The girl beneath her hands did not stir, nor did she deign to turn her head to where the woman pointed. The shorter sword of the samurai was set close to the patch. It was covered with a white cloth—the cloth of honorable death. The woman had provided the wife of the white priest with a means of escape. Yet she had judged wrongly. Azalea was not merely the daughter of samurai. She was the wife of a Christian. Life could not be taken so easily as the woman supposed. The code of the samurai pointed out that death was better than dishonor. The new religion said nothing on this matter. It simply forbade the suicide.
The woman, her task completed, arose and brought a mirror to Azalea, who, still silent, stared fixedly and unseeingly at the reflected face. She started somewhat as the maid’s lips touched her ears, and in the glass she saw the fat red face close to her own.
“Mistress, to-day if you listen you will learn the full extent of your folly and the dupe you have been to us all.”
The mirror slipped from Azalea’s hands. She reached them up suddenly and pushed them against the face of the maid. Her nails sank into the puffed fatness of the woman’s cheeks.
“Your touch offends me,” she said. “Come not so near, low-born one.”
With a cry of rage the woman sprang back, clasping her hands over her hurt cheeks. Then, muttering, she shuffled toward the doors. There she paused vindictively.
“You are a peacock now, Madame Azalea, but your feathers will look less proud and pretty when you learn what they have cost you. You disdained the servant of the white Highness and taught him to do likewise. But the lowly one was in his service long before his eyes desired you. Even a snake crawling in the grass may strike a revenge. There is nothing too small or lowly to bite.”
Azalea did not move or deign to turn her head, even after the woman had gone and she could hear her glide along the hall. For a long time she sat in silence. Once she looked with fearful stealth at the opening in the floor, but she did not look for long. There was nothing further for her to hear, she told herself. Who knew already better than herself the extent of her debasement?