CHAPTER XXVI

MASAGO’S RETURN

ALONE in the quiet guest room of the Yamada house they sat. Convention demanded a light, but it was of the dimmest—a dull and flickering andon. Yet the night was clear. By the shoji walls they sat, looking into each other’s faces, thinking always of the morrow.

She had listened without interrupting while in low, tense voice he had told her of a madness once felt for a high princess. When he had quite finished and sat in silent, moody gloom, she moved nearer to him, then slipped her hand into his, and nestled up against his shoulder. Her voice was soothing in its quality.

“By this time the little bird—the poor caged nightingale is dead,” she said. “The gods were more kind to you, Junzo, for see, you are so strong you beat away the cage-bars and are quite free to love again.”

Pressing his face against her hair, he said solemnly:—

“The gods are witness of this fact. You are the only one that I have ever loved.”

Smiling, she sighed with happiness.

“Poor Sado-ko!” she said.

His voice was earnest.

“I loved you in her, Masago.”

She smiled in sweetest confidence now.

“That is true,” she said. “I do believe it, and to-morrow—”

“To-morrow will be a golden day upon the august calendar of our lives. I love you! Men of our country do not always marry for their love, Masago, but the gods are kind, and favor us!”

“How sad,” she said, “it must be to marry one for whom we do not care!”

“It is the fate of many in our land.”

“The times change, Junzo-san. Are not conditions happier to-day?”

“True. In the years to come they will still improve, and if the gods grant us honorable offspring—”

“What is that?” she cried, starting from him suddenly. “I thought I heard one moving—and see, oh, look, there is a shadow on the shoji wall!”

“Where?”

“Over there! See, it is moving now. Some one is upon our balcony. Oh, Junzo!”

She clung to him in a shivering panic of fear.

“Do not tremble so, Masago. Some foolish listening servant, that is all! One moment, we will see!”

He started to cross the room to the opposite side, but she clung to him with nervous apprehension.

“No, no—I am fearful!” she whispered.

“But some one is without. I too saw and see the shadow of the form. Why should our simple courtship be spied upon? Let me see who it is, Masago?”

They were speaking in whispers. The girl was trembling with fright.

“It is an evil omen on this night,” she whispered pitifully. “Do not, pray you, do not seek to find the cause.”

“Your fear is most incomprehensible. Let us go to another room, then. We will join your honorable parents.”

She clung to him fearfully as they made their way across the room together. The shadow on the shoji moved upward from its crouching position, and through the thin walls the lovers saw an arm, with the long sleeve of a woman falling from it, extended to push aside the doors.

Upon a sudden impulse Junzo strode toward the doors and opened them. The figure on the balcony stood still, silhouetted in the silvered light of the night. Between the parted shoji she stood like one uncertain. Then suddenly she swayed, as if about to faint. She grasped the door for support.

The lovers watched her in silence as eloquent as though they gazed upon a spirit. Then suddenly the man broke the spell of tense silence, and stooping to the andon raised it up and swung its light upon the woman’s face.

A cry escaped his lips—a cry simultaneously echoed by the stranger. She stepped into the room, and with her hands behind her drew the sliding doors closed. Now against them she stood, looking about her with vague eyes.

“Who are you?” hoarsely sounded the voice of Junzo.

“Ask—her!” was the reply she made, indicating Sado-ko. Junzo slowly turned toward his fiancée. He saw her hands fall from her face, which in the dull light seemed now white as marble. She turned it toward the woman. Her voice was strange.

“I do not know you, lady,” was her answer.

The one by the doors laughed with a fierce wildness, then threw her arms above her head with abandoned recklessness.

“You do not know me—you!” She laughed again. “You have reason to know me, Princess Sado-ko,” she cried.

Cold and immovable still, the girl who but lately had clung so warmly to her lover, stared now upon the visitor.

“I do not know you,” she repeated in distinct tones. “I am not a princess, lady, but a simple maiden, the daughter of Yamada Kwacho, and named Masago!”

Then, as though she put aside some late physical weakness, the other crossed and faced her.

“I am the maid Masago, with whom you exchanged your state, Princess Sado-ko,” she said.

There was silence for a moment, then the low-toned, deliberate denial of the other one.

“It is not true,” she said.

Masago turned toward the artist.

“Look at me!” she said. “You do not dare, you artist-man. You know that I speak truth.”

As though she were an unholy thing, he shrank from her. She moved uncertainly about the room. Suddenly she asked quite querulously:—

“Where is my mother? I never realized before how much I loved her.” She looked about the room impatiently. “How dark it is! Let us have light.”

“No, no,” cried out the artist, imploringly, “there is sufficient.”

“Ah, you fear to see my face more plainly, artist? Yet I will have more light. My nerves are all unstrung. I could laugh and weep, and I could scream aloud at the least cause.”

She clapped her hands loudly, imperiously, then restlessly paced the room.

“The woman always came so slowly. The promptness of the menials of Nijo makes me impatient of this country slowness.”

