in the +sketches which made him chuckle with delight and pride. The value of +Sunny's criticism and opinion, moreover, was enhanced by the fact that +she conveyed to the young man her conviction, that while of course these +were incredibly marvellous examples of the skill of ancient Spanish +architects, they were not a patch on the work which J. Addison Hammond +was going to do in the not far distant future. Though he protested +against this with proper modesty, he was nevertheless beguiled and +bewitched by the shining dream she called up. He had failed to note that +she was perched on the arm of his chair, and that her head rested +perilously near to his own. Possibly he would never have discovered this +at all had not an accident occurred that sent Hatton, busy on some task +or other about the studio, scurrying in undignified flight from the +room, with his stony face covered with his hands. From the kitchen +regions thereafter came the sound of suppressed clucks, which by this +time could have been recognised as Hatton's laughter. + +What happened was this: At a moment when a turned leaf revealed a sketch +of ravishing splendour, Sunny's breathless admiration, and Jerry's own +motion of appreciation (one fist clapped into the palm of the other +hand), caused Sunny to slip from the arm of the chair onto Jerry's knee. + +Jerry arose. To do him justice, he arose instantly, depositing both book +and Sunny upon the floor. He then proceeded to read her such a savage +lecture upon her pagan ways, that the evident effect was so instantly +apparent on her, that he stopped midway, glared, stared at the crushed +little figure, so tenderly closing the upset book, and then turned on +his heel and made an ignominious and undignified exit from the room. + +"What's the use? What's the use?" demanded Jerry of the unresponsive +walls. "Hang it all, this sort of thing has got to stop. What in Sam +Hill is keeping that blamed Proff?" + +He always liked to imagine at these times that his faith was pinned upon +the early coming of Professor Barrowes, when he was assured the hectic +state of affairs in his studio would be clarified and Sunny disposed of +once and forever. Sunny, however, had been nearly a month now in his +studio, and in spite of a hundred telegrams to Professor Barrowes, +demanding to know the exact time of his arrival, threatening moreover to +hold back that $2,000 required to bring the dashed Dinornis from Red +Deer, Alberta, Canada, to New York City, U. S. A., he got no +satisfactory response from his old-time teacher. That monomaniac merely +replied with letter-long telegrams--very expensive coming from the +extreme northwestern part of Canada to New York City, giving more +detailed information about the above mentioned Dinornis, or Dynosaurus, +or whatever he called it, and explaining why more and more funds were +required. It seems the Professor was tangled up in quite a serious +dispute with the Canadian authorities. Some indignant English residents +of Canada had aroused the alarm of Canadians, by pointing out that +Dynosaureses were worth as much as radium, and that a mere Yankee should +not be permitted to carry off those fossilized bones of the original +inhabitants of Canada, which ought, instead, to be donated to the noble +English nation across the sea. + +As Jerry paced his floor he paused to reread the words of the motto +recently pinned upon his wall, and, of course, it was as follows: "Honi +soit qui mal y pense." That was enough for Jerry. There was no question +of the fact that he had been "a pig and a brute," terms often in these +days applied by himself to himself. Sunny was certainly not to be blamed +for the accident of slipping from the arm of his chair. True, he had +already told her that she was not to sit on that arm, but that was a +minor matter, and there was no occasion for his making a "mountain out +of a molehill." + +Having arrived at the conclusion that, as usual, he, not Sunny, was the +one to blame, it was in the nature of Jerry that he should hurriedly +descend to admit his fault. Downstairs, therefore again, and into the +now empty studio. Sounds came from the direction of the kitchen that +were entirely too sweet to belong to the "pie-faced" Hatton, whose +disgusting recent mirth might mean the loss of his job, ominously +thought Jerry. + +In the kitchen Sunny was discovered on her knees with her lips close to +a small hole in the floor in the corner of the room. She was half +whistling, half whispering, and she was scattering something into and +about that hole, which had been apparently cut out with a vegetable +knife, that looked very much like cheese and breadcrumbs. Presently the +amazed Jerry saw first one and then another tiny face appear at that +hole, and there then issued forth a full-fledged family of the mouse +species, young and old, large and small, male and female. The +explanation of the previously inexplicable appearance in the studio of +countless mice was now perfectly clear, and the guiltlessness of that +accused janitor made visible. Jerry's ward had been feeding and +cultivating mice! At his exclamation, she arose reproachfully, the mice +scampering back into their hole. + +"Oh!" said Sunny, regret, not guilt, visible on her face, "you are +fright away my honourable mice, and thas hees time eat on hees dinner." + +She put the rest of her crumbs into the hole, and called down coaxingly +to her pets that breakfast would be ready next day. + +"You mustn't feed mice, you little fool!" burst from Jerry. "They'll be +all over the house. They are now. Everybody in the building's kicking +about it." + +"Honourable mice very good animals," said Sunny with conviction. "Mebbe +some you and my ancestor are mice now. You kinnod tell 'bout those. Mice +got very honourable history ad Japan. I am lig' them very much." + +"That'll do. Don't say another word. I'll fix 'em. Hi! you, Hatton! +Doggone you, you must have known about this." + +"Very sorry, sir, but orders from you, sir, was to allow Miss Sunny to +have her way in the kitchen, sir. 'Hi tries to obey you, sir, and 'hi +'adn't the 'eart to deprive Miss Sunny of her honly pets, sir. She's +honly yuman, sir, and being alone 'hall day, so young, sir, 'as +'ankerings for hinnocent things to play with." + +"That'll do, Hatton. Nail up that hole. Get busy." + +Nevertheless, Hatton's words sunk into the soul of Jerry. To think that +even the poor working man was kinder to little Sunny than was he! He +ignored the fact that as Hatton nailed tin over the guilty hole his +shoulders were observed to be shaking, and those spasmodic clucks +emanated at intervals also from him. In fact, Hatton, in these days, had +lost all his previously polished composure. That is to say, at +inconvenient moments, he would burst into this uncontrollable clucking, +as for instance, when waiting on table, observing a guest devouring some +special edible concocted by Sunny, he retired precipitately from service +at the table to the kitchen, to be discovered there by the irate Jerry, +who had followed him, sitting on a chair with tears running down his +cheeks. To the threatened kicking if he didn't get up and behave +himself, Hatton returned: + +"Oh, sir, hi ham honly yuman, and the gentleman was ravim' so about them +'spinnuges,' sir, has 'ees hafter calling them." + +"Well, what are they then?" demanded Jerry. + +"Them's weeds, sir," whispered Hatton wiping his eyes. "Miss Sunny, I +seen her diggin' them up in the lot across the way, and she come up the +fire escape with them in 'er petticoat, sir, and she 'ad four cats in +the petticoat also, sir. She's feedin' arf the population of cats in +this neighbourhood, sir." + +Jerry had been only irritated at that time. He knew that Sunny's "weeds" +were perfectly edible and far more toothsome in fact than mere spinach. +Trust her Japanese knowledge to know what was what in the vegetable +kingdom. However, mice were a more serious matter. There was an iron +clad rule in the building that no live stock of any kind, neither dogs, +cats, parrots, or birds or reptiles of any description, (babies included +in the ban) were to be lodged on these de luxe premises. Still, as Jerry +watched Sunny's brimming eyes, the eyes of one who sees her dear friends +imprisoned and doomed to execution, while Hatton nailed the tin over the +holes, he felt extremely mean and cruel. + +"I'm awfully sorry, Sunny, old scout," he said, "but you know we can't +possibly have _mice_ on the place. Now if it were something like--like, +well a dog, for instance----" + +"I _are_ got a nize dog," said Sunny, beginning to smile through her +tears. + +Apprehension instantly replaced the compunction on Jerry's +face--apprehension that turned to genuine horror, however, when Sunny +opened the window onto the fire escape, and showed him a large grocer's +box, upholstered and padded with a red article that looked suspiciously +like a Japanese petticoat. Digging under this padded silk, Sunny brought +forth the yellowest, orneriest, scurviest and meanest-looking specimen +of the dog family that it had ever been Jerry's misfortune to see. She +caught this disreputable object to her breast, and nestled her darling +little chin against the wriggling head, that persisted in ducking up to +release a long red tongue that licked her face with whines of delight +and appreciation. + +"Sunny! For the love of Mike! Where in the name of all the pagan gods +and goddesses of Japan did you get that god-forsaken mutt from? If you +wanted a dog, why in Sam Hill didn't you tell me, and I'd have gotten +you a regular dog--if they'd let me in the house." + +"Jerry, he are a regular dog also. I buyed him from the butcher +gentleman, who was mos' kind, and he charge me no moaney for those dog, +bi-cause he are say he are poor mans, and those dog came off those +street and eat him up those sausage. So that butcher gentleman he are +sell him to me, and he are my own dog, and I are love my Itchy mos' bes' +of all dogs." + +And she hugged her little cur protectingly to her breast, her bright +eyes with the defiant look of a little mother at bay. + +"Itchy!" + +"Thad are my dog's name. The butcher gentleman, he say he are scratch on +his itch all those time, so I are name him Itchy. Also I are cure on +those itch spot, for I are wash him every day, and now he are so clean +he got only two flea left on his body." + +"By what process of mathematics, will you tell me, did you arrive at the +figure of two?" demanded the stunned young man, thrusting his two fists +deep into his pocket and surveying Sunny and the aforesaid dog as one +might curious specimens in the Bronx zoo. + +"Two? Two flea?" Sunny passed her hand lovingly and sympathetically over +her dog's yellow body, and replied so simply that even an extremely +dense person would have been able to answer that arithmetic problem. + +"He are scratch him in two place only." + +Jerry threw back his head and burst into immoderate laughter. He laughed +so hard that he was obliged to sit down on a chair, while Hatton on the +floor sat down solidly also, and desisted with his hammering. Jerry's +mirth having had full sway, hands in pocket he surveyed Sunny, as, +lovingly, she returned her protesting cur to its silken retreat. + +"Sunny! Sunny!" said Jerry, shaking his head. "You'll be the death of me +yet." + +Sunny regarded him earnestly at that. + +"No, Jerry, do not say those. I are not want to make you death. Thas +very sad--for die." + +"What are we going to do about it? They'll never let you keep a dog +here. Against the rules." + +"No, no, it are no longer 'gainst those rule. I are speag wiz the +janitor gentleman, and he are say: 'Thas all ride, seein' it's you!'" + +"He did, did he? Got around him too, did you? You'll have the whole +place demoralised if you keep on." + +"I are also speag ad those landlord," confessed Sunny innocently, +"bi-cause he are swear on those janitor gentleman, account someone ad +these house are spik to him thad I are got dog. And thad landlord +gentleman he come up here ad these studio, and I show him those dog, and +he say he are nize dog, and thad those fire escape he is not _inside_. +So I nod break those rule, and he go downstairs spik ad those lady mek +those complain, and he say he doan keer if she dam clear out this house. +He doan lig' her which even." + +Jerry threw up his hands. + +"You win, Sunny! Do as you like. Fill the place full if you want to. +There's horses and cows to be had if they strike your fancy, and the zoo +is full of other kind of live stock. Take your choice." + +Sunny, indeed, did proceed to take her choice. It is true she did not +bring horses and cows and wild animals into Jerry's apartment; but she +passed the word to her doting friends, and in due time the inmates of +that duplex apartment made quite a considerable family, with promise of +early increase. There was besides Itchy, Count and Countess Taguchi, +overfed canaries, who taught Sunny a new kind of whistle; Mr. and Mrs. +Satsuma, goldfish who occupied an ornate glass and silver dish, fern and +rock lined donated by Jinx, and Miss Spring Morning, a large Persian +cat, whom Sunny named after her old friend of the teahouse of a Thousand +Joys, but whose name should have been Mr. Spring Morning. + +It was a very happy family indeed, and in time the master of the house +became quite accustomed to the pets (pests he called them at first), and +had that proud feeling moreover of the contented man of family. He often +fed the Satsumas and Taguchis himself, and actually was observed to +scratch the head of Itchy, who in these days penetrated into the various +rooms of the apartment (Sunny having had especial permission from the +janitor gentleman) so long as his presence was noiseless. He wore on his +scrawny neck a fine leather and gilt collar that Monty sent all the way +to Philadelphia to get for Sunny, thereby earning the bitter resentment +of his kid brother, who considered that collar his by rightful +inheritance from Monty's own recent kid days. Monty's remorse upon +"swiping" said collar was shortlived, however, for Sunny's smile and +excitement and the fun they had putting it on Itchy more than +compensated for any bitter threats of an unreasonable kid brother. +Besides Monty brought peace in that disturbed direction by sending the +younger Potter a brand new collar, not, it is true, of the history of +the one taken, but much more shiny and semi-adjustable. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + +On the 20th of April, Sunny's friend, "Mr. dear Monty" as she called him +(J. Lamont Potter, Jr., was his real name), obtained an indefinite leave +of absence from the hospital, and called upon Sunny in the absence of +Jerry Hammond. He came directly to the object of his call almost as soon +as Sunny admitted him. While indeed she was assisting him to remove that +nice, loosely hanging taupe coloured spring coat, that looked so well on +Monty, he swung around, as his arms came out of his coat sleeves, and +made Sunny an offer of his heart and soul. These the girl very +regretfully refused. Follows the gist of Sunny's remarks in rejection of +the offer: + +"Monty, I do not wan' gettin' marry wiz you jos yet, bi-cause you are +got two more year to worg on those hospital; then you are got go unto +those John Hoppakins for post--something kind worg also. Then you are go +ad those college and hospital in Hy----" She tried to say Heidelberg, +but the word was too much for her, and he broke in impetuously: + +"Listen, Sunny, those _were_ my plans, but everything's changed now, +since I met you. I've decided to cut it all out and settle down and +marry. I've got my degree, and can hang out my shingle. We'll have to +economize a bit at first, because the governor, no doubt, will cut me +out for doing this; but I'm not in swaddling clothes, and I'll do as I +like. So what do you say, Sunny?" + +"I say, thas nod ride do those. Your honourable father, he are spend +plenty moany for you, and thas unfilial do lig' thad. I thang you, +Monty, but I are sawry I kinnod do lig' you ask." + +"But look here, Sunny, there are whole heaps of fellows--dubs who never +go beyond taking their degree, who go to practising right away, and I +can do as they do, as far as that goes, and with you I should worry +whether I go up in medicine or not." + +"But, Monty, I _wan_ see you go up--Ho! up, way high to those top. Thas +mos' bes' thing do for gentleman. I do nod lig' man who stay down low on +ground. Thas nod nize. I do nod wan' make marry wiz gentleman lig' +those." + +"We-el, I suppose I could go on with the work and study. If I did, would +you wait for me? Would you, Sunny?" + +"I do not know, Monty. How I kin see all those year come?" + +"Well, but you can promise me, can't you?" + +"No, Monty, bi-cause mebbe I goin' die, and then thas break promise. +Thas not perlite do lig' those." + +"Pshaw! There's no likelihood at all of your dying. You're awfully +healthy. Anyone can see it by your colouring. By jove, Sunny, you have +the prettiest complexion of any girl I've ever seen. Your cheeks are +just like flowers. Die! You're bugs to think of it even. So you are +perfectly safe in promising." + +"We-el, then I promise that mebbe after those five, six year when you +are all troo, _if_ I are not marry wiz someone else, then I go +_consider_ marry wiz you, Monty." + +This gracious speech was sweetened by an engaging smile, and Monty, +believing that "half a loaf is better than no loaf" showed his pleasure, +though his curiosity prompted him to make anxious inquiry as to possible +rivals. + +"Bobs asked you yet?" + +"No--not yet." + +"You wouldn't take him if he did, would you, Sunny?" + +"No. Not yet." + +"Or any time. Say that." + +Sunny laughed. + +"Any time, Monty." + +"And Jinx? What about Jinx?" + +"He are always my good friend." + +"You wouldn't marry him, would you?" + +"No. I are lig' him as frien'." + +Monty pursued no further. He knew of the existence of Jerry's Miss +Falconer. Dashed, but not hopeless Monty withdrew. + +That was on the 20th of April. Bob's proposal followed on the 22nd. He +inveigled Sunny into accompanying him to his polished and glorified +flat, which was presided over by an ample bosomed and smiling "mammy" +whom Bobs had especially imported from the sunny South. + +His guest, having exclaimed and enthused over the really cosy and bright +little flat, Bobs, with his fine, clever face aglow, asked her to share +it with him. The request frightened Sunny. She had exhausted +considerable of her stock of excuses against matrimony to Monty, and she +did not want to see that look of hope fade from Mr. dear Bobs' face. + +"Oh, Bobs, I are _thad_ sorry, but me? I do not wan make marry jos yet. +Please you waid for some udder day when mebbe perhaps I go change those +mind." + +"It's all right, Sunny." + +Bobs took his medicine like a man, his clean cut face slightly paling, +as he followed with a question the lightness of which did not deceive +the distressed Sunny: + +"You're not engaged to anyone else, are you, Sunny?" + +"Emgaged? What are those, Bobs?" + +"You haven't promised any other lucky dog that you'll marry him, have +you?" + +"No-o." Sunny shook her bright head. "No one are ask me yet, 'cept +Monty, and I are say same ting to him." + +"Good!" Bobs beamed through his disappointment on her. + +"While there's life there's hope, you know." + +He felt that Jinx's chances were slim, and he, too, knew of Miss +Falconer and Jerry. + +Sunny, by no means elated by her two proposals, confided in Hatton, and +received sage advice: + +"Miss Sunny, Hi'm not hin a position exactly to advise you, and hits +'ardly my place, miss, but so long as you hasks my hadvice, I gives it +you grattus. Now Mr. Potter, 'ees a trifle young for matrimunny, miss--a +trifle young, and Mr. Mapson, I 'ear that 'ees not got hany too much +money, and hits a beggarly profession 'ees followin', miss. I 'ave 'eard +this from Mr. Jerry's hown folks, 'oo more than once 'as cast +haspirations against Mr. Jerry's friends, but hi takes it that wot +they're sayin' comes near to the truth habout the newspaper as a +perfession, miss. Now there's Mr. Crawford, Miss----" + +Hatton's voice took on both a respectful and a confidential tone as he +came to Jinx. + +"Now, Hi flatters myself that Hi'm some judge of yuman nature, miss, and +I make bold to say, hif I may, miss, that Mr. Crawford his about halso +to pop the 'appy question to you, miss. Now, hif hi was hin your place, +miss, 'ees the gentleman hi'd be after 'ooking. His people hare of the +harristocrissy of Hamerica--so far, miss, as Hamerica can 'ave +harristocrissy--and Mr. Crawford his the hair to a varst fortune, miss. +There's no telling to wot 'eights you might climb if you buckles up with +Mr. Crawford, Miss." + +"Ho! Hatton, I lig' all those my frien' jos same. Me? I would lig' marry +all those, but I kinnod do." + +"'Ardly, miss, 'ardly. Hamerica is 'ardly a pollagamous country, though +'hit his the 'ome of the Mormon people." + +"Mormon?" + +"A church, miss; a sex of people wots given to pollagummy, which is, I +takes it, too 'ard and big a word for you, miss, bein' a forriner, to +hunderstand, so hi'll explain a bit clearer, miss. The Mormon people +hacquire several wives, some helders 'avin' the reputation of bein' in +the class with hour hown King 'Enry the Heighth, and worse, miss,--with +Solomon 'imself, I 'ave 'eard it said." + +"Ho-h-a-!" said Sunny thoughtfully. "Thad is very nize--those Mormon. +Thas lig' Japanese emperor. Some time he got lots wife." + +Hatton wiped the sweat from his brow. He had gotten upon a subject +somewhat beyond his depths, and the young person before him rather +scandalised his ideas of what a young lady's views on such matters +should be. He had hoped to shock Sunny somewhat. Instead she sighed with +an undeniably envious accent as he told her of the reprehensible +Mormons. After a moment she asked very softly: + +"Hatton, mebbe Jerry ask me those same question." + +Hatton turned his back, and fussed with the dishes in the sink. He too +knew about Miss Falconer. + +"'Ardly, miss, 'ardly." + +"Why not, Hatton?" + +"If you'll pardon me, I 'ave a great deal of work before me. Hi'm in a +'urry. 'Ave you fed the Count and Countess Taguchi, may I ask, miss." + +"Hatton, _if_ a man _not_ ask girl to make marry wiz him, what she can +do?" + +"Well now, miss, you got me there. Has far as Hi'm hable to see +personally, miss, there haren't nothing left for 'er to do except wait +for the leap year." + +"Leap year? What are those, Hatton?" + +"A hodd year, miss--comes just in so often, miss, due to come next year, +halso. When the leap year comes, miss, then the ladies do the +popping--they harsks the 'appy question, miss." + +"O-h-h-! Thas very nize. I wish it are leap year now," said Sunny +wistfully. + +"Hit'll come, miss. Hit's on hit's way. A few months and then the +ladies' day will dawn," and Hatton, moving about with cheer, clucked at +the thought. