The last courteous and obsequious emissary of the Prince of Echizen had bowed himself out of the apartment of the Tojin-san, having sonorously delivered the speeches of regret of their master.

The room was piled with the rich gifts sent by the now soon departing Prince, who was to take office directly under his imperial master. Now he was sojourning in Echizen merely for the purpose of setting his affairs in order, and to do what lay in his power to set his former vassals in the new path they were to follow. Because he was the soul of chivalry and of justice, he was righting the wrong and slight paid to the foreigner he had himself invited to his province.

The Tojin was inexpressibly weary. One deputation after another of the citizens of Fukui had been arriving all day. They had commenced coming before daybreak, for the earlier a Japanese makes a call the greater he expresses his respect.

Delegations from the college presented petitions asking him to continue in Fukui, despite the change of government, and promising to make his stay there as happy and prosperous as lay within their power. He listened to them all a bit grimly, making no effort to emulate their politeness. Through the new interpreter who had entered his service, he merely signified that he would take the matter under consideration. It could not be decided at once.

At last he found himself alone with the Be-koku-jin, as they called his American friend, who was in fact what the Japanese youth had said, an eminent surgeon, with whom the Tojin had once been associated.

He was a small, but very dignified and important individual, whose most noticeable features were his bright eyes, which twinkled incongruously beneath a pair of fierce and uncompromising eyebrows. In his well-fitting English clothes he was as out of place in the Tojin’s great chamber as was the awkward furniture the deluded Genji Negato had chosen for his master.

Now he wandered about the room examining this and that article, and fingering the gifts brought by the Japanese with anticipatory fingers. His eyes, however, turned constantly toward his friend, who, now that they were for the first time alone together, had nothing to say.

The American surgeon was blessed with more than an ordinary intelligence, and he had learned a great deal from the students. A man seemingly absolutely wrapped up in his work, he had for years secretly cherished what he had become to believe was positively a vice. He was in fact as sentimental as a girl. When supposedly he was deeply engrossed in the study of some scientific work, locked in his study with stern orders without that on no account was he to be disturbed, he was in fact reading some love-story—or some romance of adventure usually enjoyed by very youthful persons.

Now he felt himself, as it were, part of a moving captivating drama cut out of life itself. No written page had ever absorbed him quite like this love-story of the fox-woman and his friend the Tojin-san.

There was something appallingly tragic in that little listening, waiting figure crouching there in the hall against the Tojin’s door! The Be-koku-jin knew very well indeed what it was this forlorn little creature of the mountains wanted; he knew, too, why it was that the Tojin believed he could not give it to her.

He had come to Fukui chiefly because he had been unable to resist the lure of the story of the fox-woman as the Tojin-san had written it to him. Now here he had stumbled upon a more entrancing story still.

He looked at his friend with his bright, clear eyes, and it occurred to him that there was something wonderfully attractive about the man’s face, grim and stony as was its expression, marked and marred as were the features. The mouth was that of the revolutionist, grim, unyielding, almost bitter; but the eyes were those of the poet, full of vague dreams and tenderness. The Be-koku-jin, assuming his most professional and uninterested manner, drew up a chair before his friend, and settled his plump little body comfortably into its depths.

“What are your plans?” he asked abruptly.

The other did not look up.

“That depends on you,” he said quietly.

“Your refusal or acceptance of the position here depends on me?”

“Absolutely.”

“What do you mean?”

The Tojin-san leaned forward in his chair. His eyes were no longer dull, there was a flame behind them.

“If you are successful—I remain here, in Fukui.”

“Ah. Er—you mean as regards the operation?”

“Yes.”

The Be-koku-jin regarded the tips of his fingers, which he had brought precisely together, reflectively. He purposely avoided the other’s almost pleading glance. He cleared his throat gruffly, and frowned as he crossed and recrossed his legs.

“Why stay in any event?” he demanded shortly, and put up his hand before the other could answer. “Your attitude is sentimental moonshine. You have nothing to fear—even if the operation is successful. I don’t agree with—er—what you have upon your mind.”

“That is because you do not understand,” said the Tojin wearily. “She is indeed what these people have imagined her—a creature almost of another world. She has lived only in her exquisite imagination, and because she is so beautiful and good and pure, to her all things too are fair. I was the first to treat her humanly. She has made me something in her mind’s eye that it is preposterous even to think of. To her I—I—think of it!—am a thing of beauty—a flawless, perfect god!”

He glared in a fierce sort of anguish at his friend, then stood up suddenly and began pacing the floor in long irregular strides, to bring up suddenly again before the other.

“I do not wish her to see me—at all! It will not be necessary. I ask you to take her for me to Tokio. There my sister will meet you, and take her with her to America.” He smiled for the first time. “At least I can do that for her. I claimed the right to care for her, and refused even the smallest help from Echizen and others. I have means—other than my work; and what I have will be hers. I want no one else to do for her,” he added jealously. “I can give her everything she needs or may want.”

The Be-koku-jin was still studying his finger-tips, and there was a curious expression upon his face. Suddenly he looked up directly at the Tojin-san.

“Why have the operation?”

The Tojin-san had turned very pale, but his voice was steady and strong.

“I have been through all that, my friend—have wrestled, tortured my very soul threshing it out. That’s the solution of a coward. I am a man!”

Said the other:

“I decline to perform the operation.”

The Tojin-san stared at him as if he could not believe his ears. Then he brought his hand so heavily down upon the other’s shoulder that the smaller man jumped under the touch.

“You prefer to leave it to my bungling hands? Is that what you came to Fukui to tell me?”

“As I said,” said the other, wincing still under the Tojin’s hand, “in any event you exaggerate the effect upon her. Just as you say—you are a man!”

He stood up abruptly.

“You will do it?” demanded the Tojin hoarsely.

“Yes,” said the other, blinking angrily, “I suppose I must.”

He glared for a moment at his friend and then for the first time permitted himself to show some emotion in his voice and expression:

“We’ll fight it out between us. Sight or no sight, I know you will be the same to her!”

“It is not alone my physical deformity,” said the Tojin, steadily, “but the fact that I am old enough to be her father. I have no longer the splendid courage of youth to take her in spite of my misfortune. ‘Old Grind,’ that was what they called me, even in America!”

“Stuff!” grunted the other. “‘Old Bones’ was the affectionate term applied to me. At this rate you’ll put us in our dotage. A man under forty is in his best youth. I never felt younger in my life!” he snorted indignantly.

“But she is only a child,” said the Tojin softly, “—a child in years—and in heart!”

“If you could see her,” said the other, with intense earnestness, “as I have had occasion to since last night, you would say differently. Child! why, man, she is a suffering, neglected, forsaken little woman! Open your door to her. Don’t let her think it as stony as your heart!”