She did not hear him. Her eyes rested on the child in her arms. She was thinking of a mother's sorrow, possibly a child's fate. He came close up and would have touched her had she not shrunk from him and cried:
"I do not comprehend. It is not his voice. It is not true."
"Aha," said Tetsutaisho to himself, as he leaned back in silence. "It is not I that she disdains, but it is another whom she loves."
Then after a while he addressed her saying:
"Kinsan, I trust you will pardon my incivility. I did not mean to be rude, though I may deserve your censure. And now that it is done, I do not want you to feel that it is my heart that is wrong. Do me the honour to serve this child, and Tetsutaisho shall see to it that the reward be as you desire. I leave you free to say as much, if it is your pleasure."
"The honour is mine to serve. The pleasure, yours to grant. And is there any higher?" asked she, confident and earnest.
Tetsutaisho soon after withdrew and left Kinsan to begin her new duties with a lighter heart and a better confidence. She felt with renewed hope that there was still a chance for the right. And now that her hands were no longer idle, she must drive away despair and set about with fresh courage to make much happiness out of the little that life offered.
She soon learned to love the child, and often took it from the nurse and held it in her own arms. At dusk of night she would sit for hours, singing lullabies or reciting favourite poems. Sometimes she peered dreamily, softly, into the far distance, and then her voice would rise to the sweet, lonely pitch of the nightingale or deepen into tenderest pathos. Once these sad, weird strains reached Tetsutaisho's ears, and they touched him more deeply, strangely, than when he first heard her at the garden.
"It is her soul speaking its wonderful love," said he to himself, as he lounged and listened from his own mat on a dark, still night, "and I would give all that is in this world were that love for me."
Then he asked Ikamon to come to his house and listen in the cool of the evening to her songs and her poems. No mention was made to her of her intended audience, for Tetsutaisho had learned her true spirit and was now beginning to respect her. He would not so intrude as to ask her to sing; her heart only alone and undisturbed could invoke such melody; yet he could not resist inviting his friend to share the pleasure of her voice, though only by chance might they be so privileged. Ikamon came and he, too, was charmed.