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + +A week after Bobs proposed to Sunny, Jinx, shining like the rising sun +by an especially careful grooming administered by his valet, a flower +adorning his lapel, and a silk hat topping his head, with a box of +chocolates large enough to hold an Easter bonnet in his hand, and a +smaller box of another kind in his vest pocket, presented himself at +Jerry Hammond's studio. Flowers preceded and followed this last of +Sunny's ardent suitors. + +He was received by a young person arrayed in a pink pongee smock, +sleeves rolled up, revealing a pair of dimpled arms, hair in distracting +disorder, and a little nose on which seductively perched a blotch of +flour, which the infatuated Jinx was requested to waft away with his +silken handkerchief. + +Sunny's cheeks were flushed from close proximity to that gas stove, and +her eyes were bright with the warfare which she waged incessantly upon +the aforesaid honourable stove. In the early days of her appearance at +the studio--by the way, she had been domiciled there a whole +month--Sunny's operations at the gas stove had had disastrous results. +Her attempt to boil water by the simple device of turning on the gas, as +she did the electric light was alarming in its odorous effects, but her +efforts to blow out the oven was almost calamitous, and caused no end of +excitement, for it singed her hair and eyebrows and scorched an arm that +required the persistent and solicitous attention of her four friends, a +doctor and the thoroughly agitated Hatton, on whose head poured the full +vials of Jerry's wrath and blame. In fact, this accident almost drove +Hatton to desert what he explained to Sunny was the "water wagon." + +After that Sunny was strictly ordered by Jerry to keep out of the +kitchen. Realising, however, that she could not be trusted on that +score, he took half a day off from the office, and gave her a full +course of instruction in the mysteries and works of said gas stove. It +should be assumed therefore that by this time Sunny should have acquired +at least a primary knowledge of the stove. Not so, however. She never +lit the oven but she threw salt about to propitiate the oni (goblin) +which she was sure had its home somewhere in that strange fire, and she +hesitated to touch any of the levers once the fire was lit. + +Most of the dishes created by Sunny were more or less under the eye of +Hatton, but on this day Hatton had stepped out to the butcher's. +Therefore Jinx's arrival was hailed by Sunny with appreciation and +relief, and she promptly lead the happy fellow to the kitchen and +solicited his advice. Now Jinx, the son of the plutocratic rich, had +never been inside a kitchen since his small boyhood, and then his +recollection of said portion of the house was of a vast white place, +where tiles and marble and white capped cooks prevailed, and small boys +were chuckled over or stared at and whispered about. + +The dimensions of Sunny's kitchen were about seven by nine feet, and it +is well to mention at this moment that the room registered 95 degrees +Fahrenheit. Jinx weighed two hundred and forty-five pounds, stripped. +His emotions, his preparations, his hurry to enter the presence of his +charmer, to say nothing of a volcanic heart, all contributed to add to +the heat and discomfort of the fat young man down whose ruddy cheeks the +perspiration rolled. Jinx had come upon a mission that in all times in +the history of the world, subsequent to cave days, has called for +coolness, tact, and as attractive a physical seeming as it is possible +to attain. + +Sunny drew her friend along to that gas stove, kneeled on the floor, +making room for him to kneel beside her--no easy "stunt" for a fat +man--opened the lower door and revealed to him the jets on full blaze. +Jinx shook his head. The problem was beyond him, but even as his head +shook he sniffed a certain fragrant odour that stole directly to a +certain point in Jinx's anatomy that Sunny would quaintly have +designated as his "honourable insides." The little kitchen, despite its +heat, contained in that oven, Jinx knew, that which was more attractive +than anything the cool studio could offer. Seating himself heavily on a +frail kitchen chair, which creaked ominously under his weight, Jinx +awaited hopefully what he felt sure was soon to follow. + +In due time Sunny opened the upper door of the oven, withdrew two +luscious looking pans of the crispest brown rice cakes, plentifully +besprinkled with dates and nuts and over which she dusted powdered +sugar, and passing by the really suffering Jinx she transferred the pans +to the window ledge, saying with a smile: + +"When he are cool, I giving you one, Jinx." + +Wiping her hands on the roller towel, she had Jinx pull the smock over +her head, and revealed her small person in blue taffeta frock, which +Jinx himself had had the honour of choosing for her. Unwillingly, and +with one longing backward look at those cakes, Jinx followed Sunny into +the studio. Here, removed from the intoxicating effects of that kitchen, +Sunny having his full attention again, he came to the object of his +call. Jinx sat forward on the edge of his chair, and his round, fat face +looked so comically like the man in the moon's that Sunny could not +forbear smiling at him affectionately. + +"Ho! Jinx, how you are going to lig' those cake when he is getting +cold." + +Jinx liked them hot just as well. However, he was not such a gourmand +that mere rice and date cakes could divert him from the purpose of his +call. He sighed so deeply and his expression revealed such a condition +of melancholy appeal that Sunny, alarmed, moved over and took his face +up in her hand, examining it like a little doctor, head cocked on one +side. + +"Jinx, you are sick? What you are eat? Show me those tongue!" + +"Aw, it's nothing, Sunny--nothing to do with my tongue. It's--it's--just +a little heart trouble, Sunny." + +"Heart! That are bad place be sick! You are ache on him, Mr. dear Jinx?" + +"Ye-eh--some." + +"I sawry! How I are sawry! You have see doctor." + +"You're the only doctor I need." + +Which was true enough. It was surprising the healing effects upon Jinx's +aching heart of the solicitous and sympathetic hovering about him of +Sunny. + +"Oh, Jinx, I go at those telephone ride away, get him Mr. Doctor here +come. I 'fraid mebbe you more sick than mebbe you know." + +"No, no--never mind a doctor." Jinx held her back by force. +"Look-a-here, Sunny, I'll tell you just what's the matter with my heart. +I'm--I'm--in love!" + +"Oh--love. I have hear those word bi-fore, but I have never feel him," +said Sunny wistfully. + +"You'll feel it some day all right," groaned Jinx. "And you'll know it +too when you've got it." + +"Ad Japan nobody--love. Thas not nize word speag ad Japan." + +"Gosh! it's the nicest word in the language in America. You can't help +speaking it. You can't help feeling it. When you're in love, Sunny, you +think day and night and every hour and minute and second of the day of +the same person. That's love, Sunny." + +"Ah!" whispered Sunny, her eyes very bright and dewey, "I are _know_ him +then!" And she stood with that rapt look, scarcely hearing Jinx, and +brought back to earth only when he took her hand, and clung to it with +both his own somewhat flabby ones. + +"Sunny, I'm head over heels in love with you. Put me out of my misery. +Say you'll be Mrs. Crawford, and you'll see how quickly this old bunged +up heart of mine will heal." + +"Oh, Jinx, you are ask _me_ to make marry wiz you?" + +"You bet your life I am. Gosh! I've got an awful case on you, Sunny." + +"Ho! I sawry I kinnod do thad to-day. I am not good ad my healt'. +Axscuse me. Mebbe some odder day I do so." + +"Any day will do. Any day that suits you, if you'll just give me your +promise--if you'll just be engaged to me." + +"Engaged?" Bobs had already explained to her what that meant, but she +repeated it to gain time. + +"Why, yes--don't they have engagements in Japan?" + +"No. Marriage broker go ad girl's father and boy's father and make those +marriage." + +"Well, this is a civilised land. We do things right here. You're a lucky +girl to have escaped from Japan. Here, in this land, we first get +engaged, say for a week or month or even a year--only a short time will +do for you and me, Sunny--and then, well, we marry. How about it?" + +Sunny considered the question from several serious angles, very +thoughtful, very much impressed. + +"Jinx, I do nod like to make marriage, bi-cause thas tie me up wiz jos +one frien' for hosban'." + +"But you don't want more than one husband?" + +Jinx remembered hearing somewhere that the Japanese were a polygamous +nation, but he thought that only applied to the favoured males of the +race. + +"No--O thas very nize for Mormon man I am hear of, bud----" + +"Not fit for a woman," warmly declared Jinx. "All I ask of you, Sunny, +is that you'll promise to marry me. If you'll do that, you'll make me +the happiest bug in these United States. I'll be all but looney, and +that's a fact." + +"I sawry, Jinx, but me? I kinnod do so." + +Jinx relapsed into a state of the darkest gloom. Looking out from the +depths of the big, soft overstuffed chair, he could see not a gleam of +light, and presently groaned: + +"I suppose if I weren't such a mass of flesh and fat, I might stand a +show with you. It's hell to be fat, I'll tell the world." + +"Jinx, I lig' those fat. It grow nize on you. And _pleass_ do not loog +so sad on you face. Wait, I go get you something thas goin' make you +look smile again." + +She disappeared into the kitchen, returning with the whole platter of +cookies, still quite warm, and irresistibly odorous and toothsome +looking. Jinx, endeavouring to refuse, had to close his eyes to steady +him in his resolve, but he could not close his nose, nor his mouth +either, when Sunny thrust one of the delicious pieces into his mouth. +She wooed him back to a semi-normal condition by feeding him crisp +morsels of his favourite confection, nor was it possible to resist +something that pushed against one's mouth, and once having entered that +orifice revealed qualities that appealed to the very best in one's +nature. + +Jinx was not made of the Spartan stuff of heroes, and who shall blame +him if nature chose to endow him with a form of rich proportions that +included "honourable insides" whose capacity was unlimited. So, till the +very last cooky, and a sense of well being and fulness, the sad side of +life pushed aside _pro tem_, Jinx was actually able to smile indulgently +at the solicitous Sunny. She clapped her hands delightedly over her +success. Jinx's fingers found their way to his vest pocket. He withdrew +a small velvet box, and snapped back the lid. Silently he held it toward +Sunny. Her eyes wide, she stared at it with excited rapture. + +"Oh-h! Thas mos' beautifullest thing I are ever see." + +Never, in fact, had her eyes beheld anything half so lovely as that +shining platinum work of art with its immense diamond. + +"Just think," said Jinx huskily, "if you say the word, you can have +stones like that covering you all over." + +"All over!" She made an expressive motion of her hands which took in all +of her small person. + +Melancholy again clouded Jinx's face. After all, he did not want Sunny +to marry him for jewelry. + +"I tell you what you do, Sunny. Wear this for me, will you? Wear it for +a while, anyway, and then when you decide finally whether you'll have me +or not, keep it or send it back, as you like." + +He had slipped the ring onto the third finger of Sunny's left hand, and +holding that had made him a bit bolder. Sunny, unsuspecting and +sympathetic, let her hand rest in his, the ring up, where she could +admire it to her heart's content. + +"Look a here, Sunny, will you give me a kiss, then--just one. The ring's +worth that, isn't it?" + +Sunny retreated hurriedly, almost panically? + +"Oh, Jinx, please you excuse me to-day, bi-cause I _lig'_ do so, but Mr. +Hatton he are stand ad those door and loog on you." + +"Damn Hatty!" groaned Jinx bitterly, and with a sigh that heaved his big +breast aloft, he picked up his hat and cane, and ponderously moved +toward the door. + +In the lower hall of the studio apartment, who should the crestfallen +Jinx encounter but his old-time friend, Jerry Hammond, returning from +his eight hours' work at the office. His friend's greeting was both curt +and cold, and there was no mistaking that look of dislike and +disapproval that the frowning face made no effort to disguise. + +"Here again, Jinx. Better move in," was Jerry's greeting. + +Jinx muttered something inarticulate and furious, and for a fat man he +made quick time across the hall and out into the street, where he +climbed with a heavy heart into the great roadster, which he had fondly +hoped might also carry Sunny with him upon a prolonged honeymoon. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + +Sunny poured Jerry's tea with a hand turned ostentatiously in a +direction that revealed to his amazed and indignant eye that enormous +stone of fire that blazed on the finger of Sunny's left hand. His +appetite, always excellent, failed him entirely, and after conquering +the first surge of impulses that were almost murderous, he lapsed into +an ominous silence, which no guile nor question from the girl at the +head of his table could break. A steady, a cold, a biting glare, a +murmured monosyllabic reply was all the response she received to her +amiable overtures. His ill temper, moreover, reached out to the +inoffensive Hatton, whom he ordered to clear out, and stay out, and if +it came down to that get out altogether, rather than hang around +snickering in that way. Thus Jerry revealed a side to his character +hitherto unsuspected by Sunny, though several rumblings and barks from +the "dog in the manger" would have apprized one less innocent than she. + +They finished that meal--or rather Sunny did--in silence electric with +coming strife. Then Jerry suddenly left the table, strode into the +little hall, took down his hat and coat, and was about to go, heaven +knows where, when Sunny, at his elbow, sought to restrain him by force. +She took his sleeve and tenaciously held to it, saying: + +"Jerry, do not go out these night. I are got some news I lig' tell to +you." + +"Let go my arm. I'm not interested in your news. I've a date of my own." + +"But Jerry----" + +"I say, let go my arm, will you?" + +The last was said in a rising voice, as he reached the crest of +irritation, and jerking his sleeve so roughly from her clasp, he +accomplished the desired freedom, but the look on Sunny's face stayed +with him all the way down those apartment stairs--he ignored the +elevator--and to the door of the house. There he stopped short, and +without more ado, retraced his steps, sprang up the stairs in a great +hurry, and jerking open his door again, Jerry returned to his home. He +discovered Sunny curled on the floor, with her head buried in the seat +of his favourite chair--the one occupied that afternoon by the +mischief-making Jinx. + +"Sunny! I'm awfully sorry I was such a beast. Say, little girl, look +here, I'm not myself. I don't know what I'm doing." + +Sunny slowly lifted her face, revealing to the relieved but indignant +Jerry a face on which it is true there were traces of a tear or two, but +which nevertheless smiled at him quite shamelessly and even +triumphantly. Jerry felt foolish, and he was divided between a notion to +remain at home with the culprit--she had done nothing especially wrong, +but he felt that she was to blame for something or other--or follow his +first intention of going out for the night--just where, he didn't +know--but anywhere would do to escape the thought that had come to +him--the thought of Sunny's probable engagement to Jinx. However, Sunny +gave him no time to debate the matter of his movements for the evening. +She very calmly assisted him to remove his coat, hung up his hat, and +when she had him comfortably ensconced in his favourite chair, had +herself lit his pipe and handed it to him, she drew up a stool and sat +down in front of his knees, just as if, in fact, she was entirely +guiltless of an engagement of which Jerry positively did not intend to +approve. Her audacity, moreover, was such that she did not hesitate to +lay her left hand on Jerry's knee, where he might get the full benefit +of the radiant light from that ring. He looked at it, set down his pipe +on the stand at his elbow, and stirred in that restless way which +portends hasty arising, when Sunny: + +"Jerry, Jinx are come to-day to ask me make marriage with him." + +"The big stiff. I pity any girl that has to go through life with that +fathead." + +"Ho! I are always lig' thad fat grow on Jinx. It look very good on him. +I are told him so." + +"Matter of taste of course," snarled Jerry, fascinated by the twinkling +of that ring in spite of himself, and feeling at that moment an emotion +that was dangerously like hatred for the girl he had done so much for. + +"Monty and Bobs are also ask me marry wiz them." Sunny dimpled quite +wickedly at this, but Jerry failed to see any humour in the matter. He +said with assumed loftiness: + +"Well, well, proposals raining down on you in every direction. Your +janitor gentleman and landlord asked you too?" + +"No-o, not yit, but those landlord are say he lig' take me for ride some +nize days on his car ad those park." + +"The hell he did!" + +Jerry sat up with such a savage jerk at this that he succeeded in +upsetting the innocent hand resting so confidingly upon his knee. + +"Who asked him around here anyway?" demanded Jerry furiously. "Just +because he owns this building doesn't mean he has a right to impose +himself on the tenants, and I'll tell him so damn quick." + +"But, Jerry, _I_ are ask him come up here. Itchy fall down on those fire +escape, and he are making so much noise on this house when he cry, that +everybody who live on this house open those windows on court, and I are +run down quick on those fire escape and everybody also run out see +what's all those trouble. Then I am cry so hard, bi-cause I are afraid +Itchy are hurt himself too bad, bi-cause he also are cry very loud." +Sunny lifted her nose sky-ward, illustrating how the dog's cries had +emanated from him. "So then, everybody _very_ kind at me and Itchy, and +the janitor gentleman carry him bag ad these room, and the landlord +gentleman say thas all ride henceforth I have thad little dog live wiz +me ad these room also. He say it is very hard for liddle girl come from +country way off be 'lone all those day, and mebbe some day he take me +and Itchy for ride ad those park. So I are say, 'Thang you, I will like +go vaery much, thang you.'" + +"Well, make up your mind to it, you're not going, do you understand? +I'll have no landlords taking you riding in any parks." + +Having delivered this ultimatum as viciously as the circumstances called +for, Jerry leaned back in pretended ease and awaited further revelations +from Sunny. + +"--but," went on Sunny, as if finishing a sentence, "that landlord +gentleman are not also ask me marry wiz him, Jerry. He already got big +wife. I are see her. She are so big as Jinx, and she smile on me very +kind, and say she have hear of me from her hosban', that I am very +lonely girl from Japan, and thas very sad for me, and she goin' to take +those ride wiz me also." + +"Hm!" Jerry felt ashamed of himself, but he did not propose to reveal +it, especially when that little hand had crept back to its old place on +his knee, and the diamond flaunted brazenly before his gaze. Nobody but +a "fat-head" would buy a diamond of that size anyway, was Jerry's +opinion. There was something extremely vulgar about diamonds. They were +not nearly as pretty as rubies or emeralds or even turquoise, and Jerry +had never liked them. Of course, Miss Falconer, like every other girl, +had to have her diamond, and Jerry recalled with irritation how, as a +sophomore, he had purchased that first diamond. He neither enjoyed the +expedition nor the memory of it. Jinx's brazen ring made him think of +Miss Falconer's. However, the thought of Miss Falconer was, for some +reason or other, distasteful to Jerry in these days, and, moreover, the +girl before him called for his full attention as usual. + +"So you decided on Jinx, did you? Bobs and Monty in the discard and the +affluent fat and fair Jinx the winner." + +"Jerry, I are _prefer_ marry all my friends, but I say 'no' to each one +of those." + +"What are you wearing Jinx's ring for then?" + +"Bi-cause it are loog nize on my hands, and he _ask_ me wear it there." + +New emotions were flooding over the contrite Jerry. Something was racing +like champagne through his veins, and he suddenly realised how "damnably +jolly" life was after all. Still, even though Sunny had admitted that no +engagement existed between her and Jinx, there was that ring. Poor +little girl! A fellow had to teach her all of the western conventions, +she was that innocent and simple. + +"Sunny, you don't want to wear a fellow's ring unless you intend to +marry him, don't you understand that? The ring means that you are +promised to him, do you get me?" + +"No! But I _are_ promise to Jinx. I are promise that I will consider +marry him some day if I do not marry some other man I _wan'_ ask me +also." + +"Another man. Who----?" + +Sunny's glance directed full upon him left nothing to the imagination. +Jerry's heart began to thump in a manner that alarmed him. + +"Jerry," said Sunny, "I going to wear Jinx's ring _until_ that man also +asking me. I _wan_ him do so, bi-cause I are lig' him mos' bes' of all +my frien'. I think----" She had both of her hands on his knees now, and +was leaning up looking so wistfully into his face that he tried to avert +his own gaze. In spite of the lump that rose in his throat, in spite of +the frantic beating of his heart, Jerry did not ask the question that +the girl was waiting to hear. After a moment, she said gently: + +"Jerry, Hatty are tell me that nex' year he are come a Leap. Then, he +say, thas perlite for girl ask man make marriage wiz her. Jerry, _I_ are +goin' to wait till those year of Leap are come, and then, me? I are +goin' ask _you_ those question." + +For one thrilling moment there was a great glow in the heart of Jerry +Hammond, and then his face seemed suddenly to turn grey and old. His +voice was husky and there was a mist before his eyes. + +"Sunny, I must tell you--Sunny, I--I--am already engaged to be married +to an American girl--a girl my people want me to marry. I've been +engaged to her since my eighteenth year. I--_don't_ look at me like +that, Sunny, or----" + +The girl's head dropped to the level of the floor, her hands slipping +helplessly from his knees. She seemed all in a moment to become purely +Japanese. There was that in her bowed head that was strangely +reminiscent of some old and vanished custom of her race. She did not +raise her head, even as she spoke: + +"I wishin' you ten thousand year of joy. Sayonara for this night." + + * * * * * + +Sunny had left him alone. Jerry felt the inability to stir. He stared +into the dying embers of his fire with the look of one who has seen a +vision that has disappeared ere he could sense its full significance. It +seemed at that moment to Jerry as if everything desirable and precious +in life were within reach, but he was unable to seize it. It was like +his dream of beauty, ever above, but beyond man's power to completely +touch. Sunny was like that, as fragile, as elusive as beauty itself. The +thought of his having hurt Sunny tore his heart. She had aroused in him +every impulse that was chivalrous. The longing to guard and cherish her +was paramount to all other feelings. What was it Professor Barrowes had +warned him of? That he should refrain from taking the bloom from the +rose. Had he, then, all unwittingly, injured little Sunny? + +Mechanically, Jerry went into the hall, slowly put his hat on his head +and passed out into the street. He walked up and down 67th Street and +along Central Park West to 59th Street, retracing his steps three times +to the studio building, and turning back again. His mind was in a chaos, +and he knew not what to do. Only one clear purpose seemed to push +through the fog, the passionate determination to care for Sunny. She +came first of all. Indeed she occupied the whole of his thought. The +claim of the girl who had waited for him seven years seemed of minor +importance when compared with the claim of the girl he loved. The +disinclination to hurt another had kept him from breaking an engagement +that had never been of his own desire, but now Jerry knew there could be +no more evasions. The time had come when he must face the issue +squarely. His sense of honour demanded that he make a clean breast of +the entire matter to Miss Falconer. He reached this resolve while still +walking on 59th Street. It gave him no more than time to catch the night +train to Greenwich. As he stepped aboard the train that was bearing him +from Sunny to Miss Falconer all of the fogs had cleared from Jerry's +mind. He was conscious of an immense sense of relief. It seemed strange +to him that he had never taken this step before. Judging the girl by +himself, he felt that he knew exactly what she would say when with +complete candour he should "lay his cards upon the table." He felt sure +that she was a good sport. He did not delude himself with the idea that +an engagement that had been irksome to himself had been of any joy to +her. It was simply, so he told himself, a mistake of their parents. They +had planned and worked this scheme, and into it they had dumped these +two young people at a psychological moment. