Forgetful of all else in my wonder and delight, I thrust my hat brim higher and faced square about. A projecting corner of the shrine masked me from the kneeling attendants, but not from the Princess. Drawn by the intensity of my gaze, she lowered her glance and looked full into my face. On the instant, I knew from the widening of her eyes and the quick rise of her little bosom that she had made out my features through the shadow of our dim niche.
Yoritomo’s voice breathed softly in my ear, “Do not move!”
I waited, breathless, expecting to see the Princess cry out or sink down as had Kohana. Yet, great as was the awe and wonder in her dilated eyes, she neither shrank away nor called upon the guard to protect her from the blue-eyed apparition. Such perfect control on the part of a girl so delicately nurtured, so exquisitely refined in look and bearing, was more than I could withstand. Regardless of Yoritomo’s warning, I raised my head higher, and sought to express in a smile the utmost of my admiration for her courage and beauty.
Again her bosom rose and fell to a quick-drawn breath, and her lustrous eyes widened yet more. But the god or devil—whatever he might be—had been pleased to regard her with a kindly look. Etiquette, if not respect and gratitude, called for a polite response. A row of little pearls gleamed between her smiling red lips, and her lissome young body bent low in gracious obeisance.
A Row of Little Pearls Gleamed between Her Smiling Red Lips
Instantly Yoritomo grasped my arm and drew me around the far corner of the shrine. Before the Princess had straightened from her bow, we were slipping out through a narrow doorway into the broad veranda of the temple. The sudden vanishing of the priest-robed apparition must have seemed to her clear confirmation of its godly or ghostly nature.
In the veranda I would have stopped to whisper my blissful impressions of the girl’s beauty, had not my friend snatched his sandals from his bosom and imperatively signed me to strap on my own. The moment our footgear was secure, he hastened down around the rear of the temple and out through a postern, into a winding road that led us past the enclosures of two or three mortuary chapels. Had the occasion been different, I might have pressed my friend to show me these magnificent memorial tombs and temples of departed Shoguns. As it was, he did not pause until we had passed down a long row of stone lanterns and out through one of the beautiful secondary gates of Shiba.
At last he stopped in a vacant space, and turned to reproach me with mild friendliness: “You should not have so risked discovery, brother!”
“How could I help it?” I demanded. “She is very beautiful, Tomo! Candidly, I envy you your good fortune.”