“You think because I laugh and say gay things that my heart, too, is light.”
“No, I do not think that,” he said, earnestly; “but why should you not be happy and gay? You are only a maiden. You cannot know tears yet—little one.” He added the old, familiar term “little one” so softly that she strained her ears to hear it.
She held a lotos blossom close to her face, and looked down into its heart.
“See,” she said, holding it towards him, “there is one drop of dew in the heart of the lotos. It is like a tear. It, too, poor flower, must fade away with the summer.”
“Why do you say ‘it, too’?”
“Like me,” she said; “I will not be here when the summer has passed.” Her voice broke. “You said I should not go. Yet—yet the days pass so swiftly. Only one week more—and—after that—? Ah, I cannot bear to think of it.”
“Do you, then, love this Japan of ours so dearly?”
She looked about her, her eyes filled with tears. She clasped her little hands together.
“Ah, yes,” she said.
“And you would not even be content to go to the home of your ancestors for—for a little while?”