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + +For two days Sunny waited for Jerry to return. She was lonely and most +unhappy, but hers was a buoyant personality, and withal her hurt she +kept up a bright face before her little world of that duplex studio. In +spite of the two nights when no sleep at all came, and she lay through +the long hours trying vainly not to think of the wife of Jerry Hammond, +in the daytime she moved about the small concerns of the apartment with +a smile of cheer and found a measure of comfort in her pets. + +It was all very well, however, to hug Itchy passionately to her breast, +and assure herself that she had in her arms one true and loving friend. +Always she set the dog sadly down again, saying: + +"Ah, liddle honourable dog, you are jos liddle dog, thas all. How you +can know whas ache on my heart. I do nod lig' you more for to-day." + +She fed Mr. and Mrs. Satsuma, and whistled and sang to them. After all, +a canary is only a canary. Its bright, hard eye is blank and cold. Even +the goldfish, swimming to the top of the honourable bowl, and picking +the crumb so cunningly from her finger, lost their charm for her. Miss +Spring Morning had long since been vanished with severe Japanese +reproaches for his inhuman treatment of Sunny's first friends, the +honourable mice, several of whose little bodies Sunny had confided to a +grave she herself had dug, with tears that aroused the janitor +gentleman's sympathy, so that he permitted the interment in the back +yard. + +The victrola, working incessantly the first day, supplied merely noise. +On the second morning she banged the top impulsively down, and cried at +Caruso: + +"Oh, I do not wan' hear your honourable voice to-day. Shut you up!" + +Midway in an aria from "Rigoletto" the golden voice was quenched. + +She hovered about the telephone, and several times lifted the receiver, +with the idea of calling one of her friends, but always she rejected the +impulse. Intuitively Sunny knew that until the first pang of her refusal +had passed her friends were better away from her. + +Little comfort was to be extracted from Hatton, who was acting in a +manner that had Sunny not been so absorbed by her own personal trouble +would have caused her concern. Hatton talked incessantly and feverishly +and with tears about his Missus, and what she had driven him to, and of +how a poor man tries to do his duty in life, but women were ever trouble +makers, and it was only "yuman nature" for a man to want a little +pleasure, and he, Hatton, had made this perfectly clear to Mr. Hammond +when he had taken service with him. + +"A yuman being, miss," said Hatton, "is yuman, and that's all there is +to it. Yuman nature 'as certain 'ankerings and its against yuman nature +to gainsay them 'ankerings, if you'll pardon me saying so, miss." + +However, he assured Sunny most earnestly that he was fighting the Devil +and all his works, which was just what "them 'ankerings" was, and he +audibly muttered for her especial hearing in proof of his assertion +several times through the day: "Get thee be'ind me, Satan." Satan being +"them 'ankerings, miss." + +In normal times Sunny's fun and cheer would have been of invaluable +assistance and diversion to Hatton. Indeed, his long abstention was +quite remarkable since she had been there; but Sunny, affect cheer as +she might, could not hide from the sympathetic Hatton's gaze the fact +that she was most unhappy. In fact, Sunny's sadness affected the +impressionable Hatton so that the second morning he could stand it no +longer, and disappeared for several hours, to return, hiccoughing +cravenly, and explaining: + +"I couldn't 'elp it, miss. My 'eart haches for you, and it ain't yuman +nature to gainsay the yuman 'eart." + +"Hatton," said Sunny severely, "I are smell you on my nose. You are not +smell good." + +"Pardon me, miss," said Hatton, beginning to weep. "Hi'm sadly ashamed +of myself, miss. If you'll pardon me, miss, I'll betake myself to less +'appy regions than Mr. 'Ammond's studio, miss, 'as it's my desire not to +'urt your sense of smell, miss. So if you'll pardon me, I'll say +good-bye, miss, 'oping you'll be in a 'appier mood when next we meet." + +For the rest of that day there was no further sign from Hatton. Left +thus alone in the apartment, Sunny was sore put to find something to +distract her, for all the old diversions, without Jerry, began to pall. +She wished wistfully that Jerry had not forbidden her to make friends +with other tenants in the house. She felt the strange need of a friend +at this hour. There was one woman especially whom Sunny would have liked +to know better. She always waved to Sunny in such a friendly way across +the court, and once she called across to her: "Do come over and see me. +I want you to see some of the sketches I have made of you at the +window." Sunny pointed the lady out to Jerry, and that young man's face +became surprisingly inflamed and he ordered Sunny so angrily not to +continue an acquaintance with her unknown friend, that the poor child +avoided going near the window for fear of giving offence. + +Also, there was a gentleman who came and went periodically in the studio +building, and whose admiring looks had all but embraced Sunny even +before she scraped an acquaintance with him. He did not live in this +building, but came very frequently to call upon certain of the artists, +including the lady across the court. Like Jinx, he always wore a flower +in his buttonhole, but, unlike Jinx, his clothes had a certain +distinction that to the unsophisticated Sunny seemed to spell the last +word in style. She was especially fascinated by his tan-coloured spats, +and once, examining them with earnest curiosity while waiting for the +elevator, her glance arose to his face, and she met his all embracing +smile with one of her own engaging ones. This man was in fact a well +known dilettante and man about town, a dabbler a bit himself in the +arts, but a monument of egotism. He had diligently built up a reputation +as a patron and connoisseur of art. + +One Sunday morning Sunny came in from a little walk as far as the park, +with Itchy. In spite of an unexpectedly hard shower that had fallen soon +after she had left, she returned smiling and perfectly dry; excited and +delighted moreover over the fortune that had befallen her. + +"Jerry!" she cried as soon as she entered, "I are git jost to those +corner, when down him come those rain. So much blow! Futen (the wind +god) get very angery and blow me quick up street, but the rain fall down +jos' lig' cloud are burst. Streets flow lig' grade river. Me? I are run +quick and come up on steps of house, and there are five, ten other +people also stand on those step and keep him dry. One gentleman he got +beeg umberella. I feel sure that umberella it keep me dry. So I smile on +those mans----" + +"You _what_?" + +"I make a smile on him. Like these----" Sunny illustrated innocently. + +"Don't you know better than to smile at any man on the street?" + +Sunny was taken aback. The Japanese are a smiling nation, and the +interchange of smiles among the sexes is not considered reprehensible; +certainly not in the class from which Sunny had come. + +"Smile are not bad. He are kind thing, Jerry. It make people feel happy, +and it do lots good on those worl'. When I smile on thad gentlemen, he +are smile ride bag on me ad once, and he take me by those arm, and say +he bring me home all nize and dry. And, Jerry, he say, he thing I am too +nize piece--er--brick-brack--" bric-a-brac was a new word for Sunny, but +Jerry recognised what she was trying to say--"to git wet. So he give me +all those umberella. He bring me ride up ad these door, and he say he +come see me very soon now as he lig' make sure I got good healt'. He are +a very kind gentleman, Jerry. Here are his card." + +Jerry took the card, glared at it, and began panically walking up and +down the apartment, raging and roaring like an "angery tiger," as Sunny +eloquently described him to herself, and then flung around on her and +read her such a scorching lecture that the girl turned pale with fright, +and, as usual, the man was obliged to swallow his steam before it was +all exploded. + +In parenthesis, it may be here added, that the orders given by Jerry to +that black boy at the telephone desk, embraced such a diabolical +description of the injury that was destined to befall him should the +personage in question ever step his foot across Jerry's threshold, that +Sambo, his eyes rolling, never failed to assure the caller, who came +very persistently thereafter, that "Dat young lady she am move away, +sah. Yes, sah, she am left this department." + +It will be seen, therefore, that Sunny, a stranger in a strange land, +shut in alone in a studio, religiously following the instructions of +Jerry to refrain from making acquaintances with anyone about her, was in +a truly sad state. She started to houseclean, but stopped midway in +panic, recalling the Japanese superstition that to clean or sweep a +house when one of the family is absent is to precipitate bad fortune +upon the house. So she got down all of Jerry's clothes and piously +pressed and sponged them, as she had seen Hatton do, being very careful +this time to avoid her first mistake in ironing. So earnestly had she +applied herself to ironing the crease in the front of one of Jerry's +trousers that first time that a most disastrous accident was the result. +Jerry, wearing the pressed trousers especially to please her, found +himself on the street the cynosure of all eyes as he manfully strode +along with a complete split down the front of one of the legs, which the +too ardent iron of Sunny had scorched. Having brushed and cleaned all of +Jerry's clothes on this day, she prepared her solitary lunch; but this +she could not eat. Thoughts of Jerry sharing with her the accustomed +meals was too much for the imaginative Sunny, and pushing the rice away +from her, she said: + +"Oh, I do nod lig' put food any more ad my insides. I givin you to my +friends." + +The contents of her bowl were emptied into the pail under the sink, +which she kept always so clean, for she still was under the delusion +that said pail helped to feed the janitor gentleman and his family. + +All of that afternoon hung heavily on her hands, and she vainly sought +something to interest her and divert her mind from the thought of Jerry. +She found herself unconsciously listening for the bell, but, curiously +enough, all of that day neither the buzzer, the telephone nor even the +dumbwaiter rang. She made a tour of exploration to Jerry's sacred room, +lovingly arranging his pieces on his chiffonier, and washing her hands +in some toilet water that especially appealed to her. Then she found the +bottle of hair tonic. Sniffing it, she decided it was very good, and, +painfully, Sunny deciphered the legend printed on the outside, assuring +a confiding hair world that the miraculous contents had the power to +remove dandruff, invigorate, strengthen, force growth on bald heads, +cause to curl and in every way improve and cause to shine the hair of +the fortunate user of the same. + +"Thas very good stuff," said Sunny. "He do grade miracle on top those +head." + +She decided to put the shampoo-tonic to the test, and accordingly washed +her hair in Jerry's basin, making an excellent job of it. Descending to +the studio, she lit the fireplace, and curled up on a big Navaho by the +fire. Wrapped in a gorgeous bathrobe belonging to Jerry, Sunny proceeded +to dry her hair. + +While she was in the midst of this process, the telephone rang. Sambo at +the desk announced that visitors were ascending. Sunny had no time to +dress or even to put up her hair, and when in response to the sharp bang +upon the knocker she opened the door she revealed to the callers a +vision that justified their worst fears. Her hair unbound, shining and +springing out in lovely curling disorder about her, wrapped about in the +bright embroidered bathrobe which the younger woman recognised at once +as her Christmas gift to her fiancé, the work, in fact, of her own +hands, Sunny was a spectacle to rob a rival of complete hope and peace +of mind. The cool fury of unrequited love and jealousy in the breast of +the younger woman and the indignant anger in that of the older was +whipped at the sight of Sunny into active and violent eruption. + +"What are you doing in my son's apartment?" demanded the mother of +Jerry, raising to her eyes what looked to Sunny like a gold stick on +which grew a pair of glasses, and surveying with pronounced disapproval +the politely bowing though somewhat flurried Sunny. + +"I are live ad those house," said Sunny, simply. "This are my home." + +"You live here, do you? Well, I would have you know that I am the mother +of the young man whose life you are ruining, and this young girl is his +fiancée." + +"Ho! I am very glad make you 'quaintance," said Sunny, seeking to hide +behind a politeness her shock at the discovery of the palpable rudeness +of these most barbarian ladies. It was hard for her to admit that the +ladies of Jerry's household were not models of fine manners, as she had +fondly supposed, but on the contrary bore faces that showed no trace of +the kind hearts which the girl from Japan had been taught by her mother +to associate always with true gentility. The two women's eyes met with +that exclamatory expression which says plainer than words: + +"Of all the unbounded impudence, this is the worst!" + +"I have been told," went on Mrs. Hammond haughtily, "that you are a +foreigner--a Japanese." She pronounced the word as if speaking of +something extremely repellent. + +Sunny bowed, with an attempted smile, that faded away as Jerry's mother +continued ruthlessly: + +"You do not look like a Japanese to me, unless you have been peroxiding +your hair. In my opinion you are just an ordinary everyday bad girl." + +Sunny said very faintly: + +"Aexcuse me!" + +She turned like a hurt thing unjustly punished to the other woman, as if +seeking help there. It had been arranged between the two women that Mrs. +Hammond was to do the talking. Miss Falconer was having her full of that +curious satisfaction some women take in seeing in person one's rival. +Her expression far more moved Sunny than that of the angry older woman. + +"No one but a bad woman," went on Mrs. Hammond, "would live like this in +a young man's apartment, or allow him to support her, or take money from +him. Decent girls don't do that sort of thing in America. You are old +enough to get out and earn for yourself an honest living. Aren't you +ashamed of yourself? Or are you devoid of shame, you bad creature?" + +"Yes," said Sunny, with such a look that Jerry's mother's frown relaxed +somewhat: "I are ashame. I are sawry thad I are bad--woman. Aexcuse me +this time. I try do better. I sawry I are--bad!" + +This was plainly a full and complete confession of wrong and its effect +on the older woman was to arouse a measure of the Hammond compunction +which always followed a hasty judgment. For a moment Mrs. Hammond +considered the advisability of reading to this girl a lecture that she +had recently prepared to deliver before an institution for the welfare +of such girls as she deemed Sunny to be. However, her benevolent +intention was frustrated by Miss Falconer. + +There is a Japanese proverb which says that the tongue three inches long +can kill a man six feet tall, but the tongue of one's enemy is not the +worst thing to fear. The cold smile of the young woman staring so +steadily at her had power to wound Sunny far more than the lacerating +tongue of the woman whom she realised believed she was fighting in her +son's behalf. Very silken and soft was the manner of Miss Falconer as +insinuatingly she brought Mrs. Hammond back to the object of their call. +She had used considerable tact and strategy in arranging this call upon +Sunny, having in fact induced Jerry to remain for at least a day or two +in Greenwich, "to think matters over," and see "whether absence would +not prove to him that what he imagined to be love was nothing but one of +those common aberrations to which men who lived in the east were said to +be addicted." Jerry, feeling that he should at least do this for her, +waited at Greenwich. Miss Falconer had called in the able and +belligerent aid of his mother. + +"Mother, dear----" She already called Mrs. Hammond "mother." +"Suppose--er--we make a quick end to the matter. You know what we are +here for. Do let us finish and get away. You know, dear, that I am not +used to this sort of thing, and really I'm beginning to get a nervous +headache." + +Stiffened and upheld by the young woman whom she had chosen as wife for +her son, Mrs. Hammond delivered the ultimatum. + +"Young woman, I want you to pack your things and clear out from my son's +apartment at once. No argument! No excuses! If you do not realise the +shamelessness of the life you are leading, I have nothing further to +say; but I insist, insist most emphatically, on your leaving my boy's +apartment this instant." + +A key turned in the lock. Hatton, dusty and bedraggled, his hat on one +side of his head and a cigarette twisting dejectedly in the corner of +his mouth, stumbled in at the door. He stood swaying and smiling at the +ladies, stuttering incoherent words of greeting and apology. + +"La-adiesh, beggin' y'r pardon, it's a pleasure shee thish bright +shpring day." + +Mrs. Hammond, overwhelmed with shame and grief over the revelation of +the disreputable inmates of her son's apartment, turned her broad back +upon Hatton. She recognised that man. He was the man she and Jerry's +father had on more than one occasion begged their son to be rid of. Oh! +if only Jeremy Hammond senior were here now! + +Sunny, having heard the verdict of banishment, stood helplessly, like +one who has received a death sentence, knowing not which way to turn. +Hatton staggered up the stairs, felt an uncertain course along the +gallery toward his room, and fell in a muddled heap midway of the +gallery. + +Sunny, half blindly, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, had moved +with mechanical obedience toward the door, when Mrs. Hammond haughtily +recalled her. + +"You cannot go out on the street in that outrageous fashion. Get your +things, and do your hair up decently. We will wait here till you are +ready." + +"And suppose you take that bathrobe off. It doesn't belong to you," said +Miss Falconer cuttingly. + +"Take only what belongs to you," said Mrs. Hammond. + +Sunny slowly climbed up to her room. Everything appeared now strange and +like a queer dream to her. She could scarcely believe that she was the +same girl who but a few days before had joyously flitted about the +pretty room, which showed evidence of her intensely artistic and +feminine hands. She changed from the bathrobe to the blue suit she had +worn on the night she had arrived at Jerry's studio. From a drawer she +drew forth the small package containing the last treasures that her +mother had placed in her hand. Though she knew that Mrs. Hammond and +Miss Falconer were impatiently awaiting her departure, she sat down at +her desk and painfully wrote her first letter to Jerry. + +"Jerry sama: How I thank you three and four time for your kindness to +me. I am sorry I are not got money to pay you back for all that same, +but I will take nothing with me but those clothes on my body. Only bad +girls take money from gentleman at this America. I have hear that +to-day, but I never know that before, or I would not do so. I have pray +to Amaterasu-oho-mikami, making happy sunshine of your life. May you +live ten thousand year. Sayonara. Sunny." + +She came out along the gallery, bearing her mother's little package. +Kneeling by the half-awake but helpless Hatton she thrust the letter +into his hand. + +"Good-bye, kind Hatton," said Sunny. "I sawry I not see your face no +more. I sawry I are make all those trobble for you wiz those gas stove +an' those honourable mice. I never do those ting again. I hope mebbe you +missus come home agin some day ad you. Sayonara." + +"Wh-wheer y're goin', Shunny. Whatsh matter?" Hatton tried vainly to +raise himself. He managed to pull himself a few paces along, by holding +to the gallery rails, but sprawled heavily down on the floor. The +indignant voice of his master's mother ascended from the stairs: + +"If you do not control yourself, my good man, I will be forced to call +in outside aid and have you incarcerated." + +Downstairs, Sunny, unmindful of the waiting women, ran by them into the +kitchen. From goldfish to canaries she turned, whispering softly: +"Sayonara my friends. I sawry leaving you." + +She was opening the window onto the fire-escape, and Itchy with a howl +of joy had leaped into her arms, when Mrs. Hammond and Miss Falconer, +suspicious of something underhand, appeared at the door. + +"What are you doing, miss? What is that you are taking?" demanded Mrs. +Hammond. + +Sunny turned, with her dog hugged up close to her breast. + +"I are say good-bye to my liddle dog," she said. "Sayonara Itchy. The +gods be good unto you." + +She set the dog hastily back in the box, against his most violent +protests, and Itchy immediately set up such a woeful howling and baying +as only a small mongrel dog who possesses psychic qualities and senses +the departure of an adored one could be capable of. Windows were thrown +up and ejaculations and protests emanated from tenants in the court, but +Sunny had clapped both hands over her ears, and without a look back at +her little friend, and ignoring the two women, she ran through the +studio, and out of the front door. + +After her departure a silence fell between Miss Falconer and Mrs. +Hammond. The latter's face suddenly worked spasmodically, and the strain +of the day overtook Jerry's mother. She sobbed unrestrainedly, mopping +up the tears that coursed down her face. Miss Falconer fanned herself +slowly, and with an absence of her usual solicitude for her prospective +mother-in-law, she refrained from offering sympathy to the older woman, +who presently said in a muffled voice: + +"Oh, Stella, I am afraid that we may have done a wrong act. It's +possible that we have made a mistake about this girl. She seemed so very +young, and her face--it was not a bad face, Stella--quite the contrary, +now I think of it." + +"Well, I suppose that's the way you look at it. Personally you can't +expect me to feel any sort of sympathy for a bad woman like that." + +"Stella, I've been thinking that a girl who would say good-bye to her +dog like that cannot be wholly bad." + +"I have heard of murderers who trained fleas," said Miss Falconer. Then, +with a pretended yawn, she added, "But really we must be going now? It's +getting very dark out, and I'm dining with the Westmores at seven. I +told Matthews we'd be through shortly. He's at the curb now." + +She had picked up her gloves and was drawing them smoothly on, when Mrs. +Hammond noticed the left hand was ringless. + +"Why, my dear, where is your ring?" + +"Why, you didn't suppose, did you, that I was going to continue my +engagement to Jerry Hammond after what he told me?" + +"But our purpose in coming here----" + +"_My_ purpose was to make sure that if _I_ were not to have Jerry +neither should she--that Japanese doll!" All the bottled-up venom of the +girl's nature came forth in that single utterance. "Do let us get away. +Really I'm bored to extinction." + +"You may go any time you choose, Miss Falconer," said Jerry Hammond's +mother. "I shall stay here till my son returns." + + * * * * * + +It was less than half an hour later that Jerry burst into the studio. He +came in with a rush, hurrying across the big room toward the kitchen and +calling aloud: + +"Sunny! Hi! Sunny! I'm back!" + +So intent was he in discovering Sunny that he did not see his mother, +sitting in the darkened room by the window. Through dim eyes Mrs. +Hammond had been staring into the street, and listening to the nearby +rumble of the Sixth Avenue elevated trains. Somehow the roar of the +elevated spelled to the woman the cruelty and the power of the mighty +city, out into which she had driven the young girl, whose eyes had +entreated her like a little wounded creature. The club woman thought of +her admonitions and speeches to the girls she had professionally +befriended, yet here, put to a personal test, she had failed signally. + +Her son was coming through the studio again, calling up toward the +gallery above: + +"Hi! Sunny, old scout, where are you?" + +He turned, with a start, as his mother called his name. His first +impulse of welcome halted as he saw her face, and electrically there +flashed through Jerry a realisation of the truth. His mother's presence +there was connected with Sunny's absence. + +"Mother, where is Sunny? What are you doing here? Where is Sunny, I +say?" + +He shot the questions at her frantically. Mrs. Hammond began to whimper, +dabbing at her face with her handkerchief. + +"For heaven's sake, answer me. What have you done with Sunny?" + +"Jerry, how can I tell you? Jerry--Miss Falcon-er and I--we--we thought +it was for your good. I didn't realise that you c-cared so much about +her, and I--and we----Oh-h-h," she broke down, crying uncontrolledly, +"we have driven that poor little girl out--into the street." + +"You what? What is that you say?" + +He stared at his mother with a look of loathing. + +"Jerry, I thought--we thought her bad and we----" + +"Bad! _Sunny!