“What is it, Kiyo? What is it?” asked his wife, going to him and throwing an arm about him.
The color came back into her husband’s face. He laughed a bit weakly.
“I thought it possible that my boy was—”
She held his hand tightly, her eyes full of tears.
“Oh, I understand. I do,” she said. “But where is he?”
Her husband stepped back to the spot where Ido had been. Then he saw that in almost complete silence the servants, including Ido, had slipped from the room.
He fancied he heard the slight movement of their feet on the padded floor beyond the shoji. Impetuously and insistently he clapped his hands again, and silently they answered his summons. Nearly all the servants of the Kurukawa family had been in their service for years, some of them having served the grandparents. Their averted faces alarmed Mr. Kurukawa. This time he did not question them.
“Send Plum Blossom-san to me at once,” he said.
The little girl was brought in. With her Iris and the consoled Juji came.
The father took the eldest girl by the hand; kneeling, he spoke to her almost pleadingly.