English and American men took, for the most part, the Japanese view. Many Europeans, on the contrary, said openly that they hoped Le Beau would yet "get even" with old Hagané for stealing his sweetheart. With few exceptions, indeed, all women sympathized with Pierre. Pierre was the beau ideal of a despairing lover. His sensitive, beautiful face took on with ease the lines of sleepless grief. His blue eyes, at a moment's warning, could darken from melancholy to tragic anguish. He could sigh in such a manner that his quivering listeners, should Donne happen to be familiar, might have quoted, "When thou so sighest thou sighest not wind, thou sighest my soul away." Pierre's sorrow was genuine enough, but he liked witnesses to his grief. Needless to say that Mrs. Todd and her satellite Stunt were among Pierre's most vociferous supporters. Gwendolen fought many a battle for her school-friend, but the bitterest were pitched under her own roof. "Now, my very dear Miss Todd," expostulated the "Hawk's Eye," "do you not consider at all the misery of Monsheer Le Beau? Miss Onda is to be a princess, happy, courted, with a position in the highest circles. Life can offer her no more. On the other hand look at the jilted lover. I never saw a face that expressed such patient grief. When he turns to me those slow, beautiful blue eyes I'll declare I feel as if I'd like to kill that girl for making him suffer." "Pooh!" said Gwendolen, rudely; "and when he slowly turns them round to me I want to open my parasol and say 'Shoo!' thinking it a cow. I like Pierre well enough. A good deal better than you, I think, if the truth were known, but he is among men what Chopin is among musicians. He enjoys his sufferings and makes music out of them. Of course you wouldn't understand that." Rudely she wheeled and walked away, Mrs. Stunt following with venomous eyes. Gwendolen scarcely recognized herself during these days of trial. She, the joyous one, the sun-maid, now wished to quarrel with the whole world. Of course Dodge's defection, and the ridiculous paragraphs appearing in "The Hawk's Eye," had nothing to do with her nervous condition. The causes were obvious,--Yuki's hurried marriage and Pierre's mischievous pose of despair. Meanwhile the absurdities of gossip increased. Once, stung beyond endurance, the girl threw herself into her father's arms. "Dad, how shall I endure these spreading slanders about my friend? Is there nothing we can do,--nobody to shoot, or challenge, or anything like that?" "Go fire at those sparrows on the lawn." "Don't joke. I can't stand it. Oh, father, you don't know what awful things they whisper. They stop when I come near, saying it is because 'I'm not yet married.' Now just think of the pitchy subtlety of that. Why should people talk so?"