"She was seen last coming in this direction," said a speaker; "Ii, the gardener, saw her."
"She is not in the adzuma-ya! Can it be that our gracious lady has gone for repose to the tea-rooms?"
"Baka!" exclaimed the other whom she now recognized as Tora, the butler; "is not that great official residence sad enough and lonely, that the poor child seeks a more desolate place? I pity her."
"Luncheon becomes honorably cold upon the table," murmured the boy, showing compassion in his own way. "And foreign food when chilled, with the grease becoming as wax about the edges, is of all sights the most disgusting."
"Arà," sighed Tora, "she eats little enough even when the food is hot."
"Those many disgraceful things said of our lady in the newspapers,"—the younger servant was beginning, when Tora stopped him fiercely. "Gossip not of your betters, boy! You should not read such things. There are no truths in printed scandals. Come, not that way, she is not in the tea-rooms. I see a fresh disturbance of the gravel along this path."
To the listener's intense relief they turned sharply to the left. Wide awake now with an intensity of sensitiveness that made every stirring leaf an enemy, the young wife crept outward from between two shoji, closing them with the extreme of care. In full sight, on the veranda, lay her little foreign handkerchief. No other woman on the place used lace-bordered handkerchiefs. Tora must have seen and recognized it, and, in an instant, perhaps, of protection, have led the boy aside. Yuki's cheek burned. She dared not think Tora's thoughts. This humiliation was a wound made with a weapon of poor metal, yet she could not, even then, refuse gratitude for the delicate consideration.
As the two servants came again into the main part of the garden, their mistress walked quite leisurely a few yards before, stooping now and then to a flower, or gazing up with smiles to a blossoming cherry-branch.
"Luncheon is served, your Ladyship," said Tora, gravely, and bowed before her in the path.
"I will come immediately," returned Yuki. She did not meet his eyes.