The second time his wife left him, Jack Bigelow was very wretched. He missed her exceedingly, though he would not have admitted it, for he was also very angry with her.

When she had gone away that first time, so soon after their marriage, he had not felt her absence as he did now, for then she had not become a necessity to him. But she had lived with him now two whole months, and had become a part of his life. She was not a mere passing fancy, and he knew it was folly to endeavor so to convince himself, as in his resentment at her treatment he was trying to do.

The house was desolate without her. Everywhere there were evidences of his little girl. Here a pair of her tiny sandals, some piece of tawdry kanzashi for her hair, her koto, samisen, and little drum; in the zashishi, in her own little room, and all over the house lingered the faint odor of her favorite perfume, so subtle it made the young man weak.

He grew to hate the silence of the rooms. Their household had always been small, with just a man and maid to wait on them; and now only one presence gone from it, and yet how painfully quiet the place had grown! He realized what all her little movements had become to him. He stayed out-doors as much as he could, only to return restlessly to the house, with a faint hope that perhaps she was hiding somewhere in it, and playing some prank on him, as she was fond of doing, bursting out from some unexpected place of hiding. But there was no trace of her anywhere; and when the second day actually passed, the realization that she was indeed gone forced itself home to him, leaving him stupid with rage and despair.

He was bitterly angry with her. She had no right to leave him like this, without a word of explanation. How was he to know where she had gone or what might happen to her? And the thought of anything dire really overtaking her nearly drove him distracted. He hung around the balconies of the house, wandered down into the garden, and strayed restlessly about. And all the time he knew he was waiting for her, and in the waiting doubling his misery.

She came back in four days, slipped into the house noiselessly and ran up to her room. He heard her, knew she had returned, but checked his first impulse to go to her, and threw himself back on a couch, where he assumed a careless attitude, which he relentlessly changed to a stern, unapproachable, forbidding one.

Suddenly he heard her voice. It came floating down the stairs, every weird minor note thrilling, mocking, fascinating him. “Toko-ton-yare ron-ton-ton!” she sang. Then the voice ceased a moment. She was waiting for him to call her. He did not move. He was certainly very angry with her. He would not forgive her readily.

She began beating on her drum. He heard her making a great noise in the little room up-stairs, and understood her object. She was trying to attract him. Suddenly she whirled down the stairs and burst in on him with a merry peal of laughter.

He ignored her sternly. She ceased her noise and laughter, and, approaching him, studied him with her head tilted bewitchingly on one side.

“You angery ad me, excellency?” she inquired with solicitude.

No reply.

“You very mad ad me, augustness?”

Still no reply.

“You very cross ad me, my lord?”

Jack regarded her in contemptuous silence.

She shouted now, a high, mocking, joyous note in her laughter.

“Hah! You very, very, very, very affended, Mister Bigelow?”

“It seems to please you, apparently,” said Jack, scathingly, wasting his sarcasm, and turning his eyes from her.

She laughed wickedly.

“Ah, tha’s so nize.”

“What is?” he demanded, sharply.

“Thad you loog so angery. My! You loog like grade big—whad you call thad?—toranadodo.” She knew how to pronounce “tornado,” but she wanted to make him laugh. She failed in her purpose, however. She tried another way.

“How you change!” She sighed with beatific delight.

Jack growled.

“Dear me! I thing you grown more nize-loogin,” she said.

Jack got up and walked across to the window, turning his back deliberately on her, and whistling with forced gayety, his hands in his pockets. She approached him with feigned timidity and stood at his elbow.

“You glad see me bag, excellency?”

“No!” shortly.

This emphatic answer frightened her. She was not so sure of herself, after all.

“You wan’ me go ‘way?” she asked, in the smallest voice.

“Yes.”

She loitered only a moment, and then “Ah-bah” (good-bye) she said softly.

He felt, for he would not turn around to see, that she was crossing the room slowly, reluctantly. He heard the shoji pushed aside, and then shut to. He was alone! He sprang forward and called her name aloud. She came running back to him and plunged into his arms. He held her close, almost fiercely. The anger was all gone. His face was white and drawn. The dread of losing her again had overpowered him. When she tried to extricate herself from his arms, he would not let her go. He sat down on one of the chairs, and held her on his knee. She was laughing now, laughing and pouting at his white face.

