She paused, excited and trembling, surprised at herself for making so much argument against her husband. Chobei sat looking at her in astonishment. Never before had she shown such feeling.
“Whatever is the world coming to,” he exclaimed at length, “when foolish women can talk like that!”
He filled his little pipe and exhausted the pellet of tobacco almost at one puff. But Soichi said nothing at all, and went on making his brush fly like a dragon over the paper as if he had heard not a word of their talk. O-Koyo said no more, and her husband smoked furiously, rapping his pipe on the hibachi to knock out the ashes, as if he meant to smash it to pieces. At length Soichi rolled up his yards of affectionate ideographs and slipped them deftly inside the long, narrow envelope, with sprays of delicate pink cherry blossoms trailing over it. Then he went out into the night and stole down to the corner of Kudo-san’s fence. Only the plum-tree saw him slip the cap of the bamboo post and lay his love letter carefully inside. Then he strode off toward the path up the hill. His heart was in a tumult. Straight up to the old shrine he went, paused a moment before it, and hurried on to their trysting-place at the big rock. There he sat down, and a long time pondered the strange, exciting news he had heard that evening. When he returned he found his father still silently smoking rapid pipefuls and O-Koyo sitting beside him with never a word, her hands busy with sewing. As he entered Chobei looked up and asked:
“Where have you been?”
“I went out to walk,” answered Soichi, “and climbed up to the shrine on the hill-top.”
Perhaps it was his talk with the nakodo, perhaps it was the suggestion of his wife that had set Chobei to thinking definitely about the future of his son. Theretofore there had been only a vague recognition of the fact that sometime Soichi would marry. Now suddenly it came to him that the boy was grown to man’s estate, that the condition he half dreaded, half expected, was already come. With the realization came back the mental picture of old Chukei. It was time to look about them, he thought, to consider the possibility of finding a suitable mate for his promising son, and, perhaps, to employ the middleman. After a time Chobei put aside his pipe and began to speak of what he had been thinking. Soichi listened like the dutiful son he was, and O-Koyo heard gladly, for even if it were not to be the beautiful daughter of the Samurai, she would be happy to see the son of whom she was so proud well married, and the daughter in the house would make her cares much lighter. When at length there came a pause in which Soichi could speak, it was with an air of quiet unconcern that he said:
“But first I must do my service in the army. If war does come, perhaps there will be no need for Chukei-san.”
Then, because they were alone in their own privacy, where no outside eye or ear might see or hear, and it was not necessary to conceal their genuine emotions, they gave full rein to the expression of their sober feelings, and the mother, who would be proudly scornful of tears or outward show of grief if the time should come to send her boy to the hardships and hazards of camps and battlefields, gave the hot, protesting drops unheeded flow. But Soichi showed the mettle that was in him, saying calmly:
“But if the Emperor wishes it!”
Reverently the Commoner and his wife bowed at the mention of that name and the suggestion of his possible desire. There was no more loyal family in all his realm than they, and if he needed the sacrifice of all they had, and life itself, they had only to know his need to make the offering. The proudest opportunity life held was to die for him, and it was with heartfelt acquiescence that they heard their son add: