OF course, figured Matsuda to himself, even the addition of one so famous as the Spider could not at once bring fortune to the House of Slender Pines at war-time. Then, too, there was the honorable child to sustain.

Not for a moment, Matsuda told himself, did he begrudge or regret the celebrations in the Spider’s honor rightly insisted upon by his wife. Undoubtedly she was an honorable guest. Still, a poor man, the keeper of a half-score of geishas, must make proper provision for their future sustenance and his own old age. If the Spider were, in fact, to prove her old title of fortune-bringer to the geisha-house, it was necessary that she begin at once.

So, while the Okusama and the geishas showered the Spider with favors and waited upon her slightest wish, while the honorable descendant of the illustrious Saito blood joyously passed from hand to hand, while the Okusama cast aside her dolls and hovered like a brooding mother over Moonlight and her baby, Matsuda held his head within his own chamber and cunningly planned a scheme whereby the Spider’s presence in his house might be turned to immediate profit.

By his contract with the Saito family, the Spider was released from bondage. Hence she was not entirely bound to serve him. She had already excited his exasperation by her persistent refusal to dance for prospective customers the dance by which she had won fame. She desired to assume another pseudonym, and for a month at least asked that she might rest and thus regain her strength.

A month! inwardly had snorted Matsuda. Why, even the last batch of troops would be at the front b............