lost. Yet he played on,
certain of the great luck which would not only recoup all in one night,
but establish his circumstances far beyond what they had ever been. It
was the old, old gambler's lust. It was the old, old consequence. Luck
seemed cruelly delayed, and they fell into desperate poverty.

And, worse than all, this--the gambler's fetish--was now the thing which
possessed him. But though he loved the life of chance for itself, he
never lost sight of the more and more frenzied necessity of providing
for his return. For, rumors of war began to hover in the air. Hoshiko
saw less and less of him. And he often forgot her for days together. If
he were mad, for another reason, in Japan, he was mad equally in
America.

Yet nothing was saved; always such pittances as he could raise, or she,
were spent upon the small gambling devices in which the city abounded,
no matter whether he had food or not. Presently his life was that and no
more: a vain search for luck. But miserable as it was, there was hope in
it, and a certain exhilaration. He was like one who has no doubt of
ultimate good fortune, and wakes daily with the uplifting thought that
this may be the grateful day. And his hope and happiness in it brought
hope and happiness, in the brief whiles it reigned, to Hoshiko, where
happiness came of late not often. Nor hope.

THE "TSAREVITCH"

XXVI

THE "TSAREVITCH"

So the little exiles lived and starved, and feasted and loved on; happy
sometimes, sorrowing more often, while Japan was yet at peace.

Always Arisuga kept his address at headquarters, and always he
waited--listened almost--for the call. But it was long--very long. And
his face grew sharp and his eyes narrow. And more and more in the
waiting and listening he forgot, in America, Hoshiko--his Eastern
Dream-of-a-Star.

For, presently, it was nearly ten years of this exile. Ten years of
prayer which grew only more fervid as the years doubled upon themselves,
and the hope so long deferred made the heart of Arisuga ill. Ten years
of yearning for their own country, which fate denied them and which
nothing but war could again give to them! The heart of Hoshiko
sickened, too. But it was thus because Arisuga more and more often
forgot her rather than with the homesickness which she suffered as he
did. Yet she guiltily knew that while there was no war she might keep
him, even though he forgot her. So it was he alone at last who prayed
for war. It