“Yes, strange,” he said. “I have lived years in England, but I had to return to Nippon to learn its meaning.”
“Yet you have been back but a day,” she said, tremulously.
“And love is born in a moment,” he whispered, and took her hand softly in his own.
She withdrew it quickly, and turned from him in a sudden panic of incomprehensible fear, the morning had wrought such a change in her.
“We must be going home,” she said. “Nay, we must hurry.”
And after that they walked homeward swiftly in silence, each afraid to speak to the other.
XXV
As Hyacinth passed up the little garden-path she saw a familiar face at the open shoji of the guest-room.
“It is Yamashiro Yoshida,” she said to Koma.