CHAPTER XXI

“YOU ARE NOT SADO-KO!”

IT was such another moonlight night as that on which the Princess Sado-ko kept her last tryst with the artist Junzo, but in the Nijo gardens no sight was reminiscent of the flowering gardens of Komatzu. No bamboo grove offered inviting lanes for loitering lovers, no stately camphor trees threw their flickering shadows of mystery upon the moonlit grass.

The lawns about the palace Nijo were quite bare of trees, and even by the wing of the Princess Sado-ko’s apartments the new and ruthless carpenters, not gardeners, had torn up the bright flowering trees and shrubs to put in their places painted boxes, filled with foreign ferns and flowers of priceless value,—gifts from diplomats to the flattered Japanese.

Junzo and Fuji-no kept within the shadow of the princess’s balcony, there being no trees or foliage at hand to screen them otherwise.

The new-laid path which led from the front of the palace to Sado-ko’s wing, was white in the moonlight, hence Junzo was quick to see a shadow fall upon it. He leaned so far forward to gaze along the path, that Lady Fuji drew him backward.

“The light is on your head. Be careful, artist, if you please. Pray have some patience. They are quite close at hand.”

Too close they seemed just then to Junzo, as they came along the broad, white path with slow and loitering steps. The tall soldier-prince bent to her who turned her face to his, like a flower to the sun.

When they had come quite close to Sado-ko’s veranda they paused a moment, seeking some new excuse for lingering.

She made a childish movement, naïve yet eloquent. An artful shudder slipped her wrap to the ground. Her shining shoulders, bare and white, were revealed in the moonlight. The prince stooped quickly to the ground, picked up the cloak, and, hesitating a moment, held it in his hand. She shivered purposely. Then with a sudden movement he wrapped the cloak around her, and somehow in the doing his arms stayed for a space about her. Her face was close to his. Softly her loosened hair brushed now against his lips. While still his lingering arm was drooping on her shoulder, she said, in a low, wooing voice:—

“Komatzu, pray you hold my garment on me for a space, for I would take these long and stupid gloves from my arms.”

“Let me do so,” he begged eagerly; and, taking one of her small hands in his, slowly drew the glove away, then still held the hand clasped in his own.

“It is my hand—all mine!” he whispered. Stooping, he kissed the soft, white flesh, in the emotional French way.

“All yours, Komatzu!” Junzo heard her sigh in answer. The artist did not move. Like a man turned suddenly to stone, he simply stared out at the scene, with fixed eyes. He heard as in a dream the voice of this proud prince whispering again to her, who but so lately clung to him, the lowly artist, with such piteous tears and prayers.

“To-morrow,” said the prince, “his Majesty will come to Tokyo. I will present myself before him and importune him to seal our betrothal. His ministers are all in favor of my suit, but the sanction of his Majesty is needed. That, I am sure, he intends to give, for I have heard that he made promise to our august grandmother, the Empress Dowager, that he would make sweet Sado-ko the highest princess in the land. Next to the Crown Prince of Japan, I am the highest prince.”

She smoothed with little restless hand the foreign fabric of his coat. Her voice was somewhat faint:—

“If his Majesty should not consent, Komatzu?”

“Why even dream of such a thing?” he asked. “Am I not the very one most fitted for your husband, and have I not served well his Majesty?”

She seized his hand and held it close against her face.

“Komatzu, were I not of equal rank with you,—if I were but a simple maiden of humble parentage,—would you still love me?”

“I do not love your rank, sweet cousin, but your own self.”

“But if I were not of your rank, what then?”

“Capricious Sado-ko, why ask such foolish questions?”

“Would you still marry me if I were not a royal princess?”

“I still would love you, Sado-ko. I could not marry you in that event. Why, you turn your face away! The tears are in your eyes. Cousin, you are too fanciful.”

“Love makes me so,” she said, and sighed.

“How strange,” he said, “that we should speak so freely of our love. A little while ago the subject would have been deemed indecent. Now it is a foreign fashion and we Japanese speak out our love without the smallest blush of shame. ’Tis strange, indeed!”

“It is not only fashion,” she protested; “love is not a new thing,—a caprice, a whim, like such and such a dress, a hat or shoe or fan.”

“It is a new device of speech in our Japan,” the prince declared, thoughtfully.

With childish petulance she turned toward the balcony.

“Which you do not approve, Komatzu?”

“Why, yes, I do approve it, Sado-ko. It is most beautiful and pure, moreover. But, cousin, as you know, I never spoke it yet—this love—till lately. Then, somehow, when you came back from the palace Aoyama, a something in your eyes seemed to beckon me to you and force the words of love to overrun my lips.”

