Wistaria attempted to speak, but broke off, faltering and stammering piteously.
“May I inquire, then,” continued her aunt, relentlessly, “whether you are unacquainted with the honorable name of our august guest?”
“Oh, my lady, I do believe that—that he assumed another—only—just for the innocent romance of wooing me under an assumed title.”
“So! And pray how comes it, then, that my son’s honorable guest should also happen to be your lover? If in order to woo you he came hither under an assumed name, then it would seem that you had some previous acquaintance with him?”
“He followed our cortege from Yedo, madame,” confessed the unhappy girl.
“What! You do not mean to tell me that he is that insolent Mori courtier of whom I heard only after my arrival home?”
Wistaria pressed her hands tightly together. She seemed overcome. Then suddenly she raised her head with almost defiant bravery.
“He is of the Mori clan, madame,” she said.
“The Mori clan!” The lady’s voice rose shrilly. “How came he, then, to enter our grounds?”
“He came, my lady, by the south river, where there is a break in the wall.”