Ohano shrugged her shoulders, then averted her face. She had bitten her lips so that now they seemed to be blistered, and pushed out, thick and swollen.
“Well,” resumed her mother, triumphantly, “you perceive the workings of the gods undoubtedly in what followed. The war came like a veritable miracle. Think; had it come but a few—one or two—months later even, the Spider would still have been in our house, and, what is more, Ohano, elevated! Oh, there would have been no enduring the dancer. It is said”—and she lowered her voice confidently—“that the arrogance and pride of women of her class is an intolerable thing when once aroused. An excellent actress was this Spider. Let us admit it. She was prepared to—wait! She entreated patience for only a few months longer. But, as I have said, the gods intervened. The war arose! It was found imperative to return her at once! Hoom! That is right. You may well smile, my girl, since your turn had come!”
Ohano’s mask-like countenance had broken into a rigid smile of reminiscence. She recalled the days of her supreme triumph—the casting out of the one she hated, her own elevation as the wife of the Lord Saito Gonji. A faint color stole into her cheeks.
“I’ll confess,” continued the mother-in-law, humorously, “that you proved a less docile and filial daughter.” She chuckled reminiscently. “It is impossible to forget the humility of the Spider!” She looked at Ohano fondly. “I will tell you, my girl, I always desired you for my daughter. Your mother and I were cousins, and do you know—I will tell you, now that my lord is honorably absent—that it was originally planned that your father and I should marry.” She scowled and blinked her eyes, sighing heavily. “Well, schemes fall through!”
For a time she was silent, drowsily pulling at her pipe, which Ohano mechanically filled and refilled.
Presently Lady Saito laid her pipe down on the hibachi and resumed as if she had not stopped.
“So much for the calamity—the intervention of the gods that followed. Now look you, my girl. All the expensive offerings heaped at the shrines have been in vain. It is my opinion that if you supplicated the gods till doomsday and drank of the last drop of the Kiyomidzu waters, you would not now become a mother! Superstitions are for the ignorant. These are enlightened days, when we fight and beat—and beat, Ohano!—the Western nations! So, now, we supplicate the gods for a solution of the tragic problem facing us—the extinction of the illustrious race of Saito. It is impossible for such a race to die!”
Ohano moved uneasily. She had picked up her embroidery frame, and was attempting to work, but her lips were moving and her hands trembled. Partly to hide her expression from her mother-in-law, she bent her head far over the frame. Lady Saito began to laugh quite loudly.
“Never—no, not within the entire span of a lifetime—have I even heard of such favor of the gods! Just think, Ohano, without the pains and labors of a mother, they put into your honorable arms a most noble descendant of the august ancestors. Why, you should extend your arms in perpetual thanks to all the gods. Was ever such mercy?”
Said Ohano, with her face still hidden by the frame: