he live for, if not to paint? The old man
bore a heavy homeward heart.

Next day, exactly at the hour of noon, the culprits tapped upon Kano's
wooden gate. During the morning the old man had been in a condition of
feverish excitement, but now that the agony of waiting had forever
ceased, he assumed a pose of indifference.

Tatsu entered first, as a husband should. In mounting the stone which
served as step to the railless veranda, he shook off, carelessly, his
wooden shoes. Ume-ko lifted them, dusted the velvet thongs, and placed
them with mathematical precision side by side upon the flat stone. She
then entered, placing her small lacquered clogs beside those of her
husband.

Kano, from the tail of his eye, marked with approval these tokens of
wifely submission. From a small aperture in the kitchen shoji, however
(a peephole commanding a full view of the house), dour mutterings might
have been heard, and a whispered lament that "she should have lived to
see her young mistress wipe a Tengu's shoes!"

When the various genuflections and phrases of ceremonial greeting were
at last accomplished, the old artist broke forth, "Well, well, son
Tatsu, how many paintings in all this time?"

Tatsu looked up startled, first at the questioner, then at his wife.
She gave a little, convulsive giggle, and bent her shining eyes to the
floor.

"I have not painted," said Tatsu, bluntly.

"Not painted? Impossible! What then have you done with all the golden
hours of these interminable days?"

A sullen look crept into the boy's face. Again he turned questioning
eyes upon his wife. From the troubled silence her sweet voice reached
like a caress: "Dear father, the autumn days, though golden, have held
unusual heat."

"Heat! What are cold and heat to a true artist? Did he not paint in
August? I am old, yet I have been painting!"

Again fell the silence.

"I said that I had been painting," repeated the old man, angrily.

Ume-ko recovered herself with a start. "I am--er--we are truly
overjoyed to hear it. Shall you deign to honor us with a sight of your
illustrious work?"

"No, I shall not deign!" snapped the old man. "It is his work that you
now are concerned with." Here he pointed to the scowling Tatsu. "Why
have you not influenced him as you should? He must paint! It is what
you married him for."

Ume-ko caught her breath. A flush of embarrassment dyed her face, and
she threw a half-frightened look towa