“We have many servants. Why give such employment to my wife?”
“Since when,” demanded the mother, hoarsely, “did a childless son become master in his father’s house?”
“These are modern times, mother,” he protested. “She has not been bred for service such as this!”
“Then it is time we undertook her education,” said his mother, ominously. “In the house of the honorable mother-in-law she will quickly learn her proper place.”
She put out her feet, and the girl knelt and washed them.
Alone that evening in their room, they clung together like frightened children. It had been a hard, a cruel day for both.
“It is true,” she said, searching his face in the hope of finding a denial there, “that your parents bitterly hate me.”
“They will outgrow it. It is not so with my father, and later you will win my mother’s affection. Your sweetness, beauty, goodness, beloved one, will win her even against her will.”
She held him back from her, with her two little hands resting flatly on his breast.
“They despise me because I am a geisha? That is why they treat me so.”