Iriya laughed, a merry, low laugh, as young as Yuki's own.
"I thank you, Suzumè; but do you realize that the master sits alone in the zashiki, with no tea, no coal, no—"?
"Dō-mo!" exclaimed the old woman, and scrambled rapidly to her feet. "But I become more and more the fool with age, as a tree gathers lichen. I will attend."
"Be at leisure, honorable, ancient relative; I will fetch the tea," said Maru.
"No," cried Yuki, suddenly stretching out a hand; "I want to take it just as I used to as a little girl. I think it will please my father. Let me take it, Suzumè San!"
Maru paused with round, incredulous eyes. "Arà!" cried old Suzumè, scarcely knowing whether she were the more pleased or astonished. "A fashionable, wonderful young lady, educated in America, with numberless young Japanese noblemen waiting to marry her,—and she wishes to bear the tray like a tea-house musumè! Ma-a-a! How strange! Yet it is a good desire. The mistress's face shines with it. It shows your heart has not changed color, o jo san. I will prepare at once. Come, lazy fatling!" This last remark was of course addressed to Maru.
In his wide, dim zashiki, or reception-room,—analogous to the drawing-room of the West,—Tetsujo sat alone. He was glad for a moment of solitude. His mind did not move swiftly on any subject. The bewilderment of his first vision of Yuki, changed from a clinging Japanese child to an alert, self-possessed American, had not altogether passed. Then that bobbing, blue-eyed he-creature on the hatoba,—he had given sour food for thought. What language was it that the thing had tried to speak, what wish to utter? Well, at least Yuki was safe now among her home people, away from the influence of all such mountebanks. In a few days she would be wishing to don again her Japanese dress, and then he could begin to believe he had a child.
The Onda residence faced directly to the north, thus giving the big guest-chamber and the outlying garden a southern exposure. Two sides of the room, the south and the west, had removable shoji. The inner walls were partly of plaster, partly of sliding, opaque panels of gold, called fusuma. These were painted in war-like designs by Kano artists. To-day the western shoji were all closed; but the sun, just reaching them, shed a mellow tone of light throughout the room. All southern shoji were out, admitting, as it were, the fine old garden as part of the decoration of the room. The day had deepened into one of those quite common to the Tokio winter, where the sunshine battles with a white glamour, scarcely to be called mist, and yet with the softening tone of it. No young spring growth was waking in the garden. All was sombre-green, ochre, or cold gray,—pines and evergreen azaleas, heaped rocks, stone lanterns, bridge, and the pear-shaped water of a pond. In line and structure the garden was still a thing of beauty, planned in an artist's mind. It had the look of a stained-glass window done in faded hues, of old tapestry, of wrought metal. At the corner of the guest-room veranda stood a huge old plum-tree just coming into white bloom.
Smiling Yuki, in tailor-made American gown and black stockings, brought in the tray and knelt before her father. The old warrior flushed with pleasure. "Why, this is better than I could have thought!"
"I told you I was just your little girl," said Yuki. "And oh, father, I do feel so queerly young and real again! I see everything around me just as I wish. It is like making things come true in dreams." Tetsujo caught her by a slender shoulder, looking deep, deep into answering eyes. For once, no troubled thoughts rose to blur the vision. Suddenly he smiled. "Then make my dream come true, my Yuki; remove the shapeless foreign garment."