Almost recklessly Sado-ko plucked them, filling her arms with blossoms. She had an inclination to sing and laugh and pick flowers all the day, she felt so strangely free and happy.
When a servant came and watched her from the kitchen door, the girl smiled toward her. The woman appeared taken aback at the good will in the girl’s face. Masago had been over-bearing toward her father’s servants, which had made her generally unpopular among them. The servant’s voice was not so sharp as she had intended it to be. Would Masago have her morning meal?
The young girl in the sunny garden nodded cheerfully, then hastened toward the house, her flowers in her arms. She drank her morning tea in happy silence, but smiled so often at the waiting maid, that the latter marvelled at her amiability of mood. When Sado-ko had finished, the woman said, almost in a deprecating tone:—
“I did not mean to give offence last night, Masago.”
“Offence?” repeated Sado-ko. “Did you give offence—to me?”
“Why, yes. Do you not recall my looking at the picture in your hands?”
“What picture? Oh, yes, yes. Did you do so? Now I do recall it.”
She moved toward the door to cover her confusion, then turned her head backward, smiling sweetly at the servant.
A moment the woman stared at her in bewilderment. Then she said with some hesitancy:
“Before you went to Kyoto, Masago, I always took the liberties with you, which since your late return you appeared not to desire. I, being long in your family service, as you know, was hurt.”
“When—when did I return?” she asked, in a curious tone, as though she could not recall the exact date. “I have been away it seems—yes—I have been away; but when did I return?”
“Why, only two days since,” declared the maid, in astonishment.
“How absent is my little mind,” she laughed. “Two days ago. Why, yes, of course—and let me see, I have been gone—” She appeared to calculate the time.
“But half a year,” said the servant. “You were to have stayed one year, but your affianced, having acquired such great fame at court, your father wished to hasten on your honorable marriage.”
“Oh,” said the girl, and then repeated in a low, happy voice, “hasten on my marriage.”
“Ye-es—no. Last night I thought you more than usually impatient, Masago.”