A longer silence fell between them now, and when he dared again to look at her, he found she smiled, a gentle, brooding smile, such as a gentle mother might have turned upon him. It irradiated and made beautiful beyond words her thin little face.
“I will speak to my father!” he cried out, wildly. “It is not possible for me to put you away from me, beloved one!”
He made a savage movement toward her, as though again he would enfold her within his arms; but now, as he advanced, she retreated, her little speaking hands held before her, as though she pushed him from her.
“It is—as it should be! You are the all-highest one, and I—but a geisha. With this little hand I cannot dip up the ocean. I have tried, august one, and—and—its waters have engulfed me!”
“I go to service of Tenshi-sama!” he cried, hoarsely. “We may never meet again in this honorable life, but, ah, there are a thousand lives we can be sure to share together!”
“A—thousand—lives—together!” she repeated, her eyes closed, her face as white as one dead.
Slowly, feeling backward with her hands, she groped her way to the shoji. There she paused a moment and looked at her husband, a long, deep, enveloping look.
He heard the sliding doors trapped between them, and listened vainly for even the softest fall of her footsteps. But the geisha moves with the silence of a moth, and the one who had gone from him forever, as it seemed, had broken her wings against his heart.