Part 59

“No, no, do not move,” she said. “I—I will come to you if—if you desire it.”

She took her place again by his side. Immediately he possessed himself of both her slim hands.

“Now look at me,” he said.

She met his eyes, then flushed and trembled at the love she must have seen reflected in his face.

“Masago,” he said, “when Junzo once again regains his normal strength, he has a tale to tell his little wife,—a foolish tale of youth’s brief madness in a summer, of heart-burning and heart-breaking, tears of weakness, filial disobedience, falsity, and then—despair. Afterward—the light!”

“The light?” she said in a strange, breathless voice.

“A face,” he said,—“the soothing face of my Masago.”

“Oh, do not call me so,” she cried almost piteously; “I cannot bear to hear it.”

“Why—”

“Call me not Masago. I do not like the name.”

“But—”

“No, no. It is quite well that others—say my honorable parents and brothers—should call me so, but it sounds unkindly from your lips, dear Junzo. Indeed, I—I hardly can express my feelings. I—I—”

She broke off at the expression of bewilderment upon his face. Nervously she entangled her fingers.

“Call me what you will. Let it be Masago, if the name pleases you. There! my foolish mood is past. I am your gentle girl once more.”

“I will not call you by your name,” he said, smiling whimsically, “since you do not like it. In a little while I’ll have another, sweeter name for you—wife!”

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CHAPTER XXIV

A ROYAL PROCLAMATION

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CHAPTER XXIV

A ROYAL PROCLAMATION

IN the palace Nijo the latest royal proclamation came like an earthquake shock. The Emperor at last had kept his word to his dead mother. Through word to Nijo, he authorized the nuptials of the Princess Sado-ko to his own son, the Crown Prince of Japan, thus elevating her to the highest position in the land.

This great fortune, sudden and unexpected, gave no satisfaction to the ambitious Masago. The test of life had come. The woman in her triumphed. For the first time since her coming to Tokyo, Masago shut herself alone within the chamber of the Princess Sado-ko.

She sat and stared before her like one struck by so great a weight that she could not lift it. All her life she had longed for wealth and power. Now that the greatest honor in the land was forced upon her, she shrank from it, in loathing.

Masago thought with aching heart of the Prince Komatzu. Throughout the day she sat alone, uttering no word, not even answering the queries of her maid, the woman Natsu-no.

Toward evening she heard the palace bells ringing. Knowing why they rang, she pressed her hands to her ears, a sickening sense oppressing her. She heard the dim voice of the maid.

“Princess, will you deign to robe to-night?”

Slowly, mechanically, Masago arose, permitting the woman to lay upon her a foreign gown which only yesterday had come from Paris. Now its tightening stifled her. Her heavy breathing caused the woman to ask gently:—