“Guileless princess, I pray you do not laugh!”
“Not laugh?” she repeated. “You are to-day a most unflattering artist. Was it only yesterday you said my laughter was as sweet as sweetest music of the sweetest birds?”
She passed her fan over her shoulder to the maid Natsu-no, who, whirling it open, fanned her gently. Sado-ko smiled reproachfully at Junzo, as she sat by a golden screen, near to a shoji through which the sinking sun pierced and slanted just above her head.
Junzo knelt on one knee a short distance from her. His face was sad and serious.
“Princess Sado-ko,” he said, “you have not heard of a most lamentable happening.”
“If,” said she, still smiling, “you allude to the noisy chatter of my ladies, you are mistaken. I have heard.”
He looked half unconsciously toward the now covered canvas. She followed his glance, and still she smiled.
He regarded her dumbly, marvelling at the trembling happiness which seemed to lurk within her eyes and about her small red lips.
“Come a pace nearer to me, if you please,” she urged. His obedience brought him so close that he could have touched her. She put out a little hand toward him, and spoke his name.
He scarcely dared to look at her. She said:—
Their eyes met fully now, and then he saw that despite the smile within them, hers were shining with undropped tears. In an agony of feeling he turned from her. He heard her tremulous voice, thrilling now with that strange laughing quality but accentuating the pleading underneath.
“Do not even the birds chatter? Permit my ladies the same pastime.”
“That is all very well. I—I would not have you think of—of another,” she replied.
“Princess, the gossip of the ladies does injury to your sweet name.”
“If that were so,” she said, “there would be no such name as Sado-ko left in the world. Do you not know that I am the most unpopular princess in Japan?”
“But this late matter, princess, is not merely female resentment at your refusal to accept the Western mode of life within your household. But this new slan—”
“Do not speak the word,” she said quietly.
She took her fan from Natsu-no, and arising crossed the room until she stood before the easel. Pensively she looked at the covered canvas. Junzo had followed her and now stood by her side. There was deep emotion in his voice:—