Yuki sat up instantly. She had begun to tremble. Her hair, now disordered, fell about an ashen face. "Has my master come?" she cried, a wild look flashing into her eyes, but lapsing almost immediately into dulness. She put up both hands and spread wide the night-black wings of her hair. Meta drew down one little hand and thrust the telegram between its fingers. "Oh, a telegram," said Yuki, embarrassed.
"Why did you not mention—perhaps Lord Haganè will not come back to-night." She read the few words carefully. Again that faint, sickening throb of relief passed over her. She lifted her head and met the woman's eyes as she said, trying to seem calm and unconcerned, "It is true,—our master cannot come to-night. He bids me remain until further message."
Meta bowed. "Condescend to receive my condolence, noble Mistress. You will be honorably lonely, I fear. But such is always the fate of one married to a great statesman like our lord."
"Yes," said Yuki, eagerly, "and, Meta, I wish last of all things to become an obstacle in his illustrious path."
"Mistress," said the servant, in her honest way, with a smile like sunshine dawning upon the broad, fresh-colored face, "all day you have eaten nothing. May I not prepare a little meal to tempt your appetite?"
"You are kind to me, Meta," said the young wife. She put a hand out to the servant's arm. For some reason known only to women, the eyes of both flooded with tears.
"Yes," said Yuki, her own smile dawning, "prepare me the little dinner. I will try very hard to eat. Indeed I think even now I am becoming quite ravenous!"
Meta, laughing outright, hurried back to the kitchen. She was a good cook, and she knew it. In this same villa-kitchen she had served marvellous dishes to prime ministers and princes, but never before had she worked with a heart so full of love and tender compassion. Never was a meal more daintily served. Slices of tai from the salt waves, embellished with grated daikon and small foreign radishes; lily-bulbs dug from the hills around them and boiled with sugar and wine into balls of crumbling sweetness; lotos roots from the temple pond, sliced thin and served with vinegar, ginger-root and shoyu, salad of yellow chrysanthemums, pickles of coleus, cucumber and egg-plant, the whitest of rice, and tea picked but the week before by the dew-wet hands of little maids at Uji. Yuki was literally betrayed into enjoyment. As she ate, Meta and the old man peeped in at her through the shoji, nudging each other joyously at each new mouthful.
Later in the evening, when lamps were lighted, and the shoji all drawn close, the two servants, with that delicate familiarity, that respectful presumption of which they have made an art, found pretext to enter. At first there was but the usual salutation, and the expressions of gratitude that she had condescended to partake of such badly prepared food. One question led to another. In a few moments the three were chatting and laughing like schoolgirls, the old man bearing, in his double superiorities of age and sex, the greater share of the conversation. Yuki soon found that he had a single theme,—the perfections of Prince Haganè. More from kindness of heart than interest, she encouraged him in these reminiscences; but in a very short time she was listening as Desdemona to her Moor. The tales indeed were marvellous. Once, at the age of six, or so said Bunshichi, the little Sanètomo had gone at night alone to a distant graveyard to bring home, as proof of his courage, the severed head of a criminal that day executed. At eight he had slain with his own hand a monstrous mountain-cat, terror of a cringing village. But the story which most impressed the listener was that of a poor leper, a beggar already eaten away beyond hope of relief, who, having asked alms by the roadway, was questioned, the young prince fixing thoughtful eyes upon him, "You ask for money to buy food, is that the best gift I could offer you?"
"Nay, Master," answered the thing who once was man, "there is a better."