Part 63

“Are they not beautiful?” she asked wistfully.

“Beautiful? Perhaps, to some eyes, but to my mind not of that more desirable beauty nature gives to our more simple gardens.”

“Once you thought the gardens peerless,” she said; “have you forgotten, Junzo?”

He started violently. Suddenly his hand fell upon her arm. In the dimly fading light he bent to see her face.

“How can you know of—Masago, your words are strange.”

She laughed in that soft way so reminiscent to him always of that other one.

“They are not strange, indeed,” she said, “for I have often heard that you declared the palace grounds were beautiful. But then,” she sighed, and resumed the walk, “an artist is no less a man, and therefore fickle.”

They did not speak again until they reached Yamada’s house. At the little garden gate they paused.

“How quiet all the world seems to-night!” she said.

“You say that in a melancholy tone of voice, Masago.”

“Yes, I am a little melancholy. It is the season and the night. Have you forgotten, Junzo, that to-morrow—”

He did not let her finish, but seized both her hands.

“How can you ask that question? I think of that to-morrow every second. To-night I will not sleep.”

“Nor I,” she said.

“What will you do? Tell me, sweet Masago, and I will engage the night in the same way.”

She nestled against his arm, looking toward the stars.

“To-night,” she said, “I’ll sit beside my shoji doors and I will watch the moon. I’ll tell my heart that I am keeping tryst with you, and think that it is so, that you and I, my Junzo, are alone in some sweet garden, keeping a moon tryst.”

He dropped her hands. She could hear his quickened breath. In the shadow he could not see her face. How could he have guessed that Sado-ko was jealous of her very self?

“Why did you drop my hands?” she asked.

He seemed to be in painful thought. His voice was husky when he spoke:—

“Your words, Masago, start bitter recollections in my mind.”

“Bitter?” she repeated softly.

“Bitter, bitter,” he replied.

She broke his thought, with a timid question.

“Junzo, this is our wedding-eve. Confide in me.”

He moved from her a step, and stood in indecisive silence. Then:—

“There is nothing to confide.”

“You told me once there was a tale that you would tell me.”