A SENTIMENTAL PRINCESS
CHAPTER VIII
A SENTIMENTAL PRINCESS
JUNZO turned his head from Sado-ko. He stood still as a statue, his head drooping, his hands clinched. She broke the strained silence with a command to her attendant.
“Natsu-no, pray draw apart the door at once. The atmosphere is thick with odor of our ladies. It has sickened the honorable artist.”
He raised his head sharply. She had not heard, then! The maid pushed the shojis to either side, thus exposing the apartment to the full view of any without. This was a daily custom and precaution. No spying maid of honor might lurk about the balcony.
While the sliding doors remained open, neither the artist nor the princess spoke, but when a sufficient interval had elapsed and the doors had been drawn together again, the maid whispered a word of command to the guard outside, who silently took his station on the balcony. Then Sado-ko, turning slowly toward the artist, began to laugh in a strangely quivering, and subdued fashion. The sound of the soft laughter hurt the artist. He scarcely could command his words.
“Guileless princess, I pray you do not laugh!”
“Not laugh?” she repeated. “You are to-day a most unflattering artist. Was it only yesterday you said my laughter was as sweet as sweetest music of the sweetest birds?”