During the entire visit Junzo found his eyes constantly straying toward his betrothed. When she moved about the room, and with her own hands served him tea, he noted with delight her grace of movement, and the symmetry of her figure.
When tea had been served and drunk, he found her close beside him. She had moved dutifully there at a signal from her father; and now, as his betrothed, she quietly filled the long-stemmed pipe for him, and lighted it at the hibachi. As he took it from her hands, their eyes met for the first time. Junzo, though thrilled by the glance of her eyes, felt curiously enough repulsed. There was something forbidding, almost menacing, in their glance. A moment later the long lashes were shielding them. Then the young man noted that she had not as much as changed color, but still was calmly white and unmoved. A feeling of uneasiness possessed him. His delight in her beauty was chilled.
Once only throughout the afternoon did she show interest in the conversation. This was when Junzo had told his father-in-law to be, of a prospective visit to court to make a statue of a national hero. Then she had raised her head suddenly, and Junzo had stumbled over his words in the glow of artistic appreciation he felt of the beautiful pink color flooding her face.
The elder Kamura thought his son’s modesty in not mentioning the fact of the commission he had already received unnecessary in a family soon to become his own; and so he said, as he tapped the ashes from his pipe on the hibachi:—
“My son has been commanded to make a statue of his Imperial Highness the Prince Komatzu.”
The little cup which Masago had lifted toward her lips fell suddenly from her hand, its contents spilling on the tray. She seemed scarcely conscious of its fall, as she turned an eager and flushed face toward Kamura. She spoke for the first time, repeating half mechanically his words:—
“The Prince Komatzu—”
“Yes,” said Kamura, affably, “a cousin of his Imperial Majesty,” and he bowed his head to the mats in old-fashioned deference to the name of the Mikado.
“Why,” spoke up the simple Ohano, her eyes wide and bright, “we have his august picture.”
Her husband looked at her in astonishment.