The fact that she was childless at the end of the first year, then, had become a subject of remark in the family!
The Lady Saito remarked sarcastically that among certain classes it was customary for childless women to drink of the Kiyomidzu Temple springs. They were said to contain miraculous qualities by which one might attain to motherhood.
Moonlight said nothing, but unconsciously her glance stole to her husband. He had grown uncomfortably red, and she saw his scowling face turned upon his mother.
Later, very timidly, she begged his permission to drink of the springs. He was opposed to it, saying it was a superstition of the ignorant; his mother but jested. She pleaded so insistently, and seemed to take the matter so deeply to heart, that at last he consented.
And so, with this last frantic hope, the geisha whose flashing beauty and talents had made her a queen in the most exacting of the tea-houses of Kioto now joined this melancholy band of childless women who thus desperately seek to please the gods by drinking of their favored waters.
CHAPTER XI
AS a matter of expediency, the father told Gonji, it would be necessary to divorce Moonlight. One could not allow one’s family to be wiped out because of a matter of mere sentiment and passion. Doubtless, the young wife, who had proved a most docile and obedient daughter-in-law in every way, would see the necessity of dissolving the union.
Gonji pleaded for time, one, two, three more years. Moonlight was very young. They could afford to wait.