_ Bad! She didn't know what the word meant. My _God_!" + +He leaped up the stairs, calling the girl's name aloud, as if to satisfy +himself that his mother's story was false, but her empty room told its +own tale, and half way across the gallery he came upon Hatton. He kicked +the valet awake, and the latter raised up, stuttering and blubbering, +and extending with shaking hand the letter Sunny had left. The words +leaped up at him and smote him to the soul. He did not see his mother. +He did not hear her cries, imploring him not to go out like that. +Blindly, his heart on fire, Jerry Hammond dashed out from his studio, +and plunged into the darkening street, to begin his search for the lost +Sunny, who had disappeared into that maelstrom that is New York. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + +Despite all that money and influence could do to aid in the search of +the missing girl, no trace of Sunny had been found since the day she +passed through the door of the studio apartment and disappeared into the +seething throngs under the Sixth Avenue elevated. + +Every policeman in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx; every private +detective in the country, and the police and authorities throughout the +country, aided in that search, keen to earn the enormous rewards offered +by her friends. Jerry's entire fortune was at the disposal of the +department. Jinx had instructed them to "go the limit" as far as he was +concerned. Bobs, his newspaper instinct keyed up to the highest tension, +saw in every clue a promise of a solution, and "covered" the +disappearance day and night. Young Monty, changed from the cheeriest +interne at Bellevue to the most pessimistic and gloomy, developed a +weird passion for the morgue, and spent hours hovering about that +ghastly part of the hospital. + +The four young men met each night at Jerry's studio and cast up their +barren results. Jinx unashamedly and even noisily wept, the big tears +splashing down his no longer ruddy cheeks. Jinx had honestly loved +Sunny, and her loss was the first serious grief of his life. + +Monty hugged his head and ruminated over the darkest possibilities. He +had suggested to the police that they drag certain parts of the Hudson +River, and was indignant when they pointed out the impracticability of +such a thing. In the spring the great river was swollen to its highest, +and flowing along at a great speed, it would have been impossible to +find what Monty suggested. + +Jerry, of all her friends, had himself the least under command. He was +still nearly crazed by the catastrophe, and unable to sleep or rest, +taking little or no nourishment, frantically going from place to place, +he returned to his studio to pace up and down, as if half demented. + +Despite the fact that her son seemed scarcely conscious of her +existence, and practically ignored her, Mrs. Hammond continued to remain +in the apartment. Overwhelmed by remorse and anxiety for her son's +health and sanity she could not bring herself to leave, even though she +knew at this time her act had driven her son far away from her. A great +change was visible in the mother of Jerry. For the first time, possibly, +she acquired a vague idea of what her son's work and life meant to him, +and her conscience smote her when she realised how he had gone ahead +with no encouragement or sympathy from home. On the contrary, she and +his father had thrown every obstacle in his way. Like many self-made +men, Jerry's father cherished the ambition to perpetuate the business he +had successfully built up from what he always called "a shoestring." "I +started with just a shoestring," Jerry's father was wont to say, "and +what's more, _I_ didn't have any education to speak of, yet I beat in +the race most of the college bred bunch." However, his parents had had +great faith in the change that would come to Jerry after matrimony, and +Miss Falconer, being a daughter of Hammond, Sr.'s, partner, the +prospects up to this time had not been without hope. + +Now, Jerry's mother, away from the somewhat overpowering influence of +his father, was seeing a new light. Many a tear she dropped upon Jerry's +sketch books, and she suffered the pang of one who has had the +opportunity to help one she loved, and who has withheld that sorely +needed sympathy. For the first time, too, Jerry's mother appreciated his +right to choose his own love. In their anxiety to select for their son a +suitable wife, they had overlooked his own wishes in the matter. Now +Mrs. Hammond became poignantly aware of his deep love for this strange +girl from Japan. She began to feel an unconscious tenderness toward the +absent Sunny, and gradually became acquainted with the girl's nature +through the medium of the left behind treasures and friends. Sunny's +little mongrel dog, the canaries, the gold fish, the nailed up hole +where she had fed the mice, her friend the "janitor gentleman," the +black elevator boy, the butcher gentleman, the policeman on the beat who +had never failed to return Sunny's smiling greeting with a cheery "Top +o' the morning to yourself, miss," Hatton--all these revealed more +plainly than words could have told that hers was a sensitive and rare +nature. In Hatton's case, Mrs. Hammond found a problem upon her hands. +The unfortunate valet blamed himself bitterly for Sunny's going. He +claimed that he had given his solemn word of honour to Sunny, and had +broken that word, when he should have been there: "Like a man, ma'am, +hin the place of Mr. 'Ammond, ma'am, to take care of Miss Sunny." + +Far from reproving the man, the conscience-stricken Mrs. Hammond wept +with him, and asked timid questions about the absent one. + +"Miss Sunny was not an hordinary young lady, begging your pardon, ma'am. +She was what the French would call distankey. She was sweet and +hinnercent as a baby lamb, hutterly hunconscious of her hown beauty hand +charm. You wouldn't 'ave believed such hinnocence possible in the +present day, ma'am, but Miss Sunny come from a race that's a bit +hignorant, ma'am, hand it wasn't her fault that she didn't hunderstan' +many of the proper conventions of life. But she was perfectly hinnocent +and pure as a lily. Hanyone who looked or spoke to 'er once would've +seen that, ma'am. It shone right hout of Miss Sunny's heyes." + +"I saw it myself," said Mrs. Hammond, in a low voice. + +After a long, sniffling pause, Hatton said: + +"Begging your pardon, ma'am, I'm thinking that I don't deserve to work +for Mr. 'Ammond any longer, but I 'avent the 'eart to speak to 'im at +this time, and if you'll be so kind to hexplain things to 'im, I'll +betake myself to some hother abode." + +"My good man, I am sure that even Mr. Jerry would not blame you. I am +the sole one at fault. I take the full blame. I acknowledge it. I would +not have you or anyone else share my guilt, and, Hatton, I _want_ to be +punished. Your conscience, I am sure, is clear, but it would make us all +very happy, and I am sure it would make--Sunny." She spoke the word +hesitatingly--"happy, too, if--if--well, if, my good Hatton, you were to +turn over a new leaf, and sign the pledge. Drink, I feel sure, is your +worst enemy. You must overcome it, Hatton, or it will overcome you." + +"Hi will, ma'am. Hi'll do that. If you'll pardon me now, Hi'll step +right out and sign the pledge. I know just where to go, if you'll pardon +me." + +Hatton did know just where to go. He crossed the park to the east side +and came to the brightly lighted Salvation Army barracks. A meeting was +in progress, and a fiery tongued young woman was exhorting all the +sinners of the world to come to glory. Hatton was fascinated by the +groans and loud Amens that came from that chorus of human wreckage. +Pushing nearer to the front, he came under the penetrating eye of the +Salvation captain. She hailed him as a "brother," and there was +something so unswervingly pure in her direct gaze that it had the effect +of magnetising Hatton. + +"Brother," said the Salvation captain, "are you saved?" + +"No, ma'am," said the unhappy Hatton, "but begging your pardon, if it +haren't hout of horder, Hi'd like to be taking the pledge, ma'am." + +"Nothing is out of order where a human soul is at stake," said the +woman, smiling in an exalted way. "Lift up your hand, my brother." + +Hatton lifted his shaking hand, and, word for word, he repeated the +pledge after the Salvation captain. Nor was there one in that room who +found aught to laugh at in the words of Hatton. + +"Hi promise, with God's 'elp," said Hatton, "to habstain from the use of +halcoholic liquors as a beverage, from chewing tobaccer or speaking +profane and himpure languidge." + +Having thus spoken, Hatton felt a glow of relief and a sense of +transfiguration. He experienced, in fact, that hysterical exhilaration +that "converts" feel, as if suddenly he were reborn, and had come out of +the mud into the clean air. At such moments martyrs, heroes and saints +are made. Hatton, the automaton-like valet of the duplex studio, with +his "yuman 'ankerings" was afire with a true spiritual fervour. We leave +him then marching forth from the barracks with the Salvation Army, his +head thrown up, and singing loudly of glory. + + * * * * * + +On the third day after the disappearance of Sunny, Professor Timothy +Barrowes arrived in New York City with the dinornis skeleton of the +quaternary period, dug up from the clay of the Red Deer cliffs of +Canada. This precious find was duly transported to the Museum of Natural +History, where it was set up by the skilled hands of college workmen, +who were zealots even as the little man who nagged and adjured them as +he had the excavators on the Red Deer River. So absorbed, in fact, was +Professor Barrowes by his fascinating employment, that he left his +beloved fossil only when the pressing necessity of further funds from +his friend and financial agent (Jerry had raised the money to finance +the dinornis) necessitated his calling upon Jerry Hammond, who had made +no response to his latter telegrams and letters. + +Accordingly Professor Barrowes wended his way from the museum to Jerry's +studio. Here, enthused and happy over the success of his trip, he failed +to notice the abnormal condition of Jerry, whose listless hot hand +dropped from his, and whose eye went roving absently above the head of +his volubly chattering friend. It was only after the restless and +continued pacing of the miserable Jerry and the failure to respond to +questions put to him continued for some time, that Professor Barrowes +was suddenly apprized that all was not well with his friend. He stopped +midway in a long speech in which words like Mesozoic, Triassic and +Jurassic prevailed and snapped his glasses suddenly upon his nose. +Through these he scrutinised the perturbed and oblivious Jerry +scientifically. The glasses were blinked off. Professor Barrowes seized +the young man by the arm and stopped him as he started to cross the room +for possibly the fiftieth time. + +"Come! Come! What is it? What is the trouble, lad?" + +Jerry turned his bloodshot eyes upon his old teacher. His unshaven, +haggard face, twitching from the effects of his acute nearness to +nervous prostration, startled Professor Barrowes. Lack of sleep, refusal +of nourishment, the ceaseless search, the agonising fear and anguished +longing took their full toll from the unhappy Jerry, but as his glance +met the firm one of his friend, a tortured cry broke from his lips. + +"Oh, for God's sake, Professor Barrowes, why did you not come when I +asked you to? Sunny--_Oh, my God!_" + +Professor Barrowes had Jerry's hand gripped closely in his own, and the +disjointed story came out at last. + +Sunny had come! Sunny had gone! He loved Sunny! He could not live +without Sunny--but Sunny had gone! They had turned her out into the +streets--his own mother and Miss Falconer. + +For the first time, it may be said, since his discovery of the famous +fossil of the Red Deer River, Professor Barrowes's mind left his beloved +dinornis. He came back solidly to earth, shot back by the calling need +of Jerry. Now the man of science was wide awake, and an upheaval was +taking place within him. The words of his first telegram to Jerry +rattled through his head just then: "The dinornis more important than +Sunny." Now as he looked down on the bowed head of the boy for whom he +cherished almost a father's love, Professor Barrowes knew that all the +dried-up fossils of all the ages were as a handful of worthless dust as +compared with this single living girl. + +By main force Professor Barrowes made Jerry lie down on that couch, and +himself served him the food humbly prepared by his heartbroken mother, +who told Jerry's friend with a quivering lip that she felt sure he would +not wish to take it from his mother's hands. + +There was no going out for Jerry on that night. His protestations fell +on deaf ears, and as a further precaution, Professor Barrowes secured +possession of the key of the apartment. Only when the professor pointed +out to him the fact that a breakdown on his part would mean the +cessation of his search would Jerry finally submit to the older man +taking his place temporarily. And so, at the telephone, which rang +constantly all of that evening, Professor Barrowes took command. A +thousand clues were everlastingly turning up. These were turned over to +Jinx and Bobs, the former flying from one part of the city and country +to another in his big car, and the latter, with an army of newspaper men +helping him, and given full license by his paper, influenced by the +elder Hammond and Potter. Finally, Professor Barrowes, having given +certain instructions to turn telephone calls over to Monty in Bobs' +apartment, sat down to Jerry's disordered work table, and, glasses +perched on the end of his nose, he sorted out the mail. The afternoon +letters still lay unopened, tossed down in despair by Jerry, when he +failed to find that characteristic writing that he knew was Sunny's. + +But now Professor Barrowes' head had suddenly jerked forward. His chin +came out curiously, and his eyes blinked in amazement behind his +glasses. He set them on firmer, fiercely, and slowly reread that +two-line epistle. The hand holding the paper shook, but the eyes behind +the glasses were bright. + +"Jerry--come hither, young man!" he growled, his dry old face quivering +up with something that looked comically like a smile glaring through +threatened tears. "Read that." + +Across the table Jerry reached over and took the letter from the famous +steel magnate of New York. He read it slowly, dully, and then with a +sense as of something breaking in his head and heart. Every word of +those two lines sank like balm into his comprehension and consciousness. +Then it seemed that a surge of blood rushed through his being, blinding +him. The world rocked for Jerry Hammond. He saw a single star gleaming +in a firmament that was all black. Down into immeasurable depths of +space sank Jerry Hammond. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + +Sunny, after she left Jerry's apartment, might be likened to a little +wounded wild thing, who has trailed off with broken wing. She had never +consciously committed a wrong act. Motherless, worse than fatherless, +young, innocent, lovely, how should she fare in a land whose ways were +as foreign to that from which she had come as if she had been +transplanted to a new planet. + +As she turned into Sixth Avenue, under the roaring elevated structure, +with its overloaded trains, crammed with the home-going workers of New +York, she had no sense of direction and no clear purpose in mind. All +she felt was that numb sense of pain at her heart and the impulse to get +as far away as possible from the man she loved. Swept along by a moving, +seething throng that pressed and pushed and shoved and elbowed by her, +Sunny had a sick sense of home longing, an inexpressible yearning to +escape from all this turmoil and noise, this mad rushing and pushing and +panting through life that seemed to spell America. She sensed the fact +that she was in the Land of Barbarians, where everyone was racing and +leaping and screaming in an hysteria of speed. Noise, noise, incessant +noise and movement--that was America! No one stopped to think; no polite +words were uttered to the stranger. It was all a chaos, a madhouse, +wherein dark figures rushed by like shadows in the night and little +children played in the mud of the streets. + +The charming, laughing, pretty days in the shelter of the studio of her +friend had passed into this nightmare of the Sixth Avenue noise, where +all seemed ugly, cruel and sinister. Life in America was not the +charming kindly thing Sunny had supposed. Beauty indeed she had brought +in her heart with her, and that, though she knew it not, was why she had +seen only the beautiful; but now, even for her, it had all changed. She +had looked into faces full of hatred and malice; she had listened to +words that whipped worse than the lash of Hirata. + +As she went along that noisy, crowded avenue, there came, like a breath +of spring, a poignant lovely memory of the home she had left. Like a +vision, the girl saw wide spaces, little blue houses with pink roofs and +the lower floor open to the refreshing breezes of the spring. For it was +springtime in Japan just as it was in New York, and Sunny knew that the +trees would be freighted with a glorified frost of pink and white +blossoms. The wistaria vines would hang in purple glory to peer at their +faces in the crystal pools. The fluttering sleeves of the happy +picnickers threading through lanes of long slender bamboos. The lotus in +the ponds would soon open their white fingers to the sun. Rosy cheeked +children would laugh at Sunny and pelt her with flower petals, and she +would call back to them, and toss her fragrant petals back. + +It was strange as she went along that dirty way that her mind escaped +from what was before and on all sides of her, and went out across the +sea. She saw no longer the passing throngs. In imagination the girl from +Japan looked up a hill slope on which a temple shone. Its peaks were +twisted and the tower of the pagoda seemed ablaze with gold. Countless +steps led upward to the pagoda, but midway of the steps there was a +classic Torrii, in which was a small shrine. Here on a pedestal, smiling +down upon the kneeling penitents, Kuonnon, the Goddess of Mercy, stood. +To Her now, in the streets of the American City, the girl of Japan sent +out her petition. + +"Oh, Kuonnon, sweet Lady of Mercy, permit the spirit of my honourable +mother to walk with me through these dark and noisy streets." + +The shining Goddess of Mercy, trailing her robes among the million stars +in the heavens above, surely heard that tiny petition, for certain it is +that something warm and comforting swept over the breast of the tired +Sunny. We know that faith will "remove mountains." Sunny's faith in her +mother's spirit caused her to feel assured that it walked by her side. +The Japanese believe that we can think our dead alive, and if we are +pure and worthy, we may indeed recall them. + +It came to pass, that after many hours, during which she walked from +67th Street to 125th, and from the west to the east side of that avenue, +that she stopped before a brightly lighted window, within which cakes +and confections were enticingly displayed, and from the cellar of which +warm odours of cooking were wafted to the famished girl. Sunny's youth +and buoyant health responded to that claim. Her feet, in the +unaccustomed American shoes--in Japan she had worn only sandals and +clogs--were sore and extremely weary from the long walk, and a sense of +intense exhaustion added to that pang of emptiness within. + +By the baker's window, therefore, on the dingy Third Avenue of the upper +east side, leaned Sunny, staring in hungrily at the food so near and yet +so far away. She asked herself in her quaint way: + +"What I are now to do? My honourable insides are ask for food." + +She answered her own question at once. + +"I will ask the advice of first person I meet. He will tell me." + +The streets were in a semi-deserted condition, such as follows after the +home-going throngs have been tucked away into their respective abodes. +There was a cessation of traffic, only the passing of the trains +overhead breaking the hush of early night that comes even in the City of +New York. It was now fifteen minutes to nine, and Sunny had had nothing +to eat since her scant breakfast. + +Kuonnon, her mother's spirit, providence--call it what we may--suffered +it that the first person whom Sunny was destined to meet should be Katy +Clarry, a product of the teeming east side, a shop girl by trade. She +was crossing the street, with her few small packages, revealing her +pitiful night marketing at adjacent small shops, when Sunny accosted +her. + +"Aexcuse me. I lig' ask you question, please," said Sunny with timid +politeness. + +"Uh-h-h?" + +Miss Clarry, her grey, clear eye sweeping the face of Sunny in one +comprehensive glance that took her "number," stopped short at the curb, +and waited for the question. + +"I are hungry," said Sunny simply, "and I have no money and no house in +which to sleep these night. What I can do?" + +"Gee!" Katy's grey eyes flew wider. The girl before her seemed as far +from being a beggar as anyone the east side girl had ever seen. +Something in the wistful, lovely face looking at her in the dark street +tightened that cord that was all mother in the breast of Katy Clarry. +After a moment: + +"Are you stone broke then? Out of work? You don't look's if you could +buck up against tough luck. What you doin' on the streets? You +ain't----? No, you ain't. I needn't insult you by askin' that. Where's +your home, girl?" + +"I got no home," said Sunny, in a very faint voice. A subtle feeling was +stealing over the tired Sunny, and the whiteness of her cheeks, the +drooping of her eyes, apprized Katy of her condition. + +"Say, don't be fallin' whatever you do. You don't want no cop to get 'is +hands on you. You come along with me. I ain't got much, but you're +welcome to share what I got. I'll stake you till you get a job. Heh! Get +a grip on yourself. There! That's better. Hold on to me. I'll put them +packages under this arm. We ain't got far to walk. Steady now. We don't +want no cop to say we're full, because we ain't." + +Katy led the trembling Sunny along the dirty, dingy avenue to one of +those melancholy side streets of the upper east side. They came to a +house whose sad exterior proclaimed what was within. Here Katy applied +her latch key, and in the dark and odorous halls they found their way up +four flights of stairs. Katy's room was at the far end of a long bare +hall, and its dimensions were little