She looked at the Okusama, whispering to the little head against her lips; at Omi, holding her hands in a strangling grasp and making violent contortions of her face in an effort to keep back the tears; at the geishas and maidens, with their pretty faces running over with tears. Then she sighed and smiled.
The Okusama seemed to remember something of a sudden. She started upon her knees, clapping her hands violently.
“Hurry, maidens!” she cried, shrilly. “The most honorable Spider requires new apparel! Wait upon her quickly and excellently!”
Omi whirled around in a dizzy circle, and she danced every step of the way to the house. Inside they heard her singing, and a moment later berating and scolding the maid who was to wait upon her mistress.
CHAPTER XVII
RETURNING from a fruitless canvass for patrons for his house, Matsuda was in an evil mood. The times were bitter. Upon every tongue was heard but the one topic—the war! The gayest and most spendthrift of youths turned a deaf ear to the geisha-keeper’s descriptions of the exceptional beauty and talents of his maidens. The clash of drum and arms had a more alluring call to the men of Japan than the most charming song ever sung by geisha; and the glittering sun-flag, tossing aloft from every roof and tower, was more enchanting to their sight than the brightest pair of eyes or reddest lips of which the master of the geishas told.
Not a patron in all the city of Kioto for the once famous House of Slender Pines! Superstitiously its master feared his place was doomed.
At the solicitation of his wife, he had kept the girls despite the hard times; now he felt he could no longer humor even the Okusama. Matsuda knew the fate likely to befall the geishas, were they to be turned out of employment at this time. Unable to obtain positions through the customary channels of the geisha-houses, they had but one last resource—the Yoshiwara! Even in war-times the “hell city,” as it was aptly named, thrived. Against this fate the Okusama had so far shielded the geishas of the House of Slender Pines, and even now, as he thought of her, Matsuda debated how he should explain the going of even the humblest apprentice.