etimes the wonder does not fade at all, and so it was
with the case of Tatsu and his wife. If he had been an idol, he was
now a demigod, Ume-ko sharing the sweet divinity of human tenderness
with him.

Had it all happened a century before, the people would have built for
them a yashiro, with altar and a shrine. Here they would have been
worshipped as gods still in the flesh, and lovers would have prayed to
them for aid and written verses and burned sweet incense.

Being of modern Tokyo, most of this adulation went into newspaper
articles. Old men envied Kano his dutiful daughter, young men envied
Tatsu his beautiful and loving wife. The print-makers, indeed,
perpetrated a series of representations that put old Kano's artistic
teeth on edge. First there was Ume at the willow; then Tatsu, in the
same place, taking his mad plunge for death's oblivion; Ume, the hooded
acolyte, kneeling in the sick chamber at the head of her husband's bed;
Ume, the nun, standing each day at twilight on the edge of the temple
cliff to catch a glimpse of him she loved; and, at the last, Tatsu and
Ume rejoined beside the tomb of Kano Uta-ko. Fortunately these
pictures were never seen by the two most concerned.

They went away on a second bridal journey, this time to Tatsu's native
mountains in Kiu Shiu. While there, the good friend Ando Uchida was to
be sought, and made acquainted with the strange history of the previous
months.

Mata and her old master remained placidly at home. They had no fears.
At the appointed date--only a week more now--the two would come back,
as they had promised, to begin the long, tranquil life of art and
happiness. There were to be great pictures! Kano chuckled and rubbed
his lean hands together, as he sat in his lonely room. Then the
thought faded, for a tenderer thought had come. In a year or more, if
the gods willed, another and a keener blessedness might be theirs.

To dream quite delicately enough of this, the old man shut his eyes.
Oh, it was a dream to make the springtime of the world stir at the
roots of being! A tear crept down from the blue-veined lids, making
its way through wrinkles, those "dry river-beds of smiles." If the
baby fingers came,--those small, fearless fingers that were one's own
youth reborn,--they would press out all fretful lines of age, leaving
only tender traceries. He leaned forward, listening. Already he could
hear the tiny feet echo along the rooms, could see smal