Azalea did not move or deign to turn her head, even after the woman had gone and she could hear her glide along the hall. For a long time she sat in silence. Once she looked with fearful stealth at the opening in the floor, but she did not look for long. There was nothing further for her to hear, she told herself. Who knew already better than herself the extent of her debasement?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okido bowed to the floor before the illustrious Matsuda Isami. Knowing well the nature and temper of his employer, he did not waste much time upon courtesies, but went briefly to the object of his visit.
“Ah!” Matsuda’s grasp relaxed. He took several strides across the room, then stopped before an opened shoji and drummed upon the panelling.
Okido came to his elbow and whispered agitatively:
“But she will see him. It cannot be helped.”
“I have complete command over her eyes, my good Okido. Have you not yet observed how she is conquered?”
“But should Mr. Beast come in person to your house?”
“We have means of dealing with barbarous dogs,” quoth Matsuda contemptuously, “and the police of this town respect the authority of their masters.”
“But the letters, most Exalted? He will make inquiry.”
“Pah! What of it? Will it be the first time that mail has been lost between this country and America?”
“——so much mail.” Okido moved uneasily. “Excellency, I am afraid of the heavy boot of the barbarian. It was I who kept back for you the letters from the barbarian to the woman. It is said his government is powerful—revengeful. Let me beseech you to give me a sufficient sum to get swiftly away.”
“On the contrary. You must stay here and help me. Besides, you forget the woman Natsu was the one who held the letters. They should weight her sleeves, not yours.”
“Yet, good Excellency, I was the carrier, and——”
“Not to the one to whom they were addressed, but to the servant of the foreign devil, who, Exalted, declares she gave them to you.”
“Huh! Then it is my sleeves which are weighted!”
In the room above the speakers the woman Azalea watched over the open patch in the floor. Her face beneath the heavy rouge plastered lately upon it by Natsu was a ghastly white. Her bosom was heaving with her quick breathing, her glittering eyes were horrible to look upon. She had heard and understood every word of the dialogue, and now she crouched in the attitude of a feline about to spring, looking down with dreadful eyes upon the head of that one below. Yet in this moment of frenzy Azalea did not scream or faint. Now the strength of her samurai ancestors surged upward through her veins, tingling her whole being. Everything else was blotted out—forgotten. She obeyed only the hereditary instinct of the samurai—an instinct for revenge. When she could move from her crouching position by the opening, she arose with silent swiftness. She stood straight and still, only her eyes slowly travelling about the room as though seeking some object.