“The honour is mine to serve. The pleasure, yours to grant. And is there any higher?” asked she, confident and earnest.

Tetsutaisho soon after withdrew and left Kinsan to begin her new duties with a lighter heart and a better confidence. She felt with renewed hope that there was still a chance for the right. And now that her hands were no longer idle, she must drive away despair and set about with fresh courage to make much happiness out of the little that life offered.

She soon learned to love the child, and often took it from the nurse and held it in her own arms. At dusk of night she would sit for hours, singing lullabies or reciting favourite poems. Sometimes she peered dreamily, softly, into the far distance, and then her voice would rise to the sweet, lonely pitch of the nightingale or deepen into tenderest pathos. Once these sad, weird strains reached Tetsutaisho’s ears, and they touched him more deeply, strangely, than when he first heard her at the garden.

“It is her soul speaking its wonderful love,” said he to himself, as he lounged and listened from his own mat on a dark, still night, “and I would give all that is in this world were that love for me.”

Then he asked Ikamon to come to his house and listen in the cool of the evening to her songs and her poems. No mention was made to her of her intended audience, for Tetsutaisho had learned her true spirit and was now beginning to respect her. He would not so intrude as to ask her to sing; her heart only alone and undisturbed could invoke such melody; yet he could not resist inviting his friend to share the pleasure of her voice, though only by chance might they be so privileged. Ikamon came and he, too, was charmed.

“It is the grandest voice I ever heard,” said he, with enthusiasm, as he arose and thanked his host for the entertainment, preparatory to taking his leave.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE VOW OF VENGEANCE

When Ikamon had gone Tetsutaisho retired, and as he did so he went with the satisfaction of having discovered, as he thought, the secret of his failure. He had always regarded Kinsan as a prize not to be overlooked, but had not offered to divine her real charm. His repeated defeat had not been attributed to that; it was upon baser grounds he had excused himself and accused her. Her constancy, however, had awakened in him a better sense of her nature, and he now began to feel the force of her virtue; but having again mistaken her, and wrongfully attributed her refusal to the success of a rival, he became mad and vowed vengeance as well as victory.