more than the shining kitchenette +of the studio apartment. + +Katy struck a match, lit a kerosene lamp, and attached to the one +half-plugged gas jet a tube at the end of which was a one-burner gas +stove. Sunny, sitting helplessly on the bed, was too dazed and weary to +hold her position for long, and at Katy's sharp: "Heh, there! lie down," +she subsided back upon the bed, sighing with relief as her exhausted +body felt the comfort of Katy's hard little bed. From sundry places Katy +drew forth a frying pan, a pitcher of water, a tiny kettle and a teapot. +She put two knives and forks and spoons on the table, two cracked plates +and two cups. She peeled a single potato, and added it to the two +frankfurters frying on the pan. She chattered along as she worked, +partly to hide her own feelings, and partly to set the girl at her ease. +But indeed Sunny was far from feeling an embarrassment such as Katy in +her place might have felt. The world is full of two kinds of people; +those who serve, and those who are served, and to the latter family +Sunny belonged. Not the lazy, wilful parasites of life, but the helpless +children, whom we love to care for. Katy, glancing with a maternal eye, +ever and anon at the so sad and lovely face upon her pillow was +curiously touched and animated with a desire to help her. + +"You're dog-tired, ain't you? How long you been out of work? I always +feel more tired when I'm out o' work and looking for a job, than when I +got one, though it ain't my idea of a rest exactly to stand on your feet +all day long shoving out things you can't afford to have yourself to +folks who mostly just want to look 'em over. Some of them shoppers love +to come in just about closin' hour. They should worry whether the girl +behind the counter gets extra pay for overtime or if she's suffering +from female weaknesses or not. Of course, if I get into one of them big +stores downtown, I can give a customer the laugh when the dingdong +sounds for closin', but you can't do no such thing in Harlem. We're +still in the pioneer stage up here. I expect you're more used to the +Fifth Avenue joints. You look it, but, say, I never got a look in at one +of them jobs. They favour educated girls, and I ain't packed with +learning, I'm telling the world." + +Sunny said: + +"You loog good to me,"--a favourite expression of Jerry's, and something +in her accent and the earnestness with which she said it warmed Katy, +who laughed and said: + +"Oh, go on. I ain't much on looks neither. There, now. Draw up. +All--l-ler _ready_! Dinner is served. Stay where you are on the bed. +Drop your feet over. I ain't got but the one chair, and I'll have it +meself, thank you, don't mention it." + +Katy pushed the table beside the bed, drew her own chair to the other +side, set the kettle on the jet which the frying pan had released and +proudly surveyed her labour. + +"Not much, but looks pretty good to me. If there's one thing I love it +is a hot dog." + +She put on Sunny's plate the largest of the two frankfurters and +three-quarters of the potato, cut her a generous slice of bread and +poured most of the gravy on her plate, saying: + +"I always say sausage gravy beats anything in the butter line. Tea'll be +done in a minute, dearie. Ain't got but one burner. Gee! I wisht I had +one of them two deckers that you can cook a whole meal at once with. +Ever seen 'em? How's your dog?" + +"Dog?" + +"Frankfurter--weeny, or in polite speech, sausage, dearie." + +"How it is good," said Sunny with simple eloquence. "I thang you how +much." + +"Don't mention it. You're welcome. You'd do the same for me if I was +busted. I always say one working girl should stake the other when the +other is out of work and broke. There's unity in strength," quoted Katy +with conviction. "Have some more--do! Dip your bread in the gravy. +Pretty good, ain't it, if I do say it who shouldn't." + +"It mos' nices' food I are ever taste," declared Sunny earnestly. + +While the tea was going into the cups: + +"My name's Katy Clarry. What's yours?" asked Katy, a sense of well-being +and good humour toward the world flooding her warm being. + +"Sunny." + +"Sunny! That's a queer name. Gee! ain't it pretty? What's your other +name?" + +"Sindicutt." + +"Sounds kind o' foreign. What are you, anyway? You ain't American--at +least you don't look it or talk it, though heaven knows anything and +everything calls itself American to-day," said the native-born American +girl with scorn. "Meaning no offence, you understand, but--well--you +just don't look like the rest of us. You ain't a Dago or a Sheeny. I can +see that, and you ain't a Hun neither. Are you a Frenchy? You got queer +kind of eyes--meaning no offence, for personally I think them lovely, I +really do. I seen actresses with no better eyes than you got." + +Katy shot her questions at Sunny, without waiting for an answer. Sunny +smiled sadly. + +"Katy, I are sawry thad I am not be American girl. I are born ad +Japan----" + +"_You_ ain't no Chink. You can't tell me no such thing as that. I wasn't +born yesterday. What are you, anyway? Where do you come from? Are you a +royal princess in disguise?" + +The latter question was put jocularly, but Katy in her imaginative way +was beginning to question whether her guest might not in fact be some +such personage. An ardent reader of the yellow press, by inheritance a +romantic dreamer, in happier circumstances Katy might have made a place +for herself in the artistic world. Her sordid life had been ever +glorified by her extravagant dreams in which she moved as a princess in +a realm where princes and lord and kings and dukes abounded. + +"No, I are not princess," said Sunny sadly. "I not all Japanese, Katy, +jos liddle bit. Me? I got three kind of blood on my insides. I sawry +thad my ancestors put them there. I are Japanese and Russian and +American." + +"Gee! You're what we call a mongrel. Meaning no offence. You can't help +yourself. Personally I stand up first for the home-made American article +but I ain't got no prejudice against no one. And anyway, you can _grow_ +into an American if you want to. Now we women have got the francheese, +we got the right to vote and be nachelised too if we want to. So even if +you have a yellow streak in you--and looking at you, I'd say it was gold +moren't yellow--you needn't tell no one about it. No one'll be the +wiser. You can trust me not to open my mouth to a living soul about it. +What you've confided in me about being partly Chink is just as if you +had put the inflammation in a tomb. And it ain't going to make the least +bit of difference between us. Try one of them Uneeda crackers. Sop it in +your tea now you're done with your gravy. Pretty good, ain't it? I'll +say it is." + +"Katy, to-night I are going to tell you some things about me, bi-cause I +know you are my good frien' now forever. I lig' your kind eye, Katy." + +"Go on! You're kiddin' me, Sunny. If I had eyes like yours, it'd be a +different matter. But I'm stuck on the idea of having you for a friend +just the same. I ain't had a chum since I don't know when. If you knew +what them girls was like in Bamberger's--well, I'm not talkin' about no +one behind their backs, but, say--Sunny, I could tell you a thing or +two'd make your hair stand on end. And as for tellin' me about your own +past, say if you'll tell me yours, I'll tell you mine. I always say that +every girl has some tradgedy or other in her life. Mine began on the +lower east side. I graduated up here, Sunny. It ain't nothing to brag +about, but it's heaven compared with what's downtown. I used to live in +that gutter part of the town where God's good air is even begrudged you, +and where all the dirty forriners and chinks--meanin' no offence, +dearie, and I'll say for the Chinks, that compared with some of them +Russian Jews--Gee! you're Russian too, ain't you, but I don't mean no +offence! Take it from me, Sunny, some of them east side forriners--I'll +call them just that to avoid givin' offence--are just exactly like lice, +and the smells down there--Gee! the stock yards is a flower garden +compared with it. Well, we come over--my folks did--I was born +there--I'm a real American, Sunny. Look me over. It won't hurt your eyes +none. My folks come over from Ireland. My mother often told me that they +thought the streets of New York were just running with gold, before they +come out. That simple they were, Sunny. But the gold was nothing but +plain, rotten dust. It got into the lungs and the spine of them all. +Father went first. Then mother. Lord only knows how they got it--doctor +said it was from the streets, germs that someone maybe dumped out and +come flyin' up into our place that was the only clean spot in the +tenement house, I'll say that for my mother. There was two kids left +besides me. I was the oldes' and not much on age at that, but I got me a +job chasin' around for a millinery shop, and I did my best by the kids +when I got home nights; but the cards was all stacked against me, Sunny, +and when that infantile parallysus come on the city, the first to be +took was my k-kid brother, and me li-little s-sister she come down with +it too and--Ah-h-h-h!" + +Katy's head went down on the table, and she sobbed tempestuously. Sunny, +unable to speak the words of comfort that welled up in her heart, could +only put her arms around Katy, and mingle her tears with hers. Katy +removed a handkerchief from the top of her waist, dabbed her eyes +fiercely, shared the little ball with Sunny, and then thrust it down the +neck of her waist again. Bravely she smiled at Sunny again. + +"There yoh got the story of the Clarry's of the east side of New York, +late of Limerick, Ireland. You can't beat it for--for tradgedy, now can +you? So spiel away at your own story, Sunny. I'm thinkin' you'll have a +hard time handin' me out a worse one than me own. Don't spare me, kid. +I'm braced for anything in this r-rotten world." + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + +It was well for Sunny that her new friend was endowed with a generous +and belligerent nature. Having secured for Sunny a position at the +Bamberger Emporium, Katy's loyalty to her friend was not dampened when +on the third day Sunny was summarily discharged. Hands on hips, Katy +flew furiously to her brother's defence, and for the benefit of her +brother and sister workers she relieved herself loudly of all her +pent-up rage of the months. In true Union style, Katy marched out with +Sunny. The excuse for discharging Sunny was that she did not write well +enough to fill out the sales slips properly. Nasty as the true reason +was, there is no occasion to set forth the details here. + +Suffice it to say that the two girls, both rosy from excitement and +wrath, arm and arm marched independently forth from the Emporium, Katy +loudly asserting that she would sue for her half week's pay, and Sunny +anxiously drawing her along, her breath coming and going with the fright +she had had. + +"Gee!" snorted Katy, as they turned into the street on which was the +dingy house in which they lived, "it did my soul good to dump its +garbage on that pie-faced, soapy-eyed monk. You don't know what I been +through since I worked for them people. You done me a good turn this +mornin' when you let out that scream. I'd been expecting something like +that ever since he dirtied you with his eyes. That's why I was hangin' +around the office, in spite of the ribbon sales, when you went in. Well, +here we are!" + +Here they were indeed, back in the small ugly room of that fourth floor, +sitting, the one on the ricketty chair, and the other on the side of the +hard bed. But the eyes of youth are veiled in sun and rose. They see nor +feel not the filth of the world. Sunny and Katy, out of a job, with +scarcely enough money between them to keep body and soul together, were +yet able to laugh at each other and exchange jokes over the position in +which they found themselves. + +After they had "chewed the rag," as Katy expressively termed it, for +awhile, that brisk young person removed her hat, rolled up her sleeves, +and declared she would do the "family wash." + +"It's too late now," said Katy, "to job hunt this morning. So I'll do +the wash, and you waltz over across the street and do the marketin'. +Here's ten cents, and get a wiggle on you, because it's 10.30 now, and I +got a plan for us two. I'll tell you what it is. There ain't no hurry. +Just wait a bit, dearie. First we'll have a bite to eat, though I'm not +hungry myself. I always say, though, you can land a job better on a full +than a empty stomach. Well, lunch packed away in us, little you and me +trots downtown--not to no 125th Street, mind you, but downtown, to Fifth +Avenoo, where the swell shops are, do you get me? I'd a done this long +ago, for they say it's as easy to land on Fifth Avenoo as it is on +Third. It's like goods, Sunny. The real silk is cheaper than the fake +stuff, because it lasts longer and is wider, but if one ain't got the +capital to invest in it in the first place, why you just have to make +the best of the imitation cheese. If I could of dolled myself up like +them girls that hold down the jobs on Fifth Avenoo, say, you can take it +from me, I'd a made some of them henna-haired ladies look like thirty +cents. Now _you_ got the looks, and you got the clothes too. That suit +you're wearin' don't look like no million dollars, but it's got a kick +to it just the same. The goods is real. I been lookin' at it. Where'd +you get it?" + +"I get that suit ad Japan, Katy." + +"Japan! What are you givin' us? You can't tell me no Chink ever made a +suit like that." + +Sunny nodded vigorously. + +"Yes, Katy, Japanese tailor gentleman make thad suit. He copy it from +American suit just same on lady at hotel, and he tell me that he are +just like twin suits." + +"I take off my hat to that Chink, though I always have heard they was +great on copying. However, it's unmaterial who made it, and it don't +detract from its looks, and no one will be the wiser that a Chink tailor +made it. You can trust me not to open my mouth. The main thing is that +that suit and your face--and everything about you is going to make a hit +on Fifth Avenoo. You see how Bamberger fell for you at the drop, and you +could be there still and have the best goin' if you was like some ladies +I know, though I'm not mentionin' no names. I'm not that kind, Sunny. +Now, here's my scheme, and see if you can beat it. Your face and suit'll +land the jobs for us. My brains'll hold 'em for us. Do you get me? +You'll accept a position--you don't say job down there--only on +condition that they take your friend--that's me--too. Then together we +prove the truth of 'Unity being strength.' We'll hang together. Said +Lincoln" (Katy raised her head with true solemnity): '"Together we rise, +divided we fall!' Shake on that, Sunny." Shake they did. "Now you +skedaddle off for that meat. Ask for dog. It goes farther and is +fillin'. Give the butcher the soft look, and he'll give you your money's +worth--maybe throw in an extra dog for luck." + +At the butcher shop, Sunny, when her turn came, favoured the plump +gentleman behind the counter to such an engaging smile that he hurriedly +glanced about him to see if the female part of his establishment were +around. The coast clear, he returned the smile with interest. Leaning +gracefully upon the long bloody butcher knife in one hand, the other +toying with a juicy sirloin, he solicited the patronage of the smiling +Sunny. She put her ten cents down, and continuing the smile, said: + +"Please you give me plenty dog meat for those money." + +"Surest thing," said the flattered butcher. "I got a pile just waitin' +for a customer like you." + +He disappeared into a hole in the floor, and returned up the ladder +shortly, bearing an extremely large package, which he handed across to +the surprised and overjoyed Sunny, who cried: + +"Ho! I are thang you. How you are kind. I thang you very moach. +Good-aday!" + +It so happened that when Sunny had come out of the house upon that +momentous marketing trip a pimply-faced youth was lolling against the +railing of the house next door. His dress and general appearance made +him conspicuous in that street of mean and poverty-stricken houses, for +he wore the latest thing in short pinch-back coats, tight trousers +raised well above silk-clad ankles, pointed and polished tan shoes, a +green tweed hat and a cane and cigarette loosely hung in a loose mouth. +A harmless enough looking specimen of the male family at first sight, +yet one at which the sophisticated members of the same sex would give a +keen glance and then turn away with a scowl of aversion and rage. +Society has classified this type of parasite inadequately as "Cadet," +but the neighbourhood in which he thrives designates him with one ugly +and expressive term. + +As Sunny came out of the house and ran lightly across the street, the +youth wagged his cigarette from the corner of one side of his mouth to +the other, squinted appraisingly at the hurrying girl, and then followed +her across the street. Through the opened door of the kosher butcher +shop, he heard the transaction, and noted the joy of Sunny as the great +package was transferred to her arms. As she came out of the shop, +hurrying to bear the good news to Katy, she was stopped at the curb by +the man, his hat gracefully raised, and a most ingratiating smile +twisting his evil face into a semblance of what might have appeared +attractive to an ignorant and weak minded girl. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss--er--Levine. I believe I met you at a friend's +house." + +"You are mistake," said Sunny. "My name are not those. Good-a-day!" + +He continued to walk by her side, murmuring an apology for the mistake, +and presently as if just discovering the package she carried, he +affected concern. + +"Allow me to carry that for you. It's entirely too heavy for such pretty +little arms as yours." + +"Thang you. I lig' better carry him myself," said Sunny, holding tightly +to her precious package. + +Still the pimpled faced young man persisted at her side, and as they +reached the curb, his hand at her elbow, he assisted her to the +sidewalk. Standing at the foot of the front steps, he practically barred +her way. + +"You live here?" + +"Yes, I do so." + +"I believe I know Mrs. Munson, the lady that keeps this house. Relative +of yours?" + +"No, I are got no relative." + +"All alone here?" + +"No, I got frien' live wiz me. Aexcuse me. I are in hoarry eat my +dinner." + +"I wonder if I know your friend. What is his name?" + +"His name are Katy." + +"Ah, don't hurry. I believe, now I think of it, I know Katy. What's the +matter with your comin' along and havin' dinner with me." + +"Thang you. My frien' are expect me eat those dinner with her." + +"That's all right. I have a friend too. Bring Katy along, and we'll all +go off for a blowout. What do you say? A sweet little girl like you +don't need to be eatin' dog meat. I know a swell place where we can get +the best kind of eats, a bit of booze to wash it down and music and +dancing enough to make you dizzy. What do you say?" + +He smiled at Sunny in what he thought was an irresistible and killing +way. It revealed three decayed teeth in front, and brought his shifty +eyes into full focus upon the shrinking girl. + +"I go ask my frien'," she said hurriedly. "Aexcuse me now. You are stand +ad my way." + +He moved unwillingly to let her pass. + +"Surest thing. More the merrier. Let's go up and get Katy. What floor +you on?" + +"I bring Katy down," said Sunny breathlessly, and running by the pasty +faced youth, she opened the door, and closed it quickly behind her, +shooting the lock closed. She ran up the stairs, as if pursued, and +burst breathlessly into the little room where Katy was singing a ditty +composed to another of her name, and pasting her lately washed +handkerchiefs upon the window pane and mirror. + + Beautiful K-Katy--luvully Katy! + You're the only one that ever I adore, + Wh-en the moon shines, on the cow shed, + I'll be w-waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door!" + +sang the light-hearted and valiant Katy Clarry. + +"Oh, Katy," cried Sunny breathlessly. "Here are those dog." She laid the +huge package before the amazed and incredulous Katy. + +"For the love of Mike! Did Schmidt sell you a whole cow?" + +Katy tore the wrappings aside, and revealed the contents of the package. +An assortment of bones of all sizes, large and small, a few pieces of +malodorous meat, livers, lights and guts, and the insides of sundry +chickens. Katy sat down hard, exclaiming: + +"Good night! What did you ask for?" + +"I ask him for dog meat," excitedly and indignantly declared Sunny. + +"You got it! You poor simp. Heaven help you. Never mind, there's no need +now of crying over spilled beans. It's too late now to change, so here's +where we kiss our lunch a long and last farewell, and do some hustling +downtown." + +"Oh, Katy, I am thad sorry!" cried Sunny tragically. + +"It's all right, dearie. Don't you worry. You can't help being ignorant. +I ain't hungry myself anyway, and you're welcome to the cracker there. +That'll do till we get back, and then, why, I believe we can boil some +of them bones and get a good soup. I always say soup is just as fillin' +as anything else, especially if you put a onion in it, and have a bit of +bread to sop it up with, and I got the onion all right. So cheer up, +we'll soon be dead and the worst is yet to come." + +"Katy, there are a gentleman down on those street, who are want give us +nize dinner to eat, with music and some danze. Me? I am not care for +those music, but I lig' eat those dinner, and I lig' also thad you eat +him." + +"Gentleman, huh?" Katy's head cocked alertly. + +"Yes, he speak at me on the street, and he say he take me and my frien' +out to nize dinner. He are wait in those street now." + +Katy went to the window, leaned far out, saw the man on the street, and +drew swiftly in, her face turning first white, then red. + +"Sunny, ain't you got any better sense than speak to a man on the +street?" + +"Ho, Katy, I din nod speag ad those man," declared Sunny indignantly. +"He speag ad me, and I do nod lig' hees eye. I do nod lig' hees mout', +nor none of hees face, but I speag perlite bi-cause he are ask me eat +those dinner." + +"Well, you poor little simp, let me tell you who _that_ is. He's the +dirtiest swine in Harlem. You're muddied if he looks at you. +He's--he's--I can't tell you what he is, because you're so ignorunt you +wouldn't understand. You and me go out with the likes of him! Sa-ay, I'd +rather duck into a sewer. I'd come out cleaner, believe me. Now watch +how little K-k-k-katy treats that kind of dirt." + +She transferred the more decayed of the meat and bones from the package +to the pail of water which had recently served for her "family wash." +This she elevated to the window, put her head out, and as if sweetly to +signal the waiting one below, she called: + +"Hi-yi-yi-yi--i-i!" and as the man below looked up expectantly, she gave +him the full benefit of the pail's contents in his upturned face. + +The sight of the drenched, spluttering and foully swearing rat on the +street below struck the funny side of the two young girls. Clinging +together, they burst into laughter, holding their sides, and with their +young heads tossed back; but their laughter had an element of hysteria +to it, and when at last they stopped, and the stream of profanity from +below continued to pour into the room, Katy soberly closed the window. +For a while they stared at each other in a scared silence. Then Katy, +squaring her shoulders, belligerently said: + +"Well, we should worry over that one." + +Sunny was standing now by the bureau. A very thoughtful expression had +come to Sunny's face, and she opened the top drawer and drew out her +little package. + +"Katy," she said softly, "here are some little thing ad these package, +which mebbe it goin' to help us." + +"Say, I been wonderin' what you got in that parcel ever since you been +here. I'd a asked you, but as you didn't volunteer no inflamation, I was +too much of a lady to press it, and I'm telling the world, I'd not open +no package the first time