“This kimono, honorable Yoshida, is so heavy its weight would break the back of one so humble as I.”
“Lady,” said Yamashiro Yoshida, haughtily, “you make a jest of my gifts. I assure you I do not appreciate it. Why do you thus enumerate them? Is it not ungracious?”
Sweetly the girl swept all of the gifts into a heap together, then, rising with them in her arms, she crossed to Yoshida.
“Yamashiro Yoshida,” she said, “I never loved you, yet I betrothed myself to you because of the magnificence of your gifts. I was an ignorant child. Then you and your august parents cast me off because of my honorable origin, which you despised. Now you come to attempt to buy me with another gift. But I am no longer a silly child, and I give you back not only that new gift, but—all—all—all—all. Take them—take them quickly.”
She thrust them into his arms. Angrily he attempted to refuse them. They fell crashing to the floor. A man’s rich voice suddenly broke out into laughter.
“It is an insult!” cried Yamashiro Yoshida, furiously, trampling upon his gifts, half by accident, half blindly. He glared at the sweetly smiling face of the girl—glared at the laughing Komazawa; then he clapped his hands violently.
“My shoes!” he fairly shouted at Mumè, as she answered his summons.
He kicked his feet into his shoes, stamped on the floor furiously, then turned on his heel and left the house in a fine rage.