want--actually _want_--to go away from him? Adopt another country? Sir,
if he should know that you have such small purposes, I think he would
recall your medal."

Then he thought it might be looked at differently, if they knew that he
was married. Especially if they could see Hoshiko. Of course this was
impossible, since she could not come to Japan. But he felt that, if he
could interest his colonel in the facts, he could give him an adequate
description of Hoshiko. No one, he thought, need know that she was an
eta. Having secured so much, he would intimate that he had no intention
of adopting another country, but that the air of China was necessary for
his recovery; that the retrogression in his convalescence, which all
noticed and spoke of, was because of the now unaccustomed air of Japan.

He told Colonel Zanzi tentatively, not that he was married--but that he
wished to marry. Zanzi was opposed to marriage for soldiers.

"I am sorry," grinned the colonel, with a shrug. "Why must you many? It
is peace. Are the yoshiwara and Geisha street empty?"

"I have given my promise," said Arisuga.

"Oh, well," replied the colonel, with the air of dismissing a hopeless
and useless topic, "if she is a samurai--"

"I have not inquired concerning that," said the color-bearer,
untruthfully.

"But you must," said the officer, sharply.

"The old order is no more," quoted Arisuga against him. "I have heard
you say yourself, Colonel Zanzi, that in the army there is neither eta
nor samurai,--only sons of the emperor."

"In time of war, yes," finished the colonel. "We need them all then.
But, these are times of peace. And the old order lives always. I have
never said otherwise. You, sir, the son of a samurai who died at Jokoji,
even if he died on the wrong side, ought not to need to be told that.
Sir, no member of this regiment marries below his caste! If you are
thinking of such a thing, I regret it. Your decision lies between this
woman and the emperor, who gives you life, and who, when he accepts you
as his son, takes back that life again to himself to dispose of at his
will. You cannot have forgotten the samurai obligation,--not to live
under the same heavens nor to tread the same earth with the enemy of
your lord. You must leave it, or the enemy must. This woman, sir, puts
herself in opposition to your emperor. She is, therefore, his enemy, and
consequently yours. Nevertheless the emperor is gracious. He leaves the
choice t