“They were not merely words of lips?”

“No, no. But I, you know, am not completely modern in my thought, despite my dress, and, too, I am a soldier. So sometimes if my words seem clumsy—stupid—I fear you must compare them with the flowery speeches of others.”

“Others, Komatzu? What others could there be?”

His voice was low and nervous. He seemed to hesitate.

“Cousin, have you forgotten the artist-man?”

“The artist-man!” she gave a little cry, then quickly covered up her lips with her fingers.

“You start! Kamura Junzo his name was. Once I thought you favored him. So thought all the members of the court. I could not close my ears against the romance, though I severely disapproved the slander, and named it such; for I deemed your condescension to the man the idle fancy of a princess noted for her oddities and caprices. But lately, the mere thought of him causes my brain to burn with raging and unworthy jealousy.”

She rested one small hand against the railing of her balcony, then slowly drew up her slender figure.

“The artist is no more to me,” she said, “than any slave who dresses me, sings to me, entertains me, comes at my command, or paints for me my picture.”

“Yet, Sado-ko, the artist did not paint your picture.”

For a moment she stood still in bewilderment, then went a step toward him. Her words were stammering, then changed to fervent, passionate appeal.

“Why, yes, he painted—that—assuredly he painted—it does not matter what the artist did. Komatzu, I have no thought within my mind, nor love within my heart, for any one in all the world save you.”

He took her hands and drew them upward to his lips, there to hold them for a space, then let them go again.

“I am quite satisfied,” he said. “Truth itself shines in your face, my Sado-ko. And now, sweet cousin, we will say good night, for it is late, and I would not have your beauteous eyes lose one small atom of their lustre. And so for the night, sayonara!”

Softly and lingeringly she repeated the word. She watched him as he walked along the path, until he had quite disappeared. Then slowly, dreamily she ascended the little steps. She stopped in sudden irritation at the sound of the restless bird within the cage. Moving toward it, she shook the cage with some nervous violence.

“Be still!” she said. “You break my thoughts, you foolish bird! Be still, I say!”

The Lady Fuji touched the artist’s arm. He did not stir. Peering up into his face, she started back at sight of the dull, frozen look. A glimmer of compassion crossed her breast. She whispered:—

“Artist, come away.”

He did not move.

“Pray come!” urged Fuji.

Masago, standing by the bird-cage on the balcony, thought she heard some whispering voices close at hand. She leaned over the railing and called, in fearful voice:—

“Who are the honorable ones below?”

As Fuji sought to draw the artist away, the movement of her effort reached the ears of her mistress. The latter crossed the veranda with quick steps, and, leaning down close to the sound, saw those two figures in the shadow. A moment later the Lady Fuji-no, drawing her cape before her face, fled along the path, and disappeared.

Moving mechanically to the light, the artist turned his face to Masago. A muffled cry escaped her lips. She shrank back, still clinging to the railing of the balcony.

“Kamura Junzo!” she cried. “You!—and here!”

“I do not know your voice,” he said in strange, wondering tones.

“I remember now,” she said. “You wrote a letter to the Princess Sado-ko. You wished to look—look at her. You—you asked the favor. Well—I—I am Sado-ko!”

He moved his head and stared upon her face with straining eyes.

“You are not Sado-ko!” he said.

She trembled with fear.

“I do assure you”—she began, her hand going to her throat to stay her frightened breathing.

“You are not Sado-ko, I say!”

Her voice was raised and shrill.

“I am the Princess Sado-ko,” she cried. “I do defy you, artist-man, to prove I am not Sado-ko.”

His vague and wandering words recalled her self-possession. She knew that she had needlessly excited her fears.

“You are not Sado-ko,” he said, “for she was kind and sweet; but you—you are a nightmare of my Sado-ko. Your face is hers, yet still you are not Sado-ko. Your soul is false; your heart is dead, for Sado-ko is dead, and you who once were Sado-ko are but her ghost. You are not Sado-ko.”

She grew afraid of that white, glaring face, and hoarse, wandering voice. Turning, she hastened to her room, drawing the doors close behind her.

The artist stood alone. Then suddenly he laughed out wildly, loudly. Again he paused in silence. Then laughed aloud again, in that wild way. He heard the noise, the heavy step of palace guards. Then Junzo turned and fled like the wind, his fleet and sandalled feet carrying him with more than natural speed onward and onward. Past startled groups of garden revellers, past loitering lovers, and past guards about the grounds, and outward through the palace gates he plunged on toward the city, gleaming out in specks of light below.