Part 36

“Your parents—they are kind?”

“They are kind,” said Masago, and for the first time flushed with some evident feeling.

“And you have little brothers—yes?” Sado-ko’s voice was wistful.

“Five brothers. They are noisy, and sometimes, princess, rough and most uncouth, and therefore tiresome.”

“But loving. You will grant that?”

“Oh, yes!”

“You were unhappy—you missed them, did you not, when you left them for the school, Masago?”

“I was free,” said the girl, slowly.

“Free! Free from loving home, from parents—Junzo—all who loved you. Free! You prize such freedom, Masago?”

The girl remained silent, her head drooping, her brows drawn. Suddenly she raised her face defiantly.

“I am not unappreciative of their good qualities. It was not my fault that I was fashioned—so!” She smote her hands against her breast with an eloquent gesture.

“Yet, I confess, since I was but a little child, I have felt like one oppressed—caged—stifled! Still I was deemed submissive! My lips were sealed in silence. I was patient, for only once did I protest against the dull monotony of my lot. I asked Yamada Kwacho for just one year of freedom. I did not name it such, but such it was. For this small respite, Sado-ko, I tied my life to another’s and affianced myself to Junzo. It was a bitter moment.”

“You did not love him?” asked the princess, in a timid, most beseeching voice.

“I did not even look upon him,” returned Masago, impatiently. “He was my father’s choice, not mine. I—see, look here, O princess!” She held before the eyes of Sado-ko the printed picture of the Prince Komatzu, then continued swiftly, with passionate vehemence:—

“This was my hero! I went up to Kyoto not to study.”

She arose and began to walk across the chamber, clasping and unclasping her hands as she spoke.

“I saw the noble palaces of my ancestors,—yes, mine! I lingered, wandered in the streets outside—think of it!—outside the walls! I watched at every gate, and saw the cortèges and the trains of the nobles and the princes pass and repass back and forth; and oh! while I must fall upon my face—I! And once, just once, I touched the august sword of Prince Komatzu. Thus! It was thus I did so.”

She swung her long sleeve till it barely grazed the head of Sado-ko, in illustration.

“’Twas in a public place he spoke. They set him up like any common man! He was so noble, so great. O princess! he spoke to all that gaping herd like man to man, with less of condescension than the lordly politicians of the capital,—he whose august feet should not have deigned to touch the earth.”

“Nay,” interposed the princess, smiling quietly, “Komatzu is a modern. The times have changed, Masago. No longer are the royal ones called gods.”

“Yet like unto a god he was,” declared the girl, “for I saw with these eyes.”

“Which love had sweetly blinded,” smiled the princess, sympathetically. She, also, arose, and put her hand upon Masago’s arm, leaning against her.

“Masago,” she said, in her low, winning voice, “if you could do so, would you change your simple home for the royal court and all its glamour?”

“Ask the birds if they prefer the wide, free sky to the dark sea.”

“Would you, then, exchange your state for—mine, Masago?”

Slowly the girl turned her face and looked into the pleading eyes of Sado-ko. Her voice was hoarse. She said:—

“You give me wilful pain, O princess. Why? You know full well that could not be.”

“Why not?” asked Sado-ko, whisperingly.