myself, without knowin' what was in it, +especially as that one looks kind of mysteriees and foreign looking. I +heard about a lady named Pandora something and when she come to open a +box she hadn't no right to open, it turned into smoke and she couldn't +get it back to where she wanted it to go. What you got there, dearie, if +it ain't being too personal to ask? I'll bet you got gold and diamonds +hidden away somewhere." + +Sunny was picking at the red silk cord. Lovingly she unwrapped the +Japanese paper. The touch of her fingers on her mother's things was a +caress and had all the reverence that the Japanese child pays in tribute +to a departed parent. + +"These honourable things belong my mother," said Sunny gently. "She have +give them to me when she know she got die. See, Katy, this are kakemona. +It very old, mebbe one tousan' year ole. It belong at grade Prince of +Satsuma. Thas my mother ancestor. This kakemona, it are so ole as those +ancestor," said Sunny reverently. + +"Old! Gee, I should say it is. Looks as if it belonged in a tomb. You +couldn't hock nothing like that, dearie, meanin' no offence. What else +you got?" + +"The poor simp!" said Katy to herself, as Sunny drew forth her mother's +veil. In the gardens of the House of a Thousand Joys the face of the +dancer behind the shimmering veil had aroused the enthusiasm of her +admirers. Now Katy bit off the words that were about to explain to Sunny +that in her opinion a better veil could be had at Dacy's for +ninety-eight cents. All she said, however, was: + +"You better keep the veil, Sunny. I know how one feels about a mother's +old duds. I got a pair of shoes of my mother's that nothing could buy +from me, though they ain't much to look at; but I know how you feel +about them things, dearie." + +"This," said Sunny, with shining eyes, "are my mother's fan. See, Katy, +Takamushi, a grade poet ad Japan, are ride two poem on thad fan and +present him to my mother. Thad is grade treasure. I do nod lig' to sell +those fan." + +"I wouldn't. You just keep it, dearie. We ain't so stone broke that you +have to sell your mother's fan." + +"These are flower that my mother wear ad her hair when she danze, Katy." + +The big artificial poppies that once had flashed up on either side of +the dancer's lovely face, Sunny now pressed against her cheek. + +"Ain't they pretty?" said Katy, pretending an enthusiasm she did not +feel. "You could trim a hat with them if flowers was in fashion this +year, but they ain't, dearie. The latest thing is naked hats, sailors, +like you got, or treecornes, with nothing on them except the lines. +What's that you got there, Sunny?" + +"That are a letter, Katy. My mother gave me those letter. She say that +some day mebbe I are need some frien'. Then I must put those letter at +post office box, or I must take those letter in my hand to thad man it +are write to. He are frien' to me, my mother have said." + +Katy grabbed the letter, disbelieving her eyes when she read the name +inscribed in the thin Japanese hand. It was addressed both in English +and Japanese, and the name was, Stephen Holt Wainwright, 27 Broadway, +New York City. + +"Someone hold me up," cried Katy. "I'm about to faint dead away." + +"Oh, Katy, do not be dead away! Oh, Katy, do not do those faint. Here +are those cracker. I am not so hungry as you." + +"My Lord! You poor ignorunt little simp, don't you reckernise when a +fellow is fainting with pure unadulterated joy? How long have you had +that letter?" + +"Four year now," said Sunny sadly, thinking of the day when her mother +had placed it in her hand, and of the look on the face of that mother. + +"Why did you never mail it?" + +"I was await, Katy. I are not need help. I have four and five good +frien' to me then, and I do not need nuther one; but now I are beggar +again. I nod got those frien's no more. I need those other one." + +"Were you ever a _beggar_, Sunny?" + +"Oh, yes, Katy, some time my mother and I we beg for something eat at +Japan. Thad is no disgrace. The gods love those beggar jos' same rich +man, and when he go on long journey to those Meido, mebbe rich man go +behind those beggar. I are hear thad at Japan." + +"Do you know who this letter is addressed to, dearie?" + +"No, Katy, I cannot read so big a name. My mother say he will be frien' +to me always." + +"Sunny, I pity you for your ignorunce, but I don't hold it against you. +You was born that way. Why, a child could read that name. Goodness knows +I never got beyond the Third Grade, yet I _hope_ I'm able to read that. +It says as plain as the nose on your face, Sunny: Stephen Holt +Wainwright. Now that's the name of one of the biggest guns in the +country. He's a U. S. senator, or was and is, and he's so rich that he +has to hire twenty or fifty cashiers to count his income that rolls in +upon him from his vast estates. If you weren't so ignorunt, Sunny, you'd +a read about him in the _Journal_. Gee! his picture's in nearly every +day, and pictures of his luxurious home and yacht and horses and wife, +who's one of the big nobs in this suffrage scare. They call him 'The Man +of Steel,' because he owns most of the steel in the world, and because +he's got a mug--a face--on him like a steel trap. That's what I've heard +and read, though I've never met the gentleman. I expect to, however, +very soon, seeing he's a friend of yours. And now, lovey, don't waste no +more tears over that other bunch of ginks, because this Senator +Wainwright has got them all beat in the Marathon." + +"Katy, this letter are written by my mother ad the Japanese language. +Mebbe those Sen--a--tor kinnod read them. What I shall do?" + +"What you shall do, baby mine? Did you think I was goin' to let precious +freight like that go into any post box. Perish the idea, lovey. You and +me are going to waltz downtown to 27 Broadway, and we ain't going to do +no walking what's more. The Subway for little us. I'm gambling on Mr. +Senator passing along a job to friends of his friends. Get your hat on +now, and don't answer back neither." + +On the way downstairs she gave a final stern order to Sunny. + +"Hold your hat pin in your hand as we come out. If his nibs so much as +opens his face to you, jab him in the eye. I'll take care of the rest of +him." + +Thus bravely armed, the two small warriors issued forth, the general +marshalling her army of one, with an elevated chin and nose and an eye +that scorched from head to foot the craven looking object waiting for +them on the street. + +"Come along, dearie. Be careful you don't get soiled as we pass." + +Laughing merrily, the two girls, with music in their souls, danced up +the street, their empty stomachs and their lost jobs forgotten. When +they reached the Subway, Katy seized Sunny's hand, and they raced down +the steps just as the South Ferry train pulled in. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + +That was a long and exciting ride for Sunny. Above the roar of the +rushing train Katy shouted in her ear. Perfectly at home in the Subway, +Katy did not let a little thing like mere noise deter the steady flow of +her tongue. The gist of her remarks came always back to what Sunny was +to do when they arrived at 27 Broadway; how she was to look; how speak. +She was to bear in mind that she was going into the presence of American +royalty, and she was to be neither too fresh nor yet too humble. +Americans, high and low, so Katy averred, liked folks that had a kick to +them, but not too much of a kick. + +Sunny was to find out whether at some time or other in the past, Senator +Wainwright had not put himself under deep obligations to some member of +Sunny's family. Perhaps some of her relatives might have saved the life +of this senator. Even Chinks were occasionally heroes, Katy had heard. +It might be, on the other hand, said Katy, that Sunny's mother had +something "on" the senator. So much the better. Katy had no objection, +so she said, to the use of a bit of refined ladylike blackmail, for "the +end justifies the means," said Katy, quoting, so she said, from Lincoln, +the source of all her aphorisms. Anyway, the long and short of it was, +said Katy, that Sunny was on no account to get cold feet. She was to +enter the presence of the mighty man with dignity and coolness. "Keep +your nerve whatever you do," urged Katy. Then once eye to eye with the +man of power, she was to ask--it was possible, she might even be able to +demand--certain favours. + +"Ask and it shall be given to you. Shut your mouth and it'll be taken +away. That's how things go in this old world," said Katy. + +Sunny was to make application in both their names. If there were no +vacancies in the senator's office, then she would delicately suggest +that the senator could make such a vacancy. Such things were done within +Katy's own experience. + +Katy had no difficulty in locating the monstrous office building, and +she led Sunny along to the elevator with the experienced air of one used +to ascending skyward in the crowded cars. Sunny held tight to her arm as +they made the breathless ascent. There was no need to ask direction on +the 35th floor, since the Wainwright Structural Steel Company occupied +the entire floor. + +It was noon hour, and Katy and Sunny followed several girls returning +from lunch through the main entrance of the offices. + +A girl at a desk in the reception hall stopped them from penetrating +farther into the offices by calling out: + +"No admission there. Who do you want to see? Name, please." + +Katy swung around on her heel, and recognising a kindred spirit in the +girl at the desk, she favoured her with an equally haughty and glassy +stare. Then in a very superior voice, Katy replied: + +"We are friends of the Senator. Kindly announce us, if you please." + +A grin slipped over the face of the maiden at the desk, and she shoved a +pad of paper toward Katy. + +Opposite the word "Name" on the pad, Katy wrote, "Miss Sindicutt." +Opposite the word: "Business" she wrote "Private and personal and +intimate." + +The girl at the desk glanced amusedly at the pad, tore the first sheet +off, pushed a button which summoned an office boy, to whom she handed +the slip of paper. With one eye turned appraisingly upon the girls, he +went off backwards, whistling, and disappeared through the little +swinging gate that opened apparently into the great offices beyond. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Katy to the girl at the desk. + +"I didn't say nothing," returned the surprised maiden. + +"I thought you said 'Be seated.' I will, thank you. Don't mention it," +and Katy grinned with malicious politeness on the discomfited young +person, who patted her coiffure with assumed disdain. + +Katy meanwhile disposed herself on the long bench, drew Sunny down +beside her, and proceeded to scrutinise and comment on all passers +through the main reception hall into the offices within. Once in a while +she resumed her injunctions to Sunny, as: + +"Now don't be gettin' cold feet whatever you do. There ain't nothing to +be afraid of. A cat may look at a king, him being the king and you the +cat. No offence, dearie. Ha, ha, ha! That's just my way of speaking. +Say, Sunny, would you look at her nibs at the desk there. Gee! ain't +that a job? Some snap, I'll say. Nothin' to do, but give everyone the +once over, push a button and send a boy to carry in your names. Say, if +you're a true friend of mine, you'll land me that job. It'd suit me down +to a double Tee." + +"Katy, I goin' try get you bes' job ad these place. I am not so smart +like you, Katy----" + +"Oh, well, you can't help that, dearie, and you got the face all right." + +"Face is no matter. My mother are tell me many time, it is those heart +that matter." + +"_Sounds_ all right, and I ain't questionin' your mother's opinion, +Sunny, but you take it from me, you can go a darn sight further in this +old world with a face than a heart." + +A man had come into the reception room from the main entrance. He +started to cross the room directly to the little swinging door, then +stopped to speak to a clerk at a wicket window. Something about the +sternness of his look, an air savouring almost of austerity aroused the +imp in Katy. + +"Well, look who's here," she whispered behind her hand to Sunny. "Now +watch little K-k-katy." + +As the man turned from the window, and proceeded toward the door, Katy +shot out her foot, and the man abstractedly stumbled against it. He +looked down at the girl, impudently staring him out of countenance, and +frowned at her exaggerated: + +"I _beg_ your pardon!" + +Then his glance turning irritably from Katy, rested upon Sunny's +slightly shocked face? He stopped abruptly, standing perfectly still for +a moment, staring down at the girl. Then with a muttered apology, +Senator Wainwright turned and went swiftly through the swinging door. + +"Well, of _all_ the nerve!" said Katy. Then to the girl at the desk: + +"Who was his nibs?" + +"Why, your friend, of course. I'm surprised you didn't recognise him," +returned the girl sweetly. + +"Him--Senator Wainwright." + +"The papers sometimes call him 'The Man of Steel,' but of course, +intimate friends like you and your friend there probably call him by a +nickname." + +"Sure we do," returned Katy brazenly. "I call him 'Sen-Sen' for short. +I'd a known him in an instant with his hat off." + +"I want to know!" gibed the girl at the desk. + +The boy had returned, and thrusting his head over the short gate sang +out: + +"This way, please, la-adies!" + +Katy and Sunny followed the boy across an office where many girls and +men were working at desks. The click of a hundred typewriters, and the +voices dictating into dictagraphs and to books impressed Katy, but with +her head up she swung along behind the boy. At a door marked "Miss +Hollowell, Private," the boy knocked. A voice within bade him "Come," +and the two girls were admitted. + +Miss Hollowell, a clear-eyed young woman of the clean-cut modern type of +the efficient woman executive, looked up from her work and favoured them +with a pleasant smile. + +"What can I do for you?" The question was directed at Katy, but her +trained eye went from Katy to Sunny, and there remained in speculative +inquiry. + +"We have come to call upon the Senator," said Katy, "on important and +private business." + +Katy was gripping to that something she called her "nerve," but her +manner to Miss Hollowell had lost the gibing patronising quality she had +affected to the girl at the door. Acute street gamin, as was Katy, she +had that unerring gift of sizing up human nature at a glance, a gift not +unsimilar in fact to that possessed by the secretary of Senator +Wainwright. + +Miss Hollowell smiled indulgently at Katy's words. + +"_I_ see. Well now, I'll speak for Mr. Wainwright. What can we do for +you?" + +"Nothing. _You_ can't do nothing," said Katy. She was not to be beguiled +by the smile of this superior young person. "My friend here--meet Miss +Sindicutt--has a personal letter for Senator Wainwright, and she's +takin' my advice not to let it out of her hands into any but his." + +"I'm awfully sorry, because Mr. Wainwright is very busy, and can't +possibly see you. I believe I will answer the purpose as well. I'm Mr. +Wainwright's secretary." + +"We don't want to speak to no secretary," said Katy. "I always say: 'Go +to the top. Slide down if you must. You can't slide up.'" + +Miss Hollowell laughed. + +"Oh, very well then. Perhaps some other time, but we're especially busy +to-day, so I'm going to ask you to excuse us. _Good_-day." + +She turned back to the papers on her desk, her pencil poised above a +sheet of estimates. + +Katy pushed Sunny forward, and in dumb show signified that she should +speak. Miss Hollowell glanced up and regarded the girl with singular +attention. Something in the expression, something in the back of the +secretary's mind that concerned Japan, which this strange girl had now +mentioned caused her to wait quietly for her to finish the sentence. +Sunny held out the letter, and Miss Hollowell saw that fine script upon +the envelope, with the Japanese letters down the side. + +"This are a letter from Japan," said Sunny. "If you please I will lig' +to give those to Sen--Thad is so big a name for me to say." The last was +spoken apologetically and brought a sympathetic smile from Miss +Hollowell. + +"Can't I read it? I'm sure I can give you what information you want as +well as Mr. Wainwright can." + +"It are wrote in Japanese," said Sunny. "You cannot read that same. +_Please_ you let me take it to thad gentleman." + +Miss Hollowell, with a smile, arose at that plea. She crossed the room +and tapped on the door bearing the Senator's name. + +Even in a city where offices of the New York magnates are sometimes as +sumptuously furnished as drawing rooms, the great room of Senator +Wainwright was distinctive. The floor was strewn with priceless Persian +and Chinese rugs, which harmonised with the remarkable walls, panelled +half way up with mahogany, the upper part of which was hung with +masterpieces of the American painters, whose work the steel magnate +especially favoured. Stephen Wainwright was seated at a big mahogany +desk table, that was at the far end of the room, between the great +windows, which gave upon a magnificent view of the Hudson River and part +of the Harbor. He was not working. His elbows on the desk, he seemed to +be staring out before him in a mood of strange abstraction. His face, +somewhat stony in expression, with straight grey eyes that had a curious +trick when turned on one of seeming to pin themselves in an appraising +stare, his iron grey hair and the grey suit which he invariably wore had +given him the name of "The Man of Steel." Miss Hollowell, with her +slightly professional smile, laid the slip of paper on the desk before +him. + +"A Miss Sindicutt. She has a letter for you--a letter from Japan she +says. She wishes to deliver it in person." + +At the word "Japan" he came slightly out of his abstraction, stared at +the slip of paper, and shook his head. + +"Don't know the name." + +"Yes, I knew you didn't; but, still, I believe I'd see her if I were +you." + +"Very well. Send her in." + +Miss Hollowell at the door nodded brightly to Sunny, but stayed Katy, +who triumphantly was pushing forward. + +"Sorry, but Mr. Wainwright will see just Miss Sindicutt." + +Sunny went in alone. She crossed the room hesitantly and stood by the +desk of the steel magnate, waiting for him to speak to her. He remained +unmoving, half turned about in his seat, staring steadily at the girl +before him. If a ghost had arisen suddenly in his path, Senator +Wainwright could not have felt a greater agitation. After a long pause, +he found his voice, murmuring: + +"I beg your pardon. Be seated, please." + +Sunny took the chair opposite him. Their glances met and remained for a +long moment locked. Then the man tried to speak lightly: + +"You wished to see me. What can I do for you?" + +Sunny extended the letter. When he took it from her hand, his face came +somewhat nearer to hers, and the closer he saw that young girl's face, +the greater grew his agitation. + +"What is your name?" he demanded abruptly. + +"Sunny," said the girl simply, little dreaming that she was speaking the +name that the man before her had himself invented for her seventeen and +a half years before. + +The word touched some electrical cord within him. He started violently +forward in his seat, half arising, and the letter in his hand dropped on +the table before him face up. A moment of gigantic self-control, and +then with fingers that shook, Stephen Wainwright slipped the envelope +open. The words swam before him, but not till they were indelibly +printed upon the man's conscience-stricken heart. Through blurred vision +he read the message from the dead to the living. + +"On this sixth day of the Season of Little Plenty. A thousand years of +joy. It is your honourable daughter, who knows not your name, who brings +or sends to you this my letter. I go upon the long journey to the Meido. +I send my child to him through whom she has her life. Sayonara. +Haru-no." + +For a long, long time the man sat with his two hands gripped before him +on the desk, steadily looking at the girl before him, devouring every +feature of the well-remembered face of the child he had always loved. It +seemed to him that she had changed not at all. His little Sunny of those +charming days of his youth had that same crystal look of supreme +innocence, a quality of refinement, a fragrance of race that seemed to +reach back to some old ancestry, and put its magic print upon the +exquisite young face. He felt he must have been blind not to have +recognised his own child the instant his eye had fallen upon her. He +knew now what that warm rush of emotion had meant when he had looked at +her in that outer office. It was the intuitive instinct that his own +child was near--the only child he had ever had. By exercising all the +self-control that he could command, he was at last able to speak her +name, huskily. + +"Sunny, don't you remember me?" + +Like her father, Sunny was addicted to moments of abstraction. She had +allowed her gaze to wander through the window to the harbour below, +where she could see the great ships at their moorings. It made her think +of the one she had come to America on, and the one on which Jerry had +sailed away from Japan. Painfully, wistfully, she brought her gaze back +to her father's face. At his question she essayed a little propitiating +smile. + +"Mebbe I are see you face on American ad-ver-tise-ment. I are hear you +are very grade man ad these America," said the child of Stephen +Wainwright. + +He winced, and yet grew warm with pride and longing at the girl's +delicious accent. He, too, tried to smile back at her, but something +sharp bit at the man's eyelids. + +"No, Sunny. Try and think. Throw your mind far back--back to your sixth +year, if that may be." + +Sunny's eyes, resting now in troubled question upon the face before her, +grew slowly fixed and enlarged. Through the fogs of memory slowly, like +a vision of the past, she seemed to see again a little child in a +fragrant garden. She was standing by the rim of a pool, and the man +opposite her now was at her side. He was dressed in Japanese kimona and +hakama, and Sunny remembered that then he was always laughing at her, +shaking the flower weighted trees above her, till the petals fell in a +white and pink shower upon her little head and shoulders. She was +stretching out her hands, catching the falling blossoms, and, +delightedly exclaiming that the flying petals were tiny birds fluttering +through the air. She was leaning over the edge of the pool, blowing the +petals along the water, playing with her father that they were white +prayer ships, carrying the petitions to the gods who waited on the other +side. She remembered drowsing against the arm of the man; of being +tossed aloft, her face cuddled against his neck; of passing under the +great wistaria arbour. Ah, yes! how clearly she recalled it now! As her +father transferred her to her mother's arms, he bent and drew that +mother into his embrace also. + +Two great tears welled up in the eyes of Sunny, but ere they could fall, +the distance between her and her father had vanished. Stephen +Wainwright, kneeling on the floor by his long-lost child, had drawn her +hungrily into his arms. + +"My own little girl!" said "The Man of Steel." + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + +Stephen Wainwright, holding his daughter jealously in his arms, felt +those long-locked founts of emotion that had been pent up behind his +steely exterior bursting all bounds. He had the immense feeling that he +wanted for evermore to cherish and guard this precious thing that was +all his own. + +"Our actions are followed by their consequences as surely as a body by +its shadow," says the Japanese proverb, and that cruel act of his mad +youth had haunted the days of this man, who had achieved all that some +men sell their souls for in life. And yet the greatest of all prizes had +escaped him--peace of mind. Even now, as he held Sunny in his arms, he +was consumed by remorse and anguish. + +In his crowded life of fortune and fame, and a social career at the