ave sped to him, but Tatsu held
her fast. His young face flamed with an answering rage. "Do you use
that tone to me--old man--to me, and this, my wife," he was beginning,
but Ume put frantic hands upon his lips.

"Master, beloved!" she sobbed. "You shall not speak thus to our
father,--you do not understand. For love of me, then, be patient.
Even the crows on the hilltops revere their parents. Come there, to
the hills, with me, now, now--oh, my soul's beloved--before you speak
again. Wait there, in the inner room, while I kneel a moment before
our father. Oh, Tatsu, if you love me----"

The agony of her face and voice swept from Tatsu's mind all other
feeling. He stood in the doorway, silent, as she threw herself before
old Kano, praying to him as to an offended god: "Father, father, do not
hold hatred against us! Tatsu has been without kindred,--he knows not
yet the sacred duties of filial love. We will go from your presence
now until your just anger against us shall have cooled. With the night
we shall return and plead for mercy and forgiveness. No, no, do not
speak again, just yet. We are going, now, now. Oh, my dear father,
the agony and the shame of it! Sayonara, until the twilight." She
hurried back to Tatsu, seized his clenched hand with her small, icy
fingers, and almost dragged him from the room.

Kano sat as she had left him, motionless, now, as the white jade vase
within the tokonoma. His anger, crimson, blinding at the first
possession, had heated by now into a slow, white rage. All at once he
began to tremble. He struck himself violently upon one knee, crying
aloud, "So thus love influences him! Ara! My Dragon Painter! Other
methods may be tried. Such words and looks before me, me,--Kano
Indara! And Ume's eyes set upon him as in blinding worship. Could I
have seen aright? He caught my child up like a common street wench, a
thing of sale and barter. And she,--she did not scorn, but trembled
and clung to him. Is the whole world on its head? I will teach them,
I will teach them."

"Have my young mistress and her august spouse already taken leave?"
asked Mata at a crack of the door.

"Either they or some demon changelings," answered the old man, rocking
to and fro upon the mats.

The old servant had, of course, heard everything. Feigning now, for
her own purposes, a soothing air of ignorance, she glided into the
room, lifted the tiny tea-pot, shook it from side to side, and t