Part 18

“I am a sculptor, but I have also attempted the other—”

She interrupted him.

“It would hurt your fame,” she said. “It cannot be.”

“And what does it matter whether I have fame or not?”

“Artist, it was not for that work I bade you stay,” she said.

“But it was thought so by the others, princess.”

“I—I had a desire to learn more of—of Kamakura—of people there—and so I begged you to remain.”

“You did command,” he said in a low voice.

“No,” raising her eyes appealingly, “say that I did beseech you.”

“You did command,” he repeated.

“Well, have it so. I commanded and you obeyed. It was the reason of your staying. Why suggest employment now?”

“To spare the name of the most noble princess in the realm.”

She held her little head proudly.

“Who is it that slanders Sado-ko,” she asked scornfully, and then quickly answered herself. “A few small biting insects, who but sting, not kill, Sir Artist.”

He turned away from her and stood by the garden shoji, from whence he stared moodily without. She followed him with softest step.

“I pray you, do not look without. The sky is gray. The sun is fading.”

She put her hand upon his arm with timid touch. He turned with sudden impulse, and seized it in both his own.

“The sun, O princess, is within,” he cried, “and, O sweet Sado-ko, it is too dazzling bright for such as I to gaze upon.”

When he would have dropped her hand, she held it within his own. Her face filled him with a vague longing. He trembled at her touch. He felt the wavering of her head toward him, then its touch against his arm, where now it rested. A remnant of reason remaining within him, he sought to draw apart from her.

“Do not—do not so,” she cried, clinging to him.

“My touch profanes you, Sado-ko,” he whispered hoarsely.

“It does not,” she denied, with tears in her appealing voice. “Pray you, do not draw your arm away.”

“Princess!”

“I do command again,” she said. After that he did not speak.

Suddenly the silent, immovable figure of the maid seemed to take upon itself the first signs of life. She arose and moved toward her mistress. At a respectful distance she spoke.

“Noble princess!” she said.

Sado-ko, still holding the arm of her lover close about her, turned toward the maid.

“What is your honorable desire, maiden?”