“My crashes!” she cried. “You loog lige ole Chinese priest ad the temple.” She pulled a long face, and drew her pretty eyes up high with her finger tips; then she chanted some solemn words, mocking mirthfully her ancestors’ religion.

But her husband was grave. He had not the heart to find mirth even in her naughtiness.

“Yuki,” he said, “you must be serious for a moment and listen to me.”

“I listenin’, Mr. Solemn-Angery-Patch!” She meant “Cross-patch.” “You loog lige—”

“Where did you go?”

“Oh, jus’ liddle bit visit.”

“Where did you go?” he repeated, insistently.

“Sa-ay, I forgitting.”

“Answer me.”

She pretended to think, and then suddenly to remember, sighing hypocritically the while.

“I lige forgitting,” she said.

“Forgetting what?”

“Where I been.”

“Why?”

“Tha’s so sad. Alas! I visiting thad ole fadder an’ mudder ninety-nine and one hundled years ole, and those seventeen liddle brudders an’ sisters. You missing me very much?” she changed from the subject of her whereabouts.

“No!” he said, shortly, stung by her falsity.

“I don’ sing so!”

“Where were you, Yuki?”

“Now, whad you wan’ know for, sinze you don’ like me whicheven?”

“Did I say so?”

“You say you don’ miss.”

“I lied,” he said, bitterly. “Where were you?”

“Jus’ over cross street, see my ole friend ad tea-garden.”

“I thought you said you were visiting your people?”

She was not at all abashed.

“Sa-ay, firs’ you saying you miss me; then thad you lie. Sa-ay, you big lie, I jus’ liddle bit lie.”

“Yuki, listen to me. If you leave me like this again, you need never come back. Do you understand?”

“Never?”

“I mean that.”

“Whad you goin’ do? Git you nudder wife?”

He pushed her from him in savage disgust. She laughed with infinite relish.

He sat down a little distance from her, and put his face wearily between his hands. Yuki regarded him a moment, and then she silently went to him, pulled his hands down, and kissed his lips.

“I have missed you terribly,” he said, hoarsely.

She was all compunction.

“I very sawry. I din know you caring very much for poor liddle me, an p’raps I bedder nod come bag ad you.”

“Why did you come, then?” he asked, gently.

“I coon’ help myself,” she said, forlornly. “My feet aching run bag ad you, my eyes ill to see you, my hands gone mad to touch you.”

She had grown in a moment serious, but also melancholy.

After a pause she said, more brightly, “I bringin’ you something—something so nize, dear my lord.”

“What is it, Yuki, dear?” He was reluctant to let her go even for a moment.

“Flowers,” she said—“summer flowers.”

He released her, and she brought them to him, a huge bunch of azaleas. She buried her delightful little nose in them. “Ah,” she said, “flowers mos’ sweetes’ thing in all the worl’, an’ all them same flowers for you, for you.”

“Where did you get them, dear?” he asked, taking her hands instead of the flowers, and drawing her, flowers and all, into his arms. She faltered a little, and then said, with the old daring smile flashing back in her face: “Nize Japanese gents making me present those flowers.”

He caught her wrists in a grip of iron. “What do you mean?” he demanded, fiercely, wild jealousy assailing him.

She pulled herself from him, and regarded the little wrists ruefully.

“Ain’ you shamed?” she accused.

“Yes!” He kissed the little wrists with an inward sob. “Tell me all, my little one. Please do not hide anything from me. I can’t bear it.”

“Thad Japanese gent wanter marry with me,” she informed him, calmly smiling, and dimpling as if it amused her, and then making a face to show him her feelings in the matter.

“My! How he adore me!” she added, vividly.

“Marry with you! What do you mean? You are my wife.”

“Yes, bud he din know thad,” she said, consolingly; “an’ see, I bring his same flowers unto you.”

He took them from her arms. They were all crushed now, and it distressed her. No Japanese can bear to see a flower abused. She fingered some of the petals sadly; then she sighed, looking up at him with tears in her eyes.

“Tha’s mos’ beautiful thing’ in all the whole worl’,” she said, indicating the flowers—“so pure, so kind, so sweet.”

“I know something more beautiful and sweet, and—and pure.”

“Ah, whad?” she said, her face shining, the pupils of the blue eyes so large as to make them look almost black.

“My wife!” he breathed.