Outside, in the corridors, the shuffling tread of the servant was heard. Masago, in her nervous state, could not wait for her to open the doors, but pushed them apart.

“Bring more lights,” she commanded, then stayed the woman by grasping her kimono at the shoulder: “Oh, it is you I see, Okiku. Come inside!”

The woman stepped into the room, looking up at her in a startled fashion, then glancing at the other silent two.

“Do you recognize Masago?” asked the girl, bringing her face close to the servant’s. The woman cried out in fright as she stared in horror from one to the other. Suddenly she gasped:—

“It is a wicked lie. You are not Masago. There is my sweet girl.” She pointed to the silent Sado-ko.

At those words Sado-ko seemed to come to sudden life. She crossed the room and whispered to the maid:—

“Okiku, bid my father and my mother come at once. The woman seems both ill and witless. Pray hasten. Also bring more lights.”

Masago sat down on the floor. Laying her head back against the panelling of the wall, she closed her eyes wearily.

“I am so tired and worn out,” she said plaintively; “I have travelled half the night. What time is it, Onatsu-no—Why, I forget again. Oh, it is good to be home once more. I never knew how much—”

Ohano’s pleasant voice was heard outside the door. As she bustled into the room, followed by Kwacho, Masago leaped to her feet, and, rushing headlong across the room, threw her arms about Ohano’s neck.

“Mother! Oh, my mother, mother!” she cried.

Ohano stood in stiff amazement, staring across Masago’s head at Sado-ko. The maid brought andons; the room was now well lighted.

“Why—what—” was all that Ohano could gasp, but she had not the heart to put the girl from her arms. Yamada Kwacho was more brusque, however. He drew the girl away from Ohano by her sleeves, but when he saw her face, he started in astonished bewilderment.

“I do not understand,” he said dazedly, “Junzo—Masago—” He turned to them for enlightenment.

Sado-ko spoke with perfect clearness. Her eyes were wide and steady, but there was no color in her face.

“The woman seems demented, father. She thinks that she is other than herself—your daughter. But look upon her garments. See the crest upon her sleeves! She evidently is some high lady. Her mind is wandering in delusion.”

With a savage cry Masago sprang toward her. She would have struck Sado-ko had not Kwacho held her.

“What! You—you speak thus in my own father’s house! Oh!” She turned piteously toward Ohano. “Mother, you will understand. You know your Masago!”

“You, Masago!” exclaimed Yamada Kwacho; “why, you are wild in ways. Our girl from babyhood has been docile, quiet, almost dull, while you—”

“Mother, speak to me. Say that you at least know your own child.”

Ohano burst into tears. Her mind was entangled and perplexed.

There were steps without the house, and the shrill calls of runners; then loud rappings on the doors. Kwacho pushed them open roughly to find a dozen men in livery upon his veranda. A tall man stepped forward. Sado-ko pulled her mother down with her upon the floor, thus concealing their faces in low obeisance. The artist did not move, but his eyes met those of the royal Prince Komatzu. The latter glared upon him fiercely.

“What means this rude intrusion?” demanded Kwacho. “We are simple citizens. Why are we disturbed?”

He was interrupted by the screaming of Masago. She rushed toward Komatzu, crying out:—

“You, you, you—He has sent _you_ for me—oh-h—”

She swayed and fell even as she spoke.

Without a word of explanation the Prince Komatzu himself stooped to the floor. Lifting in his arms the senseless form of the maid Masago, he bore it to the royal norimon without the house.

After that those within the house heard the sounds of departure. Then silence in the night. Kwacho returned from the veranda.

“They have gone in the direction of the palace Aoyama—some demented princess, doubtless.” He turned to Junzo, “I trust you will pardon the interruption of your visit in my house.”

The artist returned his host’s bow mechanically, then looked with some stealthiness toward his fiancée. When he found her eyes fixed upon his face imploringly, he could not look at her.

“The night grows late,” he said heavily; “permit me to say good night.”

He bowed deeply to all, departing without another word to Sado-ko. She moved toward the doors. Turning in the path, he saw her standing there.

That night, when husband and wife lay side by side upon their mattresses, Kwacho, moving restlessly, said:—

“The woman had a countenance so strangely like our girl’s it disturbs my mind. Yet, Shaka! how different were their ways! How much more admirable the simple, unaffected manners of our country girl! I wonder why the woman came—”

“Listen, Kwacho,” said Ohano, sitting up, “I have heard, sometime, that the Princess Sado-ko once loved our Junzo. Yes, it is so! You need not move so angrily. Do you not recall that when he was ill he called upon her name repeatedly?”

“I tell you,” her husband answered angrily, “the boy is fairly sick with his affection for Masago. Only a woman’s foolish mind could imagine otherwise.”

Ohano lay down again.

“A woman’s wiser mind, Kwacho. I am convinced this princess came to take our Junzo from Masago.”

“Go to sleep, Ohano,” growled her husband; “surmises and convictions are sometimes treasonable and wicked.”