“Where would you go?” he taunted. She slipped desperately under his arm and snapped the shoji between them. He could have pushed it aside without the smallest difficulty, but he stood on the steps like one already having possession, and laughed softly to himself.
CHAPTER XI
He heard her soothing the child within and the sound of its subdued cries. Finally, comforted, it must have slept, for there was no further sound within.
Matsuda pushed open the shoji door. The house and furniture were his. He would enter when he pleased.
She was standing behind the shoji, as though awaiting his coming. Her baby was strapped to her back and she held something clasped close to her heart. It was a large black book. Matsuda recognized it. She spoke in unfaltering accents.
“Pray you walk in, Matsuda Isami. The furniture is waiting to be taken. Truly an empty house will be of more comfort than one dressed in what belongs to you.”
“An empty house?” he repeated. “But I do not propose to empty my house. The house, too, is mine since I bought it within the month.”
“Ah,” she said, “I suspected as much. Very well, take also the house, most honorable Matsuda Isami. We will leave it at once.”
He followed her down the path for a space. When he seized her sleeve, she shook it from his grasp.