Hoshiko drooped her own in some sort of gentle guilt.

"Ah, but I displeased you also," said Arisuga.

"Lord--I--no. I have a distemper. In it I am harsh to Isonna. That is what she is for. That is why my father keeps her. That she may bear my distemper. Presently I will go and put my arms about her, so, and all will be well!"

She ill.u.s.trated with her own person.

"So?" asked the soldier, laughing; "certainly all will be well!" and she came with another laugh and knelt at his bed. She touched him. She chattered on helplessly.

"Truly, all will be well. She loves me, wicked as I am to her, and with a touch I can win her!"

"Yes!" he agreed. "Or any one, I should fancy!"

Thus, at least, she had cunningly won him from his wonder at the scene he had just witnessed, if she had not won all else she had hoped for.

"May I ask a question?" said the girl.

"A hundred," said Shijiro.

"Lord, you said--you called me--"

"Yes," laughed Arisuga. "The eyes, the hands, the lips--"

"I am not beautiful--"

"I did not say so."

"My hands are not--"

She held them out that he might see that they were not. The soldier examined them and then said:--

"No, the maid was right. I find no beauty there."

"And my eyes--they are only beast's eyes--"

"Let me see," begged the soldier.

She came closer, and seriously opened them upon him. It was very hard for Shijiro looking into them to nod his a.s.sent that they were beast's eyes.

"Then the question is," said the girl, with innocent mirth, "why, if I am not beautiful, if nothing about me is, why did you do so?"

"Do what?" demanded the soldier, with a pretence of savagery.

"Look so into my eyes, touch so my hands, listen so to my miserable voice?"

"I supposed that I was in a heaven, and that you were an--attendant,"

said Arisuga.

"But after you knew that you were not in a heaven?"

The soldier gave up with a laugh.

"I see that we shall be very good friends," he said. They laughed together.

"Lord," she said, "I do not know whether you speak true!"

"I," said the soldier, "have the impression that I have lied to you about you."

"Shaka!" breathed the girl, between laughter and fear.

"Did you wish it--what I did--said?"

"Lord," confessed the girl, "I wish to be as beautiful as the sun-G.o.ddess, so that you must--do--say--!"

She crept closer. It was as if she caressed the soldier.

ISONNA

IX

ISONNA

On another day Hoshiko asked:--

"Lord, must it be soon--now--that you die?"

"Now," he said, with a pretence of severity.

"Is the day fixed?"

"Yes. Am I to wait here because your eyes are not exactly a beast's, while my father languishes in the Meido?"

"Yea, lord, if you are hap--happy. For the spirits of our augustnesses, no matter where they are, even in the suffering of the h.e.l.ls, are not sad while they make us happy."

"In what book did you learn that?" demanded the soldier.

"In the Bushido," lied the girl, seriously.

"Then I have not read the commandments of the Bushido with sufficient care. I must do it all over. I am glad that there is such a doctrine.

One may keep to a holy purpose, but need not hasten it. And to-day I like to linger from the red death; I like it well!"

"Yes, lord, that is a filial duty. To die for--for--the repose of your father's soul. But there is no need of--haste?"