He drew a short, impatient sigh. "The princess resides again with her own people in Choshiu. But these matters have interest for none but me. Hark, is that not the hour of noon now striking? I must dismiss you." She rose instantly at his words. He followed with more deliberation. She turned to the door, then wavered back to him, distressed evidently by thoughts she shrank from voicing.
"Speak, child," he said kindly, "no mad haste is necessary. Say what you will."
Still she moved soundless lips. In some inexplicable way she had fallen short. It was not only that she felt she had not reached his highest expectations, but, more definitely, she had failed to reach her own. Her acquired Americanism crackled on her, like a useless husk. She thirsted for new strength. Before her stood one able to give it, yet she could find no words to ask. "It is ten—weeks before I can start home, Lord," she managed at last to articulate. "I am only a girl, but I would die for Nippon, for my Emperor. What—what—" Again she faltered.
Haganè took a small hand in his own and smiled reassurance. "Only the very young and inexperienced think it necessary to state willingness to die for a country. Give me the coming thought."
"In these last weeks what can I do,—what can I suffer,—how shall I pray,—that I may make myself worthy of return?"
The smile on the overhung dark face saddened into a look far tenderer than smiling. Yuki felt virtue, like a fluid, rush through her from his touch. "Keep always to the thought that you are Nipponese,—that you guard, in yourself, an immortal spirit, powerful for good or ill. Let not the tendrils of your outreaching soul cling to alien ideals, for, if so, each in the twining means a wrench and a scar, and the unscarred soul is sweeter to the gods. Think nothing of the body,—of personal desires, of personal reward. Say to yourself always, 'It is enough to be a Nipponese.'"
Yuki was already stilled and comforted. "Lord," she said, lifting brave eyes, "I think it true that the lowliest among us, through self-striving, may become a god. My little spark of light has slept until this moment. I can never again be quite the same girl who came into this room. I will curve the memory of your words about my spirit, as one shields his candle from a wind."
"In Nippon I see you next, my Yuki. And now, 'Sayonara,' till that time."
"Sayonara," whispered Yuki, and hurried out into a new day.