HER HOUSE IN ORDER

Left alone, Campanula sat, her hands folded in her lap—a Lost One indeed.

Before her mental vision, beyond Japan, beyond that desolate country always surrounded with ice, the country where the bluebells grew—beyond all this lay the land where O Toku San had gone that day, the land where one never regrets, one never forgets, one never remembers.

He had gone to find happiness. Not one word had she spoken to hold him back or keep him by her, this true daughter of Dai Nippon, soul sister of O Gozen San, daughter in spirit of the immortal Hirose.

Cleopatra with the asp and all the mouthing heroines of history would seem cheap indeed beside this small and faithful figure to whom death was nothing, passion and personal happiness nothing beside the happiness of the being she loved.

She sat for an hour scarce moving; then she rose up. She had no more time for personal thoughts; all things had to be left in order, and her trust to the least detail faithfully fulfilled.

She called the MousmÈs to her, and told them that now Leslie San had left, they would be discharged until he came back. They could go that evening to their homes in the city below. She would pay them their wages and a month in advance, and a little present for each out of money of her own. And the three kow-towed, delighted at the prospect of change and the month's money for doing nothing, and the little present besides. They never thought to ask her what she would do herself in the house alone, their butterfly brains were so filled with the thoughts of pleasure.

Then she made Lotus-bud bring all the bills owing, bills yard long and extraordinarily minute in detail. These she discharged. There were chits out, but these were Leslie's affair, and he had no doubt settled them.

She thought of Sweetbriar San the cat, and as he was fondest of Pine-breeze, she gave Pine-breeze a small sum to take him home and keep him, applying to M'Gourley San if more money were needful.

Then she went upstairs to her own room and folded neatly the obis and kimonos in the drawers of the great lacquer cabinet. In one of these drawers were things she had only, as it were, dropped from her hand; the toys she had played with as a child. Here was the doll bought in Nikko, and bouncing balls, ever so many; and in a piece of rice paper, still ferocious, but terribly old and warped, the famous dragon.

She took him out and tried to remove the paper from his sugar-candy sides, but it was stuck too tight. She put him back, and, holding the drawer with both hands, pressed her forehead against them.

As she stood like this, mute and utterly motionless, the night breeze came through the window, bearing the perfume of the azaleas.

It was as if they were calling to her, and she closed the drawer gently and turned, as if to say, "I hear."

Then she came down and found the three MousmÈs waiting, each with a lighted lamp on the end of a stick, and her frail belongings on her back, luggage consisting of cardboard boxes, except in the case of Pine-breeze, who was also burdened with a basket containing Sweetbriar San.

They had received their wages, and there was nothing left for them now to do but go; which they did, after profound salaams, murmurs and declarations of personal unworthiness.

Then Campanula found herself standing alone. The only living thing beside herself in the house was the mushi, that musician of the night, already saluting its mistress with a thin stream of song. She went to the doorway where it hung, and unhooked the little cage.