“Surely Mousmé—Miss Hyacinth” (I have got to call her this soon, in all conscience)—“will like my house,” I speculate as I swallow beans in sugar, prunes in ditto, toy-sized cups of tea, and Huntly and Palmer’s biscuits as my solid dish. She lives down there somewhere, nearer the town. I suddenly recollect Kotmasu once pointing out her brother Otiri to me, and telling me he lived somewhere over there. This must be better up here, and I remember quite gleefully that M’Kenzie, my chum, who died last New Year’s Day, had found no difficulty in persuading a dainty little mousmé of equally good family to take him for better, for worse. I also recollect the circumstance of his having reddish hair, and an uncommon amount of freckles, even for a Scotsman, with amazing satisfaction. Because, although fair, I had neither of these things, and had even some pretensions to good looks.
I would go down and consult Kotmasu—that was the best thing to do.
I gulped down two or three tiny cups of tea, and hastily sought my hat.
Oka’s wife was under the verandah, reeling silk off the cocoons on to strangely primitive wooden wheels, fixed between two upright pieces of wood stuck into a flat stone or cake of hardened, sun-baked clay for firmness. She rose, however, with a smile, and bowing, gave me one of my gayest paper umbrellas, “to match the morning.” Strangely enough, the ground-work was of the colour of Mousmé’s dress the night before. I used not to admire it greatly; now I wondered vaguely why.
I made my way down the hillside, striking the principal street or road after I left my own garden, in which camellias, gardenias, tea-roses and mimosa bloomed with such profusion, that the very air was scented and heavy with the mingled perfume.
It was a pretty garden—strange to European eyes, perhaps—with its make-believe fountains, toy bridges over equally miniature streams, and several tiny pagodas. It was pretty enough even for Miss Hyacinth, I thought, as I thrust open the quaint little rustic gate with my toe, and stepped out upon the road.
All the way down to Kotmasu’s office I imagined, or tried to imagine, her flitting along the walks between the tea-roses and sunflowers. A dainty little figure in an elfin fairyland.