"Bah," cried Tetsujo. "Even a god must have some small weaknesses. Pity to women has always been his.—Well, when shall your answer go—to-night, in the morning, on the first rays of the sun? Speak! for my choler trains me hard!"
But Yuki did not hasten to reply. Behind her rigid calm a thousand frightened fancies sped. No thought could be followed to a conclusion in this first whirl of atoms. They went by her in a soundless hurricane,—torn bits of hope, filaments of fear, thin flakes of readjustment. She saw that time must be gained—time, and the opportunity to think. An unqualified refusal would bring upon her immediately consequences and new conditions which she was neither physically nor mentally able to combat. She must achieve an armistice.
After an interval that seemed long to her but interminable to the quivering Onda, she raised her face, saying quietly: "After a space of three days, at the hour of twilight, I will myself deliver an answer to Prince Haganè. Will you kindly convey this message?"
"She will answer in three days! Lord of Hell! she will condescend to answer my daimyo in three days! This bit of spoken offal—must I present to a deity who burdens himself with you—that your family may be honored, and your cheap foreign attainments used! His magnanimity is inconceivable. To a lesser man it would seem impossible. To marry you openly,—make you a princess,—you, a shivering wench he could have for the taking!"
"He could not have me for the taking, and you know it!" said Yuki's low voice, that held an undercurrent of his own. "You shame yourself and me by such raving. If you insult me further I will refuse at once."
"Come, Yuki! Come quickly!" whispered the terrified Iriya, dragging at her daughter's sleeve. "Your honored father will strangle in his rage. Never, never, in all our married life have I seen his eyes glare thus! Hasten!"
"Yes—hasten—drag her away!" gasped Tetsujo, throwing back his head and clutching his collar. "She is not my daughter! Would that my bones had crumbled—" His words broke off in a gurgle.
In her little room Yuki stood gazing down moodily upon the convulsed form of her mother. "I know I ought to feel more pain to see you weep so bitterly, my mother," she said at length. "I tell myself that I should feel, but I cannot feel. Somehow I seem to be wearing armor inside instead of outside. Think of it, mother, what it means to me! I love a man who loves me honorably. I do not ask a sudden marriage,—I would wait patiently until the war is over, and perhaps your heart and father's would be softened toward my hope. I will work for you,—I will go out and be a servant, a teacher,—anything to relieve you of my burden. All I ask is to remain uncompelled toward other marriage. Yet here my father, and an old man older than my father, are trapping me,—they condescend to trap me! Prince Haganè cannot possibly wish me for his wife. He has seen me but twice since I was a child. A man like Haganè does not know love in the sense I have been taught it. Oh, I am like a bird ensnared in chains—in chains so heavy—that I can scarcely stir a link! Being a samurai's daughter I cannot even die."
"Yuki! Would you indeed disgrace us by marrying—a Russian?"
"Not so long as it seems to you a disgrace. But that will not last forever, mother. This war is to change many things. Can I not belong to myself, just for the time of this war, mother? Will you not plead with father for this boon?"