There was joy in the house in Azalea Street. Soichi had come home. His
work at the university was finished, and despite his dislike for study he
had taken high place in honor of the father who wished him to. Now he had
returned to make a beginning in the career Kutami had planned for him.
But for a time there was to be no work. Father and mother and son were
to play a little together and give rein to the pleasure of the reunion.
After that the new venture would take all the effort of both men.
Kutami intended to branch out. The old business was good enough for
him, but the son was worthy of something better. He should be a banker,
and already the Commoner had arranged with some of his wealthy business
associates for the founding of the new institution which should give
Soichi his opportunity. The friends who gathered at the comfortable
house to celebrate the joyful return of the young man, discussed the new
project with unflagging enthusiasm, and all predicted a proud success for
Soichi. The sake cups were often exchanged and many cigarettes perfumed
the air. There was no flaw anywhere.
It was the next afternoon that Kutami, trudging along through Timber
Street on his way back from his office, and turning over in his mind
his plans for his son, passed the house of Jukichi. A drizzling rain
was falling, but the Commoner, secure under the wide shelter of his
yellow, oiled-paper umbrella, cared nothing for that. As he passed the
gate of the Samurai a gust of wind swirling through the street tilted
the umbrella sharply back, and Kutami glanced up just in time to see old
Chukei, the matchmaker, coming out.
“Oho!” he said, as he saw the middleman, “a wedding, eh? I wonder what
lucky young fellow it can be who is to have Kudo-san’s daughter for his
wife.”
He paused for a moment, looking after the _nakodo_ as he strode toward
the city, then turned and went on. It was no affair of his after all, and
before he had reached his own home he was back again in the absorbing
subject of Soichi and the new bank, and had forgotten all about Jukichi’s
daughter.
Shrewd old Chukei had met a puzzling rebuff. The circumstances were
everything that to his mind foreshadowed a successful negotiation. But
he had been sent away with almost no explanation. The _nakodo_ shook his
head and plodded along, wondering what to do.
O-Mitsu was happy. Not soon again, she thought, would this particular
middleman return to her father’s house with his annoying business. With
unwonted lightness of heart she went about her work. Then when the rain
ceased and the sun came out, she stepped out into the yard and on the
tall _getas_ that guarded her dainty feet from the mud, took her way up
the path toward her favorite spot among the pines by the old shrine.
The world was greatly changed for her since last she looked out upon
that familiar scene. The sails of the fishing-boats bellied out under
the fresh breeze, the spray dashed over their bows, the trees swayed and
nodded, everywhere was life and activity. The whole world sang and her
heart with it.
She stood a long time gazing down at the spreading sea, quite unconscious
that another had climbed the steep path, one who now found even a more
entrancing picture before his eyes than the wonderful view below them.
It was Soichi, come to visit the old shrine. All unprepared for the
vision that came so suddenly before him as he turned to look down on the
well-remembered shore, it was hard to stifle his admiration and surprise.
Leaning a little against a gnarled old pine, she stood motionless, her
strong profile and the exquisite curve of her chin revealed unwittingly
to him as he paused, half concealed by a clump of trees. Back over the
years since he had seen her, the rush of memory took him to that day when
she had told him that she knew his secret. He saw her again standing in
the road and bidding him, with a smile, come on with her. And now that
little girl was this beautiful woman! She had not changed, and yet she
was all changed.
Slowly the tide of emotion swelled within him. He could not remember that
he had ever thought she was a pretty girl, and in the years he had spent
at the university he had scarcely thought of her at all. He had seen many
pretty girls there, but never had one affected him like this. Now he saw
at a glance that she was wonderfully beautiful, and the more he looked
the more wonderful she became. It dawned on him that she was much the
most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and immediately he had an almost
irresistible longing to go to her at once and tell her so.
An unhappy thought of himself restrained him. They were no longer
schoolfellows. She was the daughter of a Samurai and he—Poor Soichi! Not
even his university life had taken from his own consciousness all taint
of the old disgrace. He did not know, because he had had no experience,
that love is _heimin_ as well as _shizoku_, a Commoner as often as a
Gentleman, and that there is never advantage in loving a girl unless you
tell her so.
He moved a little, and a snapping twig told her that some one was near.
She turned quickly and their eyes met. A long moment they stood so and
neither spoke, yet in that moment the whole world changed for each of
them. Under his steady gaze she felt the blush come tingling up her
throat and spread across her cheeks. Like one grown fast to the ground on
which he rested, he stood and only stared. His brain refused to act, his
tongue to work. Then she moved, and the spell was broken.
“O-Mitsu-san!” he cried, and tone and glance told all he would have
uttered.
With all her face rosy with warm blood she gazed fearlessly back into
his eyes, and murmured softly a single word, yet one instinct with the
feeling of a thousand.
“Thou,” she said, in the old familiar language of their childhood.
Even as eyes and look had spoken for him when voice and tongue were
mute, so had she answered. His ugly doubts of himself fled at first
sight of her smile and it was the old Soichi who sprang forward to her
side. A thousand questions trembled on his lips and struggled in vain
for utterance. His unruly tongue refused its function, and he stopped in
confusion, even his bold eyes falling before her smiling glance. It was
the girl, older than he in such matters by hundreds of years of heritage,
who said lightly after a little pause:
“I did not know that you had come home.”
A dozen emotions fought together for expression, but all were crowded
back, and he answered in commonplace:
“I have been here nearly a week.”
“So long?” she said, questioning.
He fancied he caught a note of reproach in her tone, so far had his
self-esteem come back, and a pang of regret crossed him at the thought
that he had lost those days.
“I am a fool,” he said irrelevantly, but with air so dejected that one
far less clever than she would have followed his thought.
She laughed merrily, and the sound of her voice completed his undoing.
He was back to elemental simplicity again, and the passion that was
uppermost in his heart came bursting out with truthful bluntness.
“You are the most beautiful woman in all the world,” he said.
Again the blush swept across her face and the long lashes fell over the
merry eyes. The flood-gate of his speech was lifted at last. The torrent
of his emotion flowed forth with the rush of waters long pent up, telling
her the ancient story he had known all his life, but which only that last
quarter hour had revealed to him. And the girl, listening with fluttering
heart, heard more than he said, for he was answering the question she had
asked herself, and she understood now her hot protest at the message of
the _nakodo_.
They sat down by the great rock on the far slope of the hill, where the
thick pines screened them from the view of visitors to the shrine, and
where the sea lay blue, strong, and peaceful below them. For an hour
of which no power ever could rob them, heart was laid bare to heart.
Innocently, simply, with the peace of the glorious day, they prattled of
the wonder that was theirs, the discovery they alone of all the world had
made, and never a thought cloud floated across their heaven to disturb
the serenity of its sunshine.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]