side +of the brilliant woman who bore his name, Stephen Wainwright's best +efforts had been unavailing to obliterate from his memory that tragic +face that like a flower petal on a stream he had so lightly blown away. +O-Haru-no was her name then, and she was the child of a Japanese woman +of caste, whose marriage to an attaché of a Russian embassy had, in its +time, created a furore in the capital. Her father had perished in a +shipwreck at sea, and her mother had returned to her people, there, in +her turn, to perish from grief and the cold neglect of the Japanese +relatives who considered her marriage a blot upon the family escutcheon. + +Always a lover and collector of beautiful things, Wainwright had +harkened to the enthusiastic flights of a friend, who had "discovered" +an incomparable piece of Satsuma, and had accompanied him to an old +mansion, once part of a Satsuma yashiki, there to find that his friend's +"piece of Satsuma" was a living work of art, a little piece of +bric-a-brac that the collector craved to add to his collections. He had +purchased O-Haru-no for a mere song, for her white skin had been a +constant reproach and shame in the house of her ancestors. Moreover, +this branch of the ancient family had fallen upon meagre days, and +despite their pride, they were not above bartering this humble +descendant for the gold of the American. O-Haru-no escaped with joy from +the harsh atmosphere of the house of her ancestors to the gay home of +her purchaser. + +The fact that he had practically bought his wife, and that she had been +willing to become a thing of barter and sale, had from the first caused +the man to regard her lightly. We value things often, not by their +intrinsic value, but by the price we have paid for them, and O-Haru-no +had been thrown upon the bargain counter of life. However, it was not in +Stephen Wainwright's nature to resist anything as pretty as the wife he +had bought. A favourite and sardonic jest of his at that time was that +she was the choicest piece in his collections, and that some day he +purposed to put her in a glass case, and present her to the Museum of +Art of his native city. Had indeed Stephen Wainwright seen the dancer, +as she lay among her brilliant robes, her wide sleeves outspread like +the wings of a butterfly, and that perfectly chiselled face on which the +smile that had made her famous still seemed faintly to linger, he might +have recalled that utterance of the past, and realised that no object of +art in the great museum of which his people were so proud, could compare +with this masterpiece of Death's grim hand. + +He tried to delude himself with the thought that the temporary wife of +his young days was but an incident, part of an idyll that had no place +in the life of the man of steel, who had seized upon life with strong, +hot hands. + +But Sunny! His own flesh and blood, the child whose hair had suggested +her name. Despite the galloping years she persisted ever in his memory. +He thought of her constantly, of her strange little ways, her pretty +coaxing ways, her smile, her charming love of the little live things, +her perception of beauty, her closeness to nature. There was a quality +of psychic sweetness about her, something rare and delicate that +appealed to the epicure as exquisite and above all price. It was not his +gold that had purchased Sunny. She was a gift of the gods and his memory +of his child contained no flaw. + +It was part of his punishment that the woman he married after his return +to America from Japan should have drifted farther and farther apart from +him with the years. Intuitively, his wife had recognised that hungry +heart behind the man's cold exterior. She knew that the greatest urge in +the character of this man was his desire for children. From year to year +she suffered the agony of seeing the frustration of their hopes. +Highstrung and imaginative, Mrs. Wainwright feared that her husband +would acquire a dislike for her. The idea persisted like a monomania. +She sought distraction from this ghost that arose between them in social +activities and passionate work in the cause of woman's suffrage. It was +her husband's misfortune that his nature was of that unapproachable sort +that seldom lets down the mask, a man who retired within himself, and +sought resources of comfort where indeed they were not to be found. +Grimly, cynically, he watched the devastating effects of their separated +interests, and in time she, too, in a measure was cast aside, in thought +at least, just as the first wife had been. Stephen Wainwright grew +grimmer and colder with the years, and the name applied to him was +curiously suitable. + +This was the man whose tears were falling on the soft hair of the +strange girl from Japan. He had lifted her hat, that he might again see +that hair, so bright and pretty that had first suggested her name. With +awkward gentleness, he smoothed it back from the girl's thin little +face. + +"Sunny, you know your father now, fully, don't you? Tell me that you +do--that you have not forgotten me. You were within a few weeks of six +when I went away, and we were the greatest of pals. Surely you have not +forgotten altogether. It seems just the other day you were looking at +me, just as you are now. It does not seem to me as if you have changed +at all. You are still my little girl. Tell me--you have not forgotten +your father altogether, have you?" + +"No. Those year they are push away. You are my Chichi (papa). I so happy +see you face again." + +She held him back, her two hands on his shoulders, and now, true to her +sex, she prepared to demand a favour from her father. + +"Now I think you are going to give Katy and me mos' bes' job ad you +business." + +"Job? Who is Katy?" + +"I are not told you yet of Katy. Katy are my frien'." + +"You've told me nothing. I must know everything that has happened to you +since I left Japan." + +"Thas too long ago," said Sunny sadly, "and I am hongry. I lig' eat +liddle bit something." + +"What! You've had no lunch?" + +She told him the incident of the dog meat, not stopping to explain just +then who Katy was, and how she had come to be with her. He leaned over +to the desk and pushed the button. Miss Holliwell, coming to the door, +saw a sight that for the first time in her years of service with Senator +Wainwright took away her composure. Her employer was kneeling by a chair +on which was seated the strange girl. Her hat was off, and she was +holding one of his hands with both of hers. Even then he did not break +the custom of years and explain or confide in his secretary, and she saw +to her amazement that the eyes of the man she secretly termed "the +sphinx" were red. All he said was: + +"Order a luncheon, Miss Holliwell. Have it brought up here. Have Mouquin +rush it through. That is all." + +Miss Holliwell slowly closed the door, but her amazement at what she had +seen within was turned to indignation at what she encountered without. +As the door opened, Katy pressed up against the keyhole, fell back upon +the floor. During the period when Sunny had been in the private office +of Miss Holliwell's employer, she had had her hands full with the +curious young person left behind. Katy had found relief from her pent-up +curiosity in an endless stream of questions and gratuitous remarks which +she poured out upon the exasperated secretary. Katy's tongue and spirit +were entirely undaunted by the chilling monosyllabic replies of Miss +Holliwell, and the latter was finally driven to the extremity of +requesting her to wait in the outer office: + +"I'm awfully busy," said the secretary, "and really when you chatter +like that I cannot concentrate upon my work." + +To which, with a wide friendly smile, rejoined Katy: + +"Cheer up, Miss Frozen-Face. Mums the word from this time on." + +"Mum" she actually kept, but her alert pose, her cocked-up ears and +eyes, glued upon the door had such a quality of upset about them that +Miss Holliwell found it almost as difficult to concentrate as when her +tongue had rattled along. Now here she was engaged in the degrading +employment of listening and seeing what was never intended for her ears +and eyes. Miss Holliwell pushed her indignantly away. + +"What do you _mean_ by doing a thing like that?" + +Between what she had seen inside her employer's private office, and the +actions of this young gamin, Miss Holliwell was very much disturbed. She +betook herself to the seat with a complete absence of her cultivated +composure. When Katy said, however: + +"Gee! I wisht I knew whether Sunny is safe in there with that gink," +Miss Holliwell was forced to raise her hand to hide a smile that would +come despite her best efforts. For once in her life she gave the wrong +number, and was cross with the girl at the telephone desk because it was +some time before Mouquin's was reached. The carefully ordered meal +dictated by Miss Holliwell aroused in the listening Katy such mixed +emotions, that, as the secretary hung up the receiver, the hungry +youngster leaned over and said in a hoarse pleading whisper: + +"Say, if you're orderin' for Sunny, make it a double." + +Inside, Sunny was telling her father her story. "Begin from the first," +he had said. "Omit nothing. I must know everything about you." + +Graphically, as they waited for the lunch, she sketched in all the +sordid details of her early life, the days of their mendicancy making +the man feel immeasurably mean. Sitting at the desk now, his eyes shaded +with his hand, he gritted his teeth, and struck the table with repeated +soundless blows when his daughter told him of Hirata. But something, a +feeling more penetrating than pain, stung Stephen Wainwright when she +told him of those warmhearted men who had come into her life like a +miracle and taken the place that he should have been there to fill. For +the first time he interrupted her to take down the names of her friends, +one by one, on a pad of paper. Professor Barrowes, Zoologist and +Professor of Archeology. Wainwright had heard of him somewhere recently. +Yes, he recalled him now. Some dispute about a recent "find" of the +Professor's. A question raised as to the authenticity of the fossil. +Opposition to its being placed in the Museum--Newspaper discussion. An +effort on the Professor's part to raise funds for further exploration in +Canada northwest. + +Robert Mapson, Jr. Senator Wainwright knew the reporter slightly. He had +covered stories in which Senator Wainwright was interested. On the +_Comet_. Sunny's father knew the _Comet_ people well. + +Lamont Potter, Jr. Philadelphia people. His firm did business with them. +Young Potter at Bellevue. + +J. Lyon Crawford, son of a man once at college with Wainwright. Sunny's +father recalled some chaffing joke at the club anent "Jinx's" political +ambitions. As a prospect in politics he had seemed a joke to his +friends. + +And, last, J. Addison Hammond, Jr., "Jerry." + +How Sunny had pronounced that name! There was that about that soft +inflection that caused her father to hold his pencil suspended, while a +stab of jealousy struck him. + +"What does he do, Sunny?" + +"Ho! He are goin' be grade artist-arki-tuck. He make so beautiful +pictures, and he have mos' beautiful thought on inside his head. He +goin' to make all these city loog beautiful. He show how make 'partment +houses, where all god light and there's garden grow on top, and there's +house where they not put out liddle bebby on street. He's go sleep and +play on those garden on top house." + +Her father, his elbow on desk, his chin cupped on his hand, watched the +girl's kindling face, and suffered pangs that he could not analyse. +Quietly he urged her to continue her story. Unwilling she turned from +Jerry, but came back always to him. Of her life in Jerry's apartment, of +Hatton and his "yuman 'ankerings"; of Itchy, with his two fleas; of Mr. +and Mrs. Satsuma in the gold cage, of Count and Countess Taguchi who +swam in the glass bowl; of the honourable mice; of the butcher and +janitor gentlemen; of Monty, of Bobs, of Jinx, who had asked her to +marry them, and up to the day when Mrs. Hammond and Miss Falconer had +come to the apartment and turned her out. Then a pause to catch her +breath in a wrathful sob, to continue the wistful tale of her prayer to +Kuonnon in the raging, noisy street; of the mother's gentle spirit that +had gone with her on the dark long road that lead to--Katy. + +It was then that Miss Holliwell tapped, and the waiters came in with the +great loaded trays held aloft, bearing the carefully ordered meal and +the paraphernalia that accompanies a luncheon de luxe. Someone besides +the waiters had slipped by Miss Holliwell. Katy, clucking with her +tongue against the roof of her mouth, tried to attract the attention of +Sunny, whose back was turned. Sniffing those delicious odours, Katy came +farther into the room, and following the clucking she let out an +unmistakably false cough and loud Ahem! + +This time, Sunny turned, saw her friend, and jumped up from her seat and +ran to her. Said Katy in a whisper: + +"Gee! You're smarter than I gave you credit for being. Got him going, +ain't you? Well, pull his leg while the going's good, and say, Sunny, if +them things on the tray are for you, remember, I gave you half my hot +dogs and I always say----" + +"This are my frien', Katy," said Sunny proudly, as the very grave faced +man whom Katy had tried to trip came forward and took Katy's hand in a +tight clasp. + +"Katy, this are my--Chichi--Mr. Papa," said Sunny. + +Katy gasped, staring with wide open mouth from Senator Wainwright to +Sunny. Her head reeled with the most extravagantly romantic tale that +instantly flooded it. Then with a whoop curiously like that of some +small boy, Katy grasped hold of Sunny about the waist. + +"Whuroo!" cried Katy. "I _knew_ you was a princess. Gee. It's just like +a dime novel--better than any story in Hoist's even." + +There in the dignified office of the steel magnate the girl from the +east side drew his daughter into one of the most delicious shimmies, +full of sheer fun and impudent youth. For the first time in years, +Senator Wainwright threw back his head and burst into laughter. + +Now these two young radiant creatures, who could dance while they +hungered, were seated before that gorgeous luncheon. Sunny's father +lifted the top from the great planked steak, entirely surrounded on the +board with laced browned potatoes, ornamental bits of peas, beans, lima +and string, asparagus, cauliflower and mushrooms. + +Sunny let forth one long ecstatic sigh as she clasped her hands +together, while Katy laid both hands piously upon her stomach and +raising her eyes as if about to deliver a solemn Grace, she said: + +"Home, sweet home, was never like this!" + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + +Society enjoys a shock. It craves sensation. When that brilliant and +autocratic leader returned from several months' absence abroad, with a +young daughter, of whose existence no one had ever heard, her friends +were mystified. When, with the most evident pride and fondness she +referred to the fact that her daughter had spent most of her life in +foreign lands, and was the daughter of Senator Wainwright's first wife, +speculation was rife. That the Senator had been previously married, that +he had a daughter of eighteen years, set all society agog, and expectant +to see the girl, whose debut was to be made at a large coming out party +given by her mother in her honour. The final touch of mystery and +romance was added by the daughter herself. An enterprising society +reporter, had through the magic medium of a card from her chief, Mr. +Mapson, of the New York _Comet_, obtained a special interview with Miss +Wainwright on the eve of her ball, and the latter had confided to the +incredulous and delighted newspaper woman the fact that she expected to +be married at an early date. The announcement, however, lost some of its +thrill when Miss Wainwright omitted the name of the happy man. +Application to her mother brought forth the fact that that personage +knew no more about this coming event than the "throb sister," as she +called herself. Mrs. Wainwright promptly denied the story, pronouncing +it a probable prank of Miss Sunny and her friend, Miss Clarry. Here Mrs. +Wainwright sighed. She always sighed at the mention of Katy's name, +sighed indulgently, yet hopelessly. The latter had long since been +turned over to the efficient hands of a Miss Woodhouse, a lady from Bryn +Mawr, who had accompanied the Wainwright party abroad. Her especial duty +in life was to refine Katy, a task not devoid of entertainment to said +competent young person from Bryn Mawr, since it stirred to literary +activity certain slumbering talents, and in due time Katy, through the +pen of Miss Woodhouse, was firmly pinned on paper. + +However, this is not Katy's story, though it may not be inapropos to +mention here that the Mrs. J. Lyon Crawford, Jr., who for so long +queened it over, bossed, bullied and shepherded the society of New York, +was under the skin ever the same little General who had marched forth +with her army of one down the steps of that east side tenement house, +with hat pin ostentatiously and dangerously apparent to the craven rat +of the east side. + +Coming back to Sunny. The newspaper woman persisting that the story had +been told her with utmost candour and seriousness, Mrs. Wainwright sent +for her daughter. Sunny, questioned by her mother, smilingly confirmed +the story. + +"But, my dear," said Mrs. Wainwright, "You know no young men yet. Surely +you are just playing. It's a game between you and Katy, isn't it, dear? +Katy is putting you up to it, I'm sure." + +"No, mama, Katy are--is--not do so. _I_ am! It is true! I am going to +make marriage wiz American gentleman mebbe very soon." + +"Darling, I believe I'd run along. That will do for just now, dear. +_I'll_ speak to Miss Ah--what is the name?" + +"Holman, of the _Comet_." + +"Ah, yes, Miss Holman. Run along, dear," in a tone an indulgent mother +uses to a baby. Then with her club smile turned affably on Miss Holman: +"Our little Sunny is so mischievous. Now I'm quite sure she and Miss +Clarry are playing some naughty little game. I don't believe I'd publish +that if I were you, Miss Holman." + +Miss Holman laughed in Mrs. Wainwright's face, which brought the colour +to a face that for the last few months had radiated such good humour +upon the world. Mrs. Wainwright smiled, now discomfited, for she knew +that the newspaper woman not only intended to print Sunny's statement, +but her mother's denial. + +"Now, Miss Holman, your story will have no value, in view of the fact +that the name of the man is not mentioned." + +"I thought that a defect at first," said Miss Holman, shamelessly, "but +I'm inclined to think it will add to the interest. Our readers dote on +mysteries, and I'll cover the story on those lines. Later I'll do a bit +of sleuthing on the man end. We'll get him," and the man-like young +woman nodded her head briskly and betook herself from the Wainwright +residence well satisfied with her day's work. + +An appeal to the editor of the _Comet_ on the telephone brought back the +surprising answer that they would not print the story if Sunny--that +editor referred to the child of Senator Wainwright as "Sunny"--herself +denied it. He requested that "Sunny" be put on the wire. Mrs. Wainwright +was especially indignant over this, because she knew that that editor +had arisen to his present position entirely through a certain private +"pull" of Senator Wainwright. Of course, the editor himself did not know +this, but Senator Wainwright's wife did, and she thought him exceedingly +unappreciative and exasperating. + +Mrs. Wainwright sought Sunny in her room. Here she found that +bewildering young person with her extraordinary friend enthusing over a +fashion book devoted to trousseaux and bridal gowns. They looked up with +flushed faces, and Mrs. Wainwright could not resist a feeling of +resentment at the thought that her daughter (she never thought of Sunny +as "stepdaughter") should give her confidence to Miss Clarry in +preference to her. However, she masked her feelings, as only Mrs. +Wainwright could, and with a smile to Katy advised her that Miss +Woodhouse was waiting for her. Katy's reply, "Yes, ma'am--I mean, Aunt +Emma," was submissive and meek enough, but it was hard for Mrs. +Wainwright to overlook that very pronounced wink with which Katy +favoured Sunny ere she departed. + +"And now, dear," said Mrs. Wainwright, putting her arm around Sunny, +"tell me all about it." + +Sunny, who loved her dearly, cuddled against her like a child, but +nevertheless shook her bright head. + +"Ho! That is secret I not tell. I are a tomb." + +"Tomb?" + +"Yes, thas word lig' Katy use when she have secret. She say it +are--is--lock up in tomb." + +"To think," said Mrs. Wainwright jealously, "that you prefer to confide +in a stranger like Katy rather than your mother." + +"No, I not told Katy yet," said Sunny quickly. "She have ask me one +tousan' time, and I are not tol' her." + +"But, darling, surely you want _me_ to know. Is he any young man we are +acquainted with?" + +Sunny, finger thoughtfully on her lip, considered. + +"No-o, I think you are not know him yet." + +"Is he one of the young men who--er----" + +It was painful for Mrs. Wainwright to contemplate that chapter in +Sunny's past when she had been the ward of four strange young men. In +fact, she had taken Sunny abroad immediately after that remarkable time +when her husband had brought the strange young girl to the house and for +the first time she had learned of Sunny's existence. Life had taken on a +new meaning to Mrs. Wainwright after that. Suddenly she comprehended the +meaning of having someone to live for. Her life and work had a definite +purpose and impetus. Her husband's child had closed the gulf that had +yawned so long between man and wife, and was threatening to separate +them forever. Her love for Sunny, and her pride in the girl's beauty and +charm was almost pathetic. Had she been the girl's own mother, she could +not have been more indulgent or anxious for her welfare. + +Sunny, not answering the last question, Mrs. Wainwright went over in her +mind each one of the young men whose ward Sunny had been. The first +three, Jinx, Monty and Bobs, she soon rejected as possibilities. There +remained Jerry Hammond. Private inquiries concerning Jerry had long +since established the fact that he had been for a number of years +engaged to a Miss Falconer. Mrs. Wainwright had been much distressed +because Sunny insisted on writing numerous letters to Jerry while +abroad. It seemed very improper, so she told the girl, to write letters +to another woman's fiancé. Sunny agreed with this most earnestly, and +after a score of letters had gone unanswered she promised to desist. + +Mrs. Wainwright appreciated all that Mr. Hammond had done for her +daughter. Sunny's father had indeed expressed that appreciation in that +letter (a similar one had been sent to all members of the Sunny +Syndicate) penned immediately after he had found Sunny. He had, +moreover, done everything in his power privately to advance the careers +and interests of the various men who had befriended his daughter. But +for his engagement to Miss Falconer, Mrs. Wainwright would not have had +the slightest objection to Sunny continuing her friendship with this Mr. +Hammond, but really it was hardly the proper thing under the +circumstances. However, she was both peeved and relieved when Sunny's +many epistles remained unanswered for months, and then a single short +letter that was hardly calculated to revive Sunny's childish passion for +this Jerry arrived. Jerry wrote: + + "Dear Sunny. + + Glad get your many notes. Have been away. Glad + you are happy. Hope see you when you return. + + JERRY." + +A telegram would have contained more words, the ruffled Mrs. Wainwright +was assured, and she acquired a prejudice against Jerry, despite all the +good she had heard of him. From that time on her rôle was to, as far as +lay in her power, distract the dear child from thought of the man who +very evidently cared nothing about her. + +Of course, Mrs. Wainwright did not know