A WILD flush of color rushed to the face of Sado-ko; a light so clear as at first to dazzle her, flashed through her mind.
“Masago—sister!” she cried. “Oh, the gods give me solution of both our griefs!”
“There is, alas! none for mine,” said Masago, and sullenly wiped away the tears.
“Listen!”
The Princess Sado-ko leaned over and spoke in a lowered voice.
“You are affianced to the artist, Kamura Junzo. Is it not so, Masago?”
A motion of impatient assent was the girl’s reply.
“And you do not joyfully anticipate the union?”
“I loathe the very thought,” returned Masago, bitterly.
The princess paused a moment as though to master her amazement.
“Loathe thought of union with Junzo!” she repeated, then laughed with almost childish joy. “It is not strange—in you, perhaps. Now listen once again, and pray you, answer me.”
“I am listening,” said Masago, with sullen impatience. “I will also answer, princess.”
“Call me sister. Name me Sado-ko, I beg.”
“I will call you princess.”
“Perhaps you will not do so, Masago, when I have completed. But hear me. You love your home, of course, and also your good parents?”
“It is said I am of an honorably dutiful and filial temperament,” replied Masago, coldly.
“But,” continued Sado-ko, “there are other things you love still more than your dear home? It is possible?”
“It is so,” replied Masago, briefly. “Do not look surprised, O princess. Homes are not all palaces, nor yet are parents all royal.”
“Masago,” said the princess gently, “a palace never makes a home, nor royalty a parent. Your home,” she looked about her with approving eyes,—“it is most sweet and choice, Masago.”
“The simple cottage of a merchant,” said Masago.
“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.
“No, no!” Masago recoiled, her incredulous eyes fixed as if fascinated on the face of Sado-ko. The princess placed her hands on the shoulders of Masago, and brought her face close to hers.
“Look into the mirror—Sado-ko,” said she.
“Sado-ko! You call me by your name!”
“And pray you, call me—Masago.”
“Oh, no! Oh, no!”
“You will not change with me?”
“Oh, oh!” Masago had become white as death, as though she were about to faint.
“Will you not do so?” still pleaded the now almost despairing voice of Sado-ko.
“I dare not—dare not,” she murmured.
There was silence now in the room. The dim sounds of the world about them did not reach the ears of these two. Masago had reached out a trembling hand to support herself against the framework of the wall. Sado-ko watched her with a yearning, melancholy expression in her face. Suddenly she turned away.
“You were right, Masago,” she said slowly. “It could not be.” She paused, then, sighing, moved with drooping head toward the doors of the corridor.
“Sayonara—sister,” she softly breathed.
That word of farewell broke the tension of the dazed Masago. She sprang with a cry after the departing one. Both of the princess’s sleeves were in her grasp.
“Go not yet!” she cried. “Do not go!”
She fell grovelling upon her knees, still clinging to the long sleeves of the princess, and hid her face in the folds of Sado-ko’s kimono. Then, with her face muffled in the gown, she spoke:—
“I could not grasp the meaning of your words—My heart leaped up and burst—I could not think. I pray you, do not take my joy away while yet I barely grasp it in my hands, Princess Sado-ko!”
“You do consent!” said Sado-ko, bending over her, while a strange light of excitement came into her eyes.
“Consent! On my knees I could pray to you, as to a god, to grant this thing you suggest for a caprice.”
