“O noble princess,” stammered Natsu-no, “I would that you could weep with me.”
“Maiden, I have shed all the tears that I can spare.”
The princess arose, to stand for a moment in indecisive silence. For the space of an hour, princess and maid had sat in silence in the darkened chamber.
“Bring a light, maiden,” said the princess, “but do not awaken the pages. Serve me to-night alone.”
The maid bowed obediently. From the adjoining room she brought a lighted andon, and hesitatingly set it on the floor, looking wistfully meanwhile at her mistress.
“Go now to your deserved sleep, good maid,” said Sado-ko, indicating the chamber beyond.
“And you, sweet mistress?”
“I will not need your further offices to-night.”
“Pray you, dear princess, permit the humble one to robe you for the night.”
“I have spoken, Natsu-no.”
The maid turned unwillingly, and pushing slowly aside the sliding doors, disappeared within.
Sado-ko lifted the andon and carried it across the room. Holding it in her hand on a level with her eyes, she examined the wall, and found a sliding panel. This she pushed aside, drew from out the recess an ancient rounded mirror. She set the andon on the floor, and then lay down beside it. Thus, lying sidewise, the light at her head, she could hold the mirror before her face, and see the reflection within.
For a long time she seemed to study the features in silence. Then sitting up again she drew from her sleeve a piece of modern cardboard, such as foreign photographers use. This she also held to the andon light.
The face which had looked at her from the mirror now stared up at her with cold, inscrutable eyes from the photograph in her hand. Yet there was a subtle difference in the expression of the face of the mirror, and that of the card, for the one was wistful, soul-eyed, and appealing, while the other was of that perfect waxen type of woman whose soul one dreams of but seldom sees. The one was the face of the statue, the other that of the statue come to life.
Suddenly Sado-ko set picture and mirror aside, and arising, crossed to the sliding doors. These she pushed apart.
“Maiden!” she called into the room, “Natsu-no.”
The tired waiting-woman was asleep by the dividing shoji. She awoke with a start and hastened to her mistress, murmuring her apologies.
“Come hither,” said the princess. “I have something here to show you.”
She led the maid by the sleeve to the andon upon the floor. Together they crouched beside it, while Sado-ko gave the picture into the hands of Natsu-no. The maid stared at it in some bewilderment, then held it further in the light.
“Tell me, maiden, who is this?”
Still the maid held it in the light. Her eyes widened, then suddenly she bent her head before the pictured face, next to the floor.
“Who is this?” repeated Sado-ko.
“You, sweet mistress,” said the maid,—“a most bewitching honorable likeness of your Highness.”
“You are sure?” asked Sado-ko, smiling strangely.
“As sure as that the night is night,” declared the maid, again regarding the picture.
“Maiden, does a princess wear flowers in her hair? See, there is the bara (rose) to either side on this girl’s head.”
Natsu-no started.
“No, no, exalted one.”
“Did ever princess wear such a gown as this, my maiden?”
“Oh, princess!” The woman appeared shaken with a sudden terror.
“Do not drop the picture, if you please,” said Sado-ko, “but look at it again. Observe the knotted fashion of the obi, Natsu-no. Quite in the style of a geisha, is it not?—or rather the poor imitation of some simple maid who would copy the style from the pleasure women.”
The maid dropped the picture as though a thing unclean. At that motion the princess still smiled, but more inscrutably.
“Oh, noble princess, what evil one did dare to put your Highness’s face upon such a picture? It is a national disgrace.”
Reflectively Sado-ko looked at the picture.
“Perhaps it was the gods, O Natsu-no,” she said, as silently she put the picture in her sleeve.
She arose, regarding her maid’s emotion.
“Come,” she ordered, “undress me for the night, good maiden, for I am very tired, and to-morrow—to-morrow we must go upon a journey.”
“To Tokyo,” said Natsu, “with the noble Prince Komatzu’s suite, and oh, sweet mistress, life will have a happier aspect when we leave this melancholy place.”
Lifting her hands to her head, Sado-ko withdrew the long jewelled pins. Her hair fell in midnight glory to her knees.
Kneeling by her, the maid tied her hair back, a very old-fashioned mode which the ladies in her grandmother’s youth were fond of following when retiring, and to which the Princess Sado-ko had faithfully adhered.
“Does the honorable cortège leave before noon?” asked the maid.
“Yes.”
“And all the kuge (court nobles) and the ladies, also, go?”
“Yes.”
“Then I must haste. The sky already lightens. The night is past. When will my mistress sleep?”
“There is much time for us to sleep to-morrow. We do not accompany Prince Komatzu’s train,” said Sado-ko in a low voice, as though she spoke half to herself.
The maid paused in her arrangement of her mistress’s couch, and, kneeling, stared at her.
“Noble princess, did you not just now speak of a journey?” she asked, with evident agitation.
“Yes,” said the princess, wearily; “to-morrow we also will make a journey, but—we go alone! Pray you, hurry with my bed, Natsu-no.”
Without speaking the maid drew the robe about the princess, now upon the couch. Then she spread her own quilt-mattress at the feet of her mistress.
“Good night, kind maid,” said Sado-ko, and closed her eyes.
“Princess!” cried the maid, in a choked voice, “forgive the insignificant one, but whither do we journey to-morrow?”
“To Kamakura,” said the princess, in a dragging voice; she was tired now. “We will go for a little while—just a little while, Natsu-no, to the castle Aoyama.”
The maid was speechless. When she found her tongue, its faltering sentences betrayed her agitation.
“Princess—the artist-man—”
“Has gone to-night. Take peace, restless maid. Good night.”
“But whither, Lady Princess, whither went the artist-man?”
“I bid you speak no more. Good night.”
The house party of the Prince Komatzu ended the following day. A special train carried the exalted ones back to Tokyo, whither they went at once to the palace Nijo, for there Komatzu always made his home in Tokyo, with his cousin, the Prince of Nijo.
There was much gossip and idle conjecture in the party as to the caprice of the Princess Sado-ko. At the last moment she had despatched word to Komatzu, saying that she would not travel in the unholy barbarian train, but preferred to proceed leisurely to Tokyo in the old-fashioned but honorable mode of travel,—by kago or norimono. Should the journey prove too tiresome for her strength, she would stop a little while in Kamakura, at the castle Aoyama, and there it was possible she might spend a day or two in maidenly retirement. She desired, however, that her suite should not await her, but proceed with the train to Tokyo. She did not wish to deprive them of the enjoyment (to them) of the peculiar foreign method of travel, and would need only her personal attendants,—eight men retainers, whom she still termed “samurai,” the chaperon, old Madame Bara, and her waiting-woman, Natsu-no.
