"Why do we fret and worry about such things so far away? You will take from me all joy of our party. Will you not return to the room with me?" "No," said Pierre, seizing a hand in his, "I shall hold you until this is a bit more clear. No, Yuki--" "Yuki,--Yuki!" came a cautious voice, an echo, it seemed, to Pierre's last word. "Where are you? Mother has sent me here. Prince Hagané asked for you. She says to come at once." "Let my hand go. I must hurry. It is Prince Hagané," whispered Yuki, and, slipping deftly from Pierre, she hurried to join her friend. He followed quickly, stopped in the doorway, and stood there, scowling. The crowd had thinned. He could see the heads and shoulders of the two girls moving and whispering together as they sped. Beyond them, surrounded by his suite of glittering officials, Spanish-looking men in broadcloth and gold lace, rose the dark, impressive figure of Prince Hagané. He was in the dull silken robes of his own land, unornamented but for a single decoration,--the highest that a Japanese subject, not a prince of the blood, had ever received. Pierre's first thought was an inconsequent one of childish irritation that the man bore no marks of age. On the other hand, no one could have thought him young. The massive features, bronze in tone, and set in a sort of aquiline rigidity, the conscious, kingly poise of head and throat rising from deep brawny shoulders, the stiff black hair, touched evenly throughout with gray, had none of them the color of youth. Yet beside him youth looked tame, and old age withered. This man was on the very summit of life, the central point of storms, rather than their object. His deep-set eyes gazed now far beyond to the future, then back into the past, with equal certainty of vision. Such was the great man Hagané--"Ko-shaku Hagané," feudal, not imperial, prince; a title signifying the highest rank attainable by a subject not descended from the gods. Native ballads called him the "Right Arm and the Left Ear" of the Emperor. Woodcuts of his splendid, ugly head, set by country farmers within household shrines, proclaimed him the Living War-God of Nippon. His victories and innovations at the time of the Chinese struggle had spread his fame through two worlds. As Yuki and Gwendolen drew near, Mrs. Todd first perceived them. "Here they are. Present me first, Cyrus,--then Gwendolen, then Yuki," the matron gave whispered command. Hagané responded to the first two greetings with unsmiling courtesy, offering a perfunctory extension of his thick hand. "Now, your Highness," said Todd, his thin, jovial voice carrying easily to where Pierre stood, "here's somebody that will look more natural. Step up, Yuki-ko. You aren't afraid!"