Hideyoshi fell to the floor whence he had risen. The golden bowl was not broken, for the want of one. Charm had not entered, hence could not depart. No affinity proffered its good office. Love held forth elsewhere in the mighty circle, and these two searched their way under a solstice as blank as inevitable.
Yodogima, too, sank down, disappointed and fearful, upon the mat in front of her lawful lord. The child lay coddling in its lap, and her eyes beheld therein a joy that radiates only as ordained. The picture overcame him. He could not face the truth of her position, and her eyes riveting upon the sacred book unfolding before them denied him the only lie that man ever made in virtuous part. All the laws of heaven or man, cause and effect, could stay the hand nor deaden the heart to that loftier reach, that unquenchable thirst, that touchless affinity, which made man what he is, as compared with the pitiful sight we sometimes see, only to wish it an unreality, that hairy monster, perched upon his hinder part, his arms drooping in front and his face a blank, that living, suggestive, appealing, undriveable thing we are always wont but mostly loath to call baboon.
Oh! cried he, inwardly, am I so lost as to sit here as if mad? This woman is stronger than I, in the face of harsher trials. Be a man, Hideyoshi.
Thence he arose, and approaching, vainly seated himself directly in front of Yodogima. The child cooed on, but two strong hearts waxed high over it, with larger interest and harder conflict, as lions trample their brood or the bird-kind but empty a nest in its defense.
Pardon me, Yodogima, begged he, cowering before her, his very soul the price, it is so sudden—let me see your eyes, Yodogima—speak to me; I cannot bear longer the suspense.
Yodogima considerately raised her eyes to his: they reflected back only the likeness of a man who had never yet failed to penetrate deeper, but now the heart seemed obscured by that self-same image.
The child, Yodogima; let me look into its face.
Yodogima tenderly, perhaps proudly, tendered the little babe, robed and attended as if want to invite really the gods to worship at nativitys shrine. It was a pretty boy, bearing traces in every feature of its chivalrous ancestry: Hideyoshi had been proud, would have prostituted every virtue that he possessed to proffer it the crown he had wrought, but—
Ieyasu! conjured he, half in rage, half in fear.
Yodogima turned white, then livid; the childs doom induced the former, but duty quickly inspired thoughts restoring a healthier, heartier action of that one sense underlying the most vital of natures primal instincts.