"Because _he_ loves me," was Hoshiko's enigmatic answer.

There was no time at this moment for further explication. Arisuga had evidently decided something which was in his mind when he asked his first question, and Hoshiko fancied that his decision was against her.

For he laughed (not as she would have wished him to laugh), and took an almost rude and a.s.sured possession of her.

"When the mistress says yes and the maid says no, one must believe his eyes, which say it is improbable that so fair a flower has bloomed unseen even in this arid plain of China!"

"You think, then, that I _have_ had--twenty lovers?" asked Hoshiko.

"Certainly," laughed Arisuga.

"No!" still cried the maid in her terror. "You believe, lord, that she has had none--not one--until you came!"

"Certainly," laughed the soldier again.

The two girls looked at each other dazedly. Arisuga laughed again in that unpleasant way.

"Now he will never know that I love him," chided the mistress, at an opportune moment. "If he had thought that I gave up twenty lovers the moment he came--"

The maid had not seen the value of creating such a situation. Hoshiko practised tremendous wisdom. She repeated to Isonna, in the intervals of the day, the very things Isonna had taught her with great pains.

"A man will think nothing of you unless he knows that others do. If one has two lovers, one can easily have twenty. If one has one and is truthful--that is all one will ever have. If one has none, how is one to get even one unless she pretends to have many? For if no man cares for you, no man will. If many men care for you, many more will. If a man loves one and he sees that no one else does, he persuades himself that he does not. For he thinks that if no one else loves one, one is not worth loving. But if many love one, he persuades himself that he does, because if many love one it must be right and proper for him to do it.

Now, you little beast, you must help, after putting him further off, to bring him nearer by making him think that he loves and desires me more than any of the twenty."

These philosophies of her own teaching, changed and informed with the aroma of Hoshiko, went far to convince Isonna.

"Sweet mistress," said the repentant servant, "the G.o.ds pardon me--and you--you also pardon me--if I have done wrong. But this--this I will do--and swear it on the tablet of my father: If he should offer you marriage, I will go with you to some place where he can never know. I will keep your secret forever. Such things have happened. In another country the G.o.ds will not follow. Even to the country of some barbarian people, like America, I will go. What G.o.ds are there? Certainly none of our G.o.ds--such as know you and him. But I will _not_ say that you have been the creature of twenty lovers!"

"But only to make him understand that he loves me--now--here--to-day? We have given him doubt! The rest does not matter."

Isonna was repentant but not helpful.

"Well--study--think--you little beast! And be more careful next time--then whisper it to me. How to make him understand!"

But there was no further communication from the maid.

In the evening Arisuga said:--

"If what I have been thinking all day--since the events of last night--is correct, and also meets your approval, I will take you."

And the little Lady Hoshi, shocked and stunned and shivering at her heart, answered:--

"Yes, lord."

And again that night she wept--not an hour--many hours. For you will have observed that Shijiro Arisuga did not say that he would marry--but only take her. (There is a difference in j.a.pan.) And he did not ask her parents.

"You see, he knows!" she sobbed to the faithful maid. "Oh, it was so sweet--so sweet--that I forgot that I must not. And when I thought he loved me I was sure he would say 'I will marry you,' even if he did not mean it. But he only said, 'I will take you.' So--he does not love me--no! Well, Isonna, he shall have me. And I will enter his very soul!

And then, some day, he will regret those awful words, and when he does I will die where he can see me afterward. You shall dress my hair in the shimada fashion, with flowers."

"He does _not_ know," said the maid. "And he does love you. It is the result of telling him that you have had twenty lovers!"

"Ah, Isonna, do not make my sorrow heavier. That would be worse. He would not dare to say that to even me--if I were not what I am."

The maid still insisted.

"Then to-morrow I will tell him. If he would say that to a lady, who he thinks has dismissed many suitors for him, he shall know that he has said it to one who is not a lady and who has had no suitor but him alone."

"And one who has parents to be consulted! Not like one who goes to Geisha street without the leave of parents or uncles," advised the maid, with great severity.

"Yes," sobbed the girl. "Geisha street! Refuge of the forsaken! Oh, love exalts, as we do our parents. It does not demean. So, there is no love, no love! No matter what I am, however low, no matter what he is, however high, if he loved me he would ask my parents for leave to marry me--even if he only meant to take me. And I thought he loved me! Do you remember how, only a little while ago, I wished him only to know well that he loved me! Alas, he knows now that I love him, but he has told me odiously, odiously, that he does _not_ love me! Yes, Isonna, he shall have me. Then I will die."

THE MAKING OF A G.o.dDESS

XVI

THE MAKING OF A G.o.dDESS

So she said the next day, not now with the aplomb of a lady, but as a servant:--

"Lord, there is a reason why you cannot--even--" she choked in her throat--"take me. Do you not know it?"

"Do not call me lord," he said, "as if you were a servant and I your master."

"It is right that I should do so, lord."

"I won't have it," he laughed.

And he had never seemed so beautiful nor the sound of his voice so tender. But she went on as she had planned in her sleepless night.

She was kneeling at his feet now--her head upon the mats--reaching out to touch him.

"Dear lord, I have deceived you," she said. "My only excuse is that it was sweet. All the sweetness I have had in my small life. Lord, I am young. But I had scarcely smiled until you came. In j.a.pan we were accursed. I was beautiful and my father pitied me and brought me here where no one knew. Lord, I am an eta."

Arisuga recoiled from the word. The instant would have been inappreciable to measures of time. But in it the girl's heart leaped and fell with its own understanding. In the same instant Arisuga knew all that had so puzzled him concerning the beautiful creature at his feet.

And he understood what his saying must have been to her. For this he would make a soldier's great reparation--and at once! That was the way of Arisuga.

"Then you have known no one--no man but me?"

"No," whispered the girl. "I thought if I had twenty lovers, you would wish me the more."

"And what I have foolishly taken for the advances of experience have been innocencies!"