"It is not!" protested Hoshiko. "He asked to learn how many others love me."
"And why should he ask that?"
"Because he loves me," was Hoshiko's enigmatic answer.
There was no time at this moment for further explication. Arisuga had evidently decided something which was in his mind when he asked his first question, and Hoshiko fancied that his decision was against her. For he laughed (not as she would have wished him to laugh), and took an almost rude and assured possession of her.
"When the mistress says yes and the maid says no, one must believe his eyes, which say it is improbable that so fair a flower has bloomed unseen even in this arid plain of China!"
"You think, then, that I have had—twenty lovers?" asked Hoshiko.
"Certainly," laughed Arisuga.
"No!" still cried the maid in her terror. "You believe, lord, that she has had none—not one—until you came!"
"Certainly," laughed the soldier again.
The two girls looked at each other dazedly. Arisuga laughed again in that unpleasant way.