And it was the end. Here was a soldier who could vanquish the Medusa mother of Hoshiko by the cold process of words.
"Witnesses! Saké! I will not leave this lady again until she is my wife!"
And so terrible was this Shijiro Arisuga in his wrath that everything happened as he ordered—and they were married. I wish they might have lived happily ever after. But it was only a few glad weeks. Yet, in those little days and hours, she did what she had threatened: crept into his heart so deeply that he was never to dislodge her quite until he died. And it was here Shijiro Arisuga thought for the second time, without suspicion to mar it, that the happiest moment of his life had come.
Fancy the joy of it all! Sure, I cannot tell it. I have no fit words. It was infinitely better than either had dreamed. The dainty little creature known as Hoshiko bloomed into splendor as Madame Shijiro—perhaps because she had no thought—absolutely none—for anything but him. And he was daily more and more amazed at the number of thoughts he spent upon her, who, he had once fancied, he could leave behind for some one else—for many others.
Indeed, it came to such a state that he had little thought for anything but her. The military death was forgotten—Yoné was.
"Now if we dream," he laughed to her one day, "take heed that we do not wake. For this dream is such as I have never dreamed before. In it are perfumes and melodies, caresses and touches, passions and calms, sleeps and wakings, and all delights."
"And you," laughed his wife, flinging herself upon him.
"And you," he laughed back, not putting her away.
"And that thing the foreigners call love."
"Grown larger in our sunny East than they know it in their chilly West!" added her husband.