"O Benten," she cried to the goddess of beauty in her room, "that is different! He is not careful now—he is awake to-day! We must beware of him! There is danger!"
And at once she returned—with the water for his bath!
For, that was always her way: when he would say something to make her heart leap into her mouth, to fly from him in the direst panic, suborn the goddess, then hasten back to have it happen again.
"A heart is a strange thing," she laughed to him. "Sometimes it is here (at the proper place for it), sometimes here (in her throat), and sometimes here (in her sandals)."
"And sometimes," laughed the young soldier, "one's heart, which should be here (in his own bosom), is there (in hers)."
"And again," she rioted with him, "one's heart, which was here (in herself), is gone—gone—utterly gone—"
"That is quite proper," the soldier said. "For if you kept your own, you would have two and I none!"
"It is trying to get out!" she cried in mock alarm, holding it in.
"Let it come!"
But, just then, they heard the sigh of a moving screen, and the acid face of Hoshiko's mother looked in. She said nothing, only let her eyes rove from face to face. But that was very cooling. She closed the shoji and went away—apparently.