“You would not delay the marriage, excellent Yamashiro?” inquired Aoi, faintly, the match-making vanities of a mother stirring within her.
“It might be well,” said Yamashiro, stiffly. Languidly the boy interposed:
“Ah, well, she will have time to learn when she has the father and mother-in-law to teach and command her.”
“True,” said his father, and “True” echoed his mother, stonily, scarce parting her lips to enunciate the word.
Then Hyacinth fluttered in gayly, and the light of her smile fell upon them like a shaft of sunlight, to be dissipated, a moment later, by the enshrouding mist. She paused in her tripping pilgrimage of pride across the room, glanced flurriedly at the guests, then sat down hastily beside Madame Aoi. The next moment she was as quiet and still as Madame Yamashiro herself. Her eyes were cast down, as became her age, but even when cast down they gazed in girlish pleasure on the splendor of the new sash.
“Madame Aoi,” said Yamashiro, the elder, “we come to-day not upon a visit of pleasure, but for a purpose.”
Madame Aoi inclined her head attentively.
“You may not, perhaps, have heard the latest news of the town. We are to have an invasion of the barbarians—Western people, in fact.”
“Ah, indeed!” Aoi’s eyebrows were raised in surprise. “No, I have not heard the report.”
Yamashiro breathed heavily.