of that illness of Jerry Hammond +when he had hovered between life and death. She did not know that all of +Sunny's letters had come to his hand at one time, unwillingly given up +by Professor Barrowes, who feared a relapse from the resulting +excitement. She did not know that that shaky scrawl was due to the fact +that Jerry was sitting up in bed, and had penned twenty or more letters +to Sunny, in which he had exhausted all of the sweet words of a lover's +vocabulary, and then had stopped short to contemplate the fact that he +had done absolutely nothing in the world to prove himself worthy of +Sunny, had torn up the aforementioned letters, and penned the blank +scrawl that told the daughter of Senator Wainwright nothing. + +But it was shortly after that that Jerry began to "come back." He +started upon the highroad to health, and his recuperation was so swift +that he was able to laugh at the protesting and anxious Barrowes, who +moved heaven and earth to prevent the young man from returning to his +work. Jerry had been however, "away" long enough, so he said, and he +fell upon his work with such zeal that no mere friend or mother could +stop him. Never had that star of Beauty, of which he had always dreamed, +seemed so close to Jerry as now. Never had the incentive to succeed been +so vital and gloriously necessary. At the end of all his efforts, he saw +no longer the elusive face of the imaginary "Beauty," of which he loved +to tell Sunny, and which he despaired ever to reach. What was a figment +of the imagination now took a definite lovely form. At the end of his +rainbow was the living face of Sunny. + +And so with a song within his heart, a light in his eyes, and a spring +to his step, with kind words for everyone he met, Jerry Hammond worked +and waited. + +Mrs. Wainwright, by this time, knew the futility of trying to force +Sunny to reveal her secret. Not only was she very Japanese in her +ability to keep a secret when she chose, but she was Stephen +Wainwright's child. Her mother knew that for months she had neither seen +nor written to Jerry Hammond, for Sunny herself had told her so, when +questioned. Who then was the mysterious fiancé? Could it possibly be +someone she had known in Japan? This thought caused Mrs. Wainwright +considerable trepidation. She feared the possibility of a young Russian, +a Japanese, a missionary. To make sure that Jerry was not the one Sunny +had in mind, she asked the girl whether he had ever proposed to her, and +Sunny replied at once, very sadly: + +"No-o. I ask him do so, but he do not do so. He are got 'nother girl he +marry then. Jinx and Monty and Bobs are all ask me marry wiz them, but +Jerry never ask so." + +"Oh, my dear, did you really _ask_ him to ask you to marry him?" + +"Ho! I hint for him do so," said Sunny, "but he do not do so. Thas very +sad for me," she admitted dejectedly. + +"Very fortunate, I call it," said Mrs. Wainwright. + +Thus Jerry's elimination was completed, and for the nonce the matter of +Sunny's marriage was dropped pro tem, to be revived, however, on the +night of her ball, when the story appeared under leaded type in the +_Comet_. + + + + + CHAPTER XX + + +There have been many marvellous balls given in the City of New York, but +none exceeding the famous Cherry Blossom ball. The guests stepped into a +vast ball room that had been transformed into a Japanese garden in +spring. On all sides, against the walls, and made into arbours and +groves, cherry trees in full blossom were banked, while above and over +the galleries dripped the long purple and white heads of the wistaria. +The entire arch of the ceiling was covered with cherry branches, and the +floor was of heavy glass, in imitation of a lake in which the blossoms +were reflected. + +Through a lane of slender bamboo the guests passed to meet, under a +cherry blossom bower, the loveliest bud of the season, Sunny, in a +fairy-like maline and chiffon frock, springing out about her +diaphanously, and of the pale pink and white colors of the cherry +blossoms. Sunny, with her bright, shining hair coifed by the hand of an +artist; Sunny, with her first string of perfect pearls and a monstrous +feather fan, that when dropped seemed to cover half her short fluffy +skirts. Sunny, with the brightest eyes, darting in and out and looking +over the heads of her besieging guests, laughing, nodding, breathlessly +parrying the questions that poured in on all sides. Everybody wanted to +know who _the_ man was. + +"Oh, do tell us who he is," they would urge, and Sunny would shake her +bright head, slowly unfurl her monstrous fan, and with it thoughtfully +at her lips she would say: + +"Ho yes, it are true, and mebbe I will tell you some nother day." + +Now among those present at Sunny's party were five men whose +acquaintance the readers of this story have already made. It so happened +that they were very late in arriving at the Wainwright dance, this being +due to the fact that one of their number had to be brought there by +physical force. Jerry, at dinner, had read that story in the _Comet_, +and was reduced to such a condition of distraction that it was only by +the united efforts of his four friends that he was forcibly shoved into +that car. The party arrived late, as stated, and it may be recorded that +as Sunny's eyes searched that sea of faces before her, moving to the +music of the orchestra and the tinkle of the Japanese bells, they lost +somewhat of their shining look, and became so wistful that her father, +sensitive to every change in the girl, never left her side; but he could +not induce the girl to dance. She remained with her parents in the +receiving arbor. Suddenly two spots of bright rose came to the cheeks of +Sunny, and she arose on tip-toes, just as she had done as a child on the +tight rope. She saw that arriving party approaching, and heard Katy's +voice as she husbanded them to what she called "the royal throne." + +At this juncture, and when he was within but a few feet of the "throne" +Jerry saw Sunny. One long look passed between them, and then, shameless +to relate, Jerry ducked into that throng of dancers. To further escape +the wrathful hands of his friends, he seized some fat lady hurriedly +about the waist and dragged her upon the glass floor. His rudeness +covered up with as much tact as his friends could muster, they +proceeded, as far as lay in their power, to compensate for his +defection. They felt no sympathy nor patience with the acts of Jerry. +Were they not all in the same boat, and equally stung by the story of +Sunny's engagement? + +Both hands held out, Sunny welcomed her friends. First Professor +Barrowes: + +"Ho! How it is good ad my eyes see your kind face again." + +Alas! for Sunny's several months with especial tutors and governesses, +and the beautiful example of Mrs. Wainwright. Always in moments of +excitement she lapsed into her strangely-twisted English speech and +topsy-turvy grammar. + +Professor Barrowes, with the dust in his eyes and brain of that recent +triumphant trip into the northwest of Canada, brushed aside by the +illness of his friend, was on solid enough earth as Sunny all but hugged +him. Bowing, beaming, chuckling, he took the fragrant little hand in his +own, and with the pride and glow of a true discoverer, his eye scanned +the fairylike creature before him. + +"Ah! Miss--ah--Sunny. The pleasure is mine--entirely mine, I assure you. +May I add that you still, to me, strongly resemble the child who came +upon the tight rope, with a smile upon her face, and a dewdrop on her +cheek. + +"May I add," continued Professor Barrowes, "that it is my devout hope, +my dear, that you will always remain unchanged? I hope so devoutly. I +wish it." + +"Ho! Mr. dear Professor, I am jos' nothing but little moth. Nothing +moach good on these earth. But you--you are do so moach I am hear. You +tich all those worl' _how_ those worl' are be ad the firs' day of all! +Tell me 'bout what happen to you. Daikoku (God of Fortune) he have been +kind to you--yes?" + +"Astounding kind--amazingly so. There is much to tell. If you will allow +me, at an early date, I will do myself the pleasure of calling upon you, +and--ah--going into detail. I believe you will be much interested in +recent discoveries in a hitherto unexplored region of the Canadian +northwest, where I am convinced the largest number of fossils of the +post pliocene and quaternary period are to be found. I had the pleasure +of assisting in bringing back to the United States the full-sized +skeleton of a dinornis. You no doubt have heard of the aspersions +regarding its authenticity, but I believe we have made +our--er--opponents appear pretty small, thanks to the aid of your father +and other friends. In point of fact, I may say, I am indebted to your +father for an undeserved recommendation, and a liberal donation, which +will make possible the fullest research, and establish beyond question +the--ah----" + +Miss Holliwell, smiling and most efficiently and inconspicuously +managing the occasion, noting the congestion about Sunny, and the +undisguised expressions of deepening disgust and impatience on the faces +of Sunny's other friends, here interposed. She slipped her hand through +the Professor's arm, and with a murmured: + +"Oh, Professor Barrowes, do try this waltz with me. It's one of the old +ones, and this is Leap Year, so I am going to ask you." + +Now Miss Holliwell had had charge of all the matters pertaining to the +dinornis; her association with Professor Barrowes had been both pleasant +and gratifying to the man of science. + +If anyone imagines that sixty-year-old legs cannot move with the +expedition and grace of youth, he should have witnessed the gyrations +and motions of the legs of Professor Barrowes as he guided the Senator's +secretary through the mazes of the waltz. + +Came then Monty, upright and rosy, and as shamelessly young as when over +four years before, at seventeen, he imagined himself wise and +aged-looking with his bone-ribbed glasses. The down was still on Monty's +cheek, and the adoration of the puppy still in his eyes. + +"Sunny! It does my soul good to see you. You look perfectly +great--yum-yum. Jove, you gave us a fright, all right. Haven't got over +it yet. Looked for you in the morgue, Sunny, and here you are shining +like--like a star." + +"Monty! That face of you will make me always shine like star. What you +are doing these day?" + +"Oh, just a few little things. Nothing to mention," returned Monty, with +elaborate carelessness, his heart thumping with pride and yearning to +pour out the full tale into the sympathetic pink ear of Sunny. "I got a +year or two still to put in--going up to Johns Hopkins; then, Sunny, +I've a great job for next summer--between the postgraduate work. I'll +get great, practical training from a field that--well----I'm going to +Panama, Sunny. Connection with fever and sanitary work. Greatest +opportunity of lifetime. I'm to be first assistant--it's the literal +truth, to----" He whispered a name in Sunny's ear which caused her to +start back, gasping with admiration. + +"Monty; how I am proud of you!" + +"Oh, it's nothing much. Don't know why in the world they picked _me_. My +work wasn't better than the other chaps. I was conscientious enough and +interested of course, but so were the other fellows. You could have +knocked me down with a feather when they picked me for the job. Why, I +was fairly stunned by the news. Haven't got over it yet. Your father +knows Dr. Roper, the chief, you know. Isn't the world small? Say, Sunny, +whose the duck you're engaged to? G'wan, tell your old chum." + +"Ho, Monty, I will tell you--tonide mebbe some time." + +"Here, here, Monty, you've hogged enough of Sunny's attention. My turn +now." Bobs pushed the unwilling Monty along, and the youngster, +pretending a lofty indifference to the challenging smiles directed at +him by certain members of the younger set, was nevertheless soon +slipping over the floor, with the prettiest one of them all, whom Mrs. +Wainwright especially led him to. + +Bobs meanwhile was grinning at Sunny, while she, with a maternal eye, +examined "dear Bobs," and noted that he had gotten into his clothes +hastily, but that nevertheless he was the same charming friend. + +"By gum, you look positively edible," was his greeting. "What you been +doing with yourself, and what's this latest story I'm hearing about your +marrying some Sonofagun?" + +"Bobs, I are goin' to tell you 'bout those Sonofagun some time this +nide," smiled Sunny, "but I want to know firs' of all tings, what you +are do, dear Bobs?" + +"I?" Bobs rose up and down on his polished toes. "City editor of the +_Comet_, old top, that's my job. Youngest ever known on the desk, but +not, I hope, the least competent." + +"Ho, Bobs. You _are_ one whole editor man! How I am proud of you. Now +you are goin' right up to top notch. Mebbe by'n by you get to be +ambassador ad udder country and----" + +"Whew-w! How can a mere man climb to the heights you expect of him. What +I want to know is--how about that marriage story? I printed it, because +it was good stuff, but who is the lucky dog? Come on, now, you know you +can tell me anything." + +"Ho, Bobs, I _are_ goin' tell you anything. Loog, Bobs, here are a +frien' I wan' you speag ad. She also have wrote a book. Her name are--is +Miss Woodenhouse. She is ticher to my frien', Miss Clarry. She are----" + +"Are! Sunny?" + +"'Am'. She am--no, is, very good ticher. She am--is--make me and Katy +spik and ride English jos same English lady." + +The young and edified instructor of Katy Clarry surveyed the young and +edified editor of the New York _Comet_ with a quizzical eye. The young +editor in question returned that quizzical glance, grinned, offered his +arm, and they whirled off to the music of a rippling two-step. + +Sunny had swung around and seized the two plump soft hands of Jinx, at +whose elbow Katy was pressing. Katy, much to her delight, had been +assisting Miss Holliwell in caring for the arriving guests, and had +indeed quite surprised and amused that person by her talent for +organisation and real ability. Katy was in her element as she bustled +about, in somewhat the proprietary manner of the floor walkers and the +lady heads of departments in the stores where Katy had one time worked. + +"Jinx, Jinx, Jinx! My eyes are healty jos' loog ad you! I am _thad_ glad +see you speag also wiz my bes' frien', Katy." She clapped her hands +excitedly. "How I thing it nize that you and Katy be----" + +Katy coughed loudly. Sunny's ignorance at times was extremely +distressing. Katy had a real sympathy for Mrs. Wainwright at certain +times. Jinx had blushed as red as a peony. + +"Have a heart, Sunny!" + +Nevertheless he felt a sleepish pride in the thought that Sunny's best +friend should have singled him out for special attention. Jinx, though +the desired one of aspiring mothers, was not so popular with the +maidens, who were pushed forward and adjured to regard him as a most +desirable husband. Katy was partial to flesh. She had no patience with +the artist who declared that bones were æsthetic and to suit his taste +he liked to hear the bones rattle. Katy averred that there was something +awfully cosy about fat people. + +"I hear some grade news of you, Jinx," said Sunny admiringly. "I hear +you are got nomin--ation be on staff those governor." + +"That's only the beginning, Sunny. I'm going in for politics a bit. Life +too purposeless heretofore, and the machine wants me. At least, I've +been told so. Your father, Sunny, has been doggone nice about it--a real +friend. You know there was a bunch of city hicks that thought it fun to +laugh at the idea of a fat man holding down any public job, but I guess +the fat fellow can put it over some of the other bunch." + +"Ho! I should say that so." + +"Look at President Taft," put in Katy warmly. "He weighs more'n you do, +I'll bet." + +"Give a fellow a chance," said Jinx bashfully. "If I keep on, I'll soon +catch up with him." + +"Sunny," said Katy in her ear, "I feel like Itchy. You remember you told +me how after a bath he liked to roll himself in the dirt because he +missed his fleas. That's me all over. I miss my fleas. I ain--aren't +used to being refined. Gee! I hope Miss Woodhouse didn't hear me say +that. If she catches me talking like that--good-night! D'she ever make +_you_ feel like a two-spot?"--Scorch with a _look_! Good-night!" + +A broad grin lighted up Katy's wide Irish face. Shoving her arm +recklessly through Jinx's, she said: + +"Come along, old skate, let's show 'em on the floor what reglar dancers +like you and me can do." + +Sunny watched them with shining eyes, and once as they whirled by, +Katy's voice floated above the murmurs of the dance and music: + +"Gee! How light you are on your feet! Plump men usually are. I always +say----" + +And Katy and Jinx, Monty and Bobs and the Professor and all her friends +were lost to view in that moving, glittering throng of dancers, upon +whom, like fluttering moths the cherry blossom petals were dropping from +above alighting upon their heads and shoulders and giving them that +festival look that Sunny knew so well in Japan. She had a breathing +space for a spell, and now that very wistful longing look stole like a +shadow back to the girl's young face. All unconsciously a sigh escaped +her. Instantly her father was at her side. + +"You want something, my darling?" + +"Yes, papa. You love me very much, papa?" + +"_Do_ I? If there's anything in the world you want that I can give you, +you have only to ask, my little girl." + +"Then papa, you see over dere that young man stand. You see him?" + +"Young Hammond?" + +"Jerry." Her very pronouncement of his name was a caress. "Papa, I wan +speag to him. All these night I have wan see him. See, wiz my fan I are +do lig' this, and nod my head, and wiz my finger, too, I call him, but +he do not come," dejectedly. "Loog! I will do so again. You see!" She +made an unmistakable motion with her hand and fan at Jerry and that +unhappy young fool turned his back and slunk behind some artificial +camphor trees. + +"By George!" said Senator Wainwright. "Sunny, do you want me to bring +that young puppy to you?" + +"Papa, Jerry are not a puppy, but jus' same, I wan' you bring him unto +me. Please. And then, when he come, please you and mamma stand liddle +bit off, and doan let nobody else speag ad me. I are got something I wan +ask Jerry all by me." + +The music had stopped, but the clapping hands of the dancers were +clamouring for a repetition of the crooning dance song that had just +begun its raging career in the metropolis. Sunny saw her father clap +Jerry upon the shoulder. She saw his effort to escape, and her father's +smiling insistence. A short interval of breathless suspense, and then +the reluctant, very white, very stern young Jerry was standing before +Sunny. He tried to avoid Sunny's glance, but, fascinated, found himself +looking straight into the girl's eyes. She was smiling, but there was +something in her dewy glance that reached out and twisted the boy's +heart strings sadly. + +"Jerry!" said Sunny softly, her great fan touching her lips, and looking +up at him with such a glance that all his best resolves to continue calm +seemed threatened with panic. He said, with what he flattered was an +imitation of composure: + +"Lovely day--er--night. How are you?" + +"I are so happy I are lig' those soap bubble. I goin' burst away." + +"Yes, naturally you would be happy. Beautiful day--er--night, isn't it?" + +He resolved to avoid all personal topics. He would shoot small talk at +her, and she should not suspect the havoc that was raging within him. + +"How are your mother?" + +"Well, thank you." + +"How are your frien', Miss Falconer?" + +"Don't know, I'm sure." + +"Hatton are tol' me all 'bout her," said Sunny. + +"Hatton? He's gone. I don't know where?" + +"He are officer at Salavation Army. He come to our house, and my father +give him money for those poor people. Hatton are tell me all 'bout you. +I are sawry you sick long time, Jerry. Thas very sad news for me." + +Jerry, tongue-tied for the moment, knew not what to say or where to +look. Sunny's dear glance was almost more than he could bear. + +"Beautiful room this. Decoration----" + +"Jerry, that are your beautiful picture you are made. I am remember it +all. One time you draw those picture like these for me, and you say thas +mos' nize picture for party ever. I think so." + +Jerry was silent. + +"Jerry, how you are do ad those worl'? Please tell me. I lig' to hear. +Are you make grade big success? Are you found those Beauty thad you are +loog for always?" + +"Beauty!" he said furiously. "I told you often enough that it was an +elusive jade, that no one could ever reach. And as for success. I +suppose I've made good enough. I was offered a partnership--I can't take +it. I'll----I'll have to get away. Sunny, for God's sake, answer me. Is +it true you are going to be married?" + +Slowly the girl bowed with great seriousness, yet somehow her soft eyes +rested in caress upon the young man's tortured face. + +"Jerry," said Sunny dreamily, "this are the Year of Leap, and I are lig' +ask you liddle bit question." + +Jerry neither heard nor understood the significance of the girlish +words. His young face had blanched. All the joy of life seemed to have +been extinguished. Yet one last passionate question burst from him. + +"Who--is--he?" + +Slowly Sunny raised that preposterous fan. She brought it to her face, +so that its great expanse acted as a screen and cut her and Jerry off +from the rest of the world. Her bright lovely gaze sank right into +Jerry's, and Sunny answered softly: + +"_You!_" + +Now what followed would furnish a true student of psychology with the +most irrefutable proof of the devastating effect upon a young man of the +superior and civilised west of association with a heathen people. Even +the unsophisticated eye of Sunny saw that primitive purpose leap up in +the eye of Jerry Hammond, as, held in leash only a moment, he proposed +then and there to seize the girl bodily in his arms. It was at that +moment that her oriental guile came to the top. Sunny stepped back, put +out her hand, moved it along the wall, behind the cherry petalled +foliage, and then while Jerry's wild, ecstatic intention brought him +ever nearer to her, Sunny found and pushed the button on the wall. + +Instantly the room was plunged into darkness. A babble of murmuring +sounds and exclamations; laughter, the sudden ceasing of the music, a +soft pandemonium had broken loose, but in that blissful moment of +complete darkness, oblivious to all the world, feeling and seeing only +each other, Jerry and Sunny kissed. + + + THE END + + + + + Transcriber Notes: + + Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. + + Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. + + Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of + the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. + + Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not + corrected unless otherwise noted. + + On page 13, "firmanent" was replaced with "firmament". + + On page 16, "pantomine" was replaced with "pantomime". + + On page 40, "avaricous" was replaced with "avaricious". + + On page 48, "Sutherlond" was replaced with "Sutherland". + + On page 52, "firmanent" was replaced with "firmament". + + On page 61, "parent's" was replaced with "parents'". + + On page 109, a quotation mark was added after "I am personally + situated." + + On page 121, a quotation mark was removed after "J. ADDISON HAMMOND" + + On page 123, "asumed" was replaced with "assumed". + + On page 123, "imcredible" was replaced with "incredible". + + On page 137, "asured" was replaced with "assured". + + On page 138, "archietects" was replaced with "architects". + + On page 156, the comma after "'ooking" was replaced with a period. + + On page 173, "ensconsed" was replaced with "ensconced". + + On page 184, "reeciver" was replaced with "receiver". + + On page 194, "repellant" was replaced with "repellent". + + On page 197, "belligerant" was replaced with "belligerent". + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sunny-San, by Winnifred Eaton + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58699 *** |