“Some one is without my shoji!” she said, rising uncertainly.
She heard dim voices whispering in the corridor; then suddenly the loud, shrill cry of a runner outside the house and the sing-song, mellow answer of the guide Oka.
“Heu! Heu! This way! Ah-ho! So!”
Her parents had returned home she thought, as she ran to the balcony. She leaned over the railing, forgetting the murmured voices she had already heard within the house itself.
“Mother! Father! You have returned!”
The cry of the runner floated up to her through the dark mist. Then the loud, hoarse cry of Oka, the guide, proclaiming:—
“August guests for the maid Masago-san.”
The girl’s eyes expressed astonishment.
Guests for her! and at such an hour! Surely that stupid maid would not admit them till she had learned their names and mission. She, Masago, was but a maiden and little used to receiving guests unchaperoned within her father’s house. Masago had forgotten her vague thoughts of but a moment since. Now she was the simple daughter of a respectable household, agitated at the unexpected advent of evening guests.
“No doubt,” she thought, “they come to see my father, who is not at home. I must descend and beseech them to remain and venture not out again into the fog, though Shaka knows I little wished for guests to-night.”