She raised herself, lifting the kimono a little upward from the ground.
“It is the punishment of vanity,” she continued in a somewhat weary voice. “I was not ready to part with my fair gown, Komatzu. It is of ancient style and very long and cumbersome.”
“But the embodiment of grace and beauty,” said Komatzu, gallantly.
She pursued this light conversation, in hope of diverting him as they passed on their way through the grove.
“What, Cousin Komatzu, you praise an Oriental gown,—you who are so much a modern!”
He glanced down smilingly at his evening dress, black, immaculate, and foreign.
“The honorable gown, fair cousin, is truly exquisite; still, I confess I do prefer the foreign style, and would that you did also.”
“But I should suffocate did I enclose my little frame in so honorably tight a garb,” she protested, and at the same moment she glanced about fearfully. Komatzu seemed to perceive something of her uneasiness, for he, too, cast a keen look about them.
In nervousness she began to speak again, for somewhere close at hand she heard a stir which set her heart to violent beating.
“My ladies beg permission to deck your statue with august flowers, cousin, and—Ah-h!”