into his large mind. He keeps
it closed. He is as wise as a priest. Not even I can enter it. And you
are very ignorant, Isonna."

"Nevertheless, his mind is as glass to me!" insisted the maid.

"I will tell my father and he shall punish you with whips. Now, you dear
little beast, I shall force you to tell me the reason you think in your
evil mind the great color-bearer to the prince of heaven stays here!"

"You," said the maid, coolly refilling first the pipe of her mistress,
then her own.

"I shall _not_ tell my father," said Miss Star-Dream, "for I pity you.
It is such a great lie that he would make Ozumi whip you to death. Yet
it is a lie which makes me happy. Was I ever so happy as I am now--since
he came?"

"No," said the maid.

"But he _will_ go sometime--we agree upon that?" questioned the
mistress, once more hoping anything but that they did agree upon that.
The maid was not blind to her hope.

"Not yet," she answered with a decision which gave joy to the girl's
soul.

"He will. He must die."

"Not yet," declared the maid again.

"Do you suppose his love for me--_you_ said it was love, I did not!--is
greater than his love for the spirit of his father?"

"Yes," answered the maid.

"Oh, little beast!" cried her mistress, embracing her. "Benten, but I am
happy!"

She chattered on:--

"Also have you noticed how beautiful he is? He has hair like the
pictures of the gods--though he is a shaven samurai. And those songs he
sings he makes himself. I am going to learn a thousand musical
instruments so that I may play them all. I wish I could sing! And,
Isonna, we never laughed--really--until he came, did we? Always that
thing hung over us. But he is not to know it. And we may forget it! And,
Isonna, have you noticed that exquisite habit he has of touching me,
here, here, here?"

She laughed and made the serving-girl the illustrant of this aberration
of the soldier.

"That he does when he wants me to look at something--often only himself.
Or when I am not attending to his words. I used to shudder and go away
from it--it was so strange--no one else ever did it. But I now think it
very foolish to start and be frightened by such small things."

"I have observed you go toward it!" droned the maid.

"That is a vile lie!" cried Hoshiko. "Say, do you know what causes
that?"

"No."

"His wife; he does that to his wife, and she--she is not a nice person,
and likes it! Aha!"

"He has no wife," said th