“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.”
“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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.