Part 17 (2/2)
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 s.h.i.+mada fas.h.i.+on, 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!”
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