CHAPTER XIV

SOLUTION OF THE GODS

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.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------