“You mean—ah, you promise, then—” He could not speak the words that rushed in a flood to his lips.
“Hé! (Yes!)” said Lord Ichigo, solemnly. “It is a promise.”
CHAPTER VII
HAVING determined upon the course to take, Lord Saito Ichigo summoned a council of the relatives of the family.
For the first time, possibly, since his marriage, he faced the assembled kinsfolk with the calm demeanor of one who had seized, and intended to retain, the authority properly invested in him as head of the house of Saito. His should be the voice heard! His the decision that must prevail!
In the minds of most men—Japanese men, at least—who have married at the dictates of their parents, there is always some little cherished chamber to which, despite the passing years, memory returns with loving, loitering step. So with Lord Ichigo. Now, with the fate of his beloved child in his hands, the father looked back upon his own life, and it was no reflection upon his excellent and virtuous wife that he did so with just a shade of vague regret.
The impetuous Gonji’s passionate words had not been spoken to deaf ears. Lord Saito Ichigo was determined to keep his promise to his son, whatever the result; for well he knew of the upheaval in his household which would be sure to follow.
There was, of course, Ohano to think of. Her case was not as difficult as it seemed, he pointed out to the assembled relatives. An orphan, one of a family already allied by marriage to the Saitos, they had taken her into their house at an early age. They already regarded her as a daughter. As for a daughter, they would seek, outside their own family, for a worthy and suitable husband for the maiden. In fact, it was better that Ohano should marry another than Lord Gonji, since the latter had always looked upon her as a sister, and a union between them was, to him, repugnant. That, indeed, Ichigo himself had thought at first, but he had desired to please “the honorable interior” (his wife) and the many relatives of his honorable wife.