Even surly Tetsujo smiled as this fair vision stood upon the doorstone. Little Maru set the high lacquered clogs with pink velvet thongs in readiness. Iriya held out the long black adzuma-coat, while old Suzumè shook odors of incense and sandalwood from the crêpe folds of the head-kerchief called "dzukin."
"Sayonara danna san! (master!) Sayonara o jo san!" called the three women on their knees in the doorway.
"Sayonara, arigato gozaimasu!" (I thank you!) cried Yuki in return, waving a slender hand from the side of the jinrikisha. Tetsujo seemed not to hear.
The unusual proximity brought to the girl, and, as she justly surmised, to Tetsujo also, an unwholesome embarrassment. Each met the difficulty in a characteristic way,—Yuki by throwing her full interest into flashing street scenes about her; Tetsujo by a morose withdrawal into his feudal shell. Twice Yuki spoke concerning some sight that gave her pleasure. Her father's discouraging reply, in both cases, was a grunt. On the slope of Tabata he got out, shook himself like a great dog, and sent Yuki on in the jinrikisha until level land was reached. The girl thought sadly of another hill-ascent, so short a time before; of Tetsujo's kind, loving face as he mounted the slope of Kobinata, his hand on the arm of her little vehicle, his eyes free to her own. Now she was being carried by this same father before a judge, before a man who could help to rule his empire, and yet who, if her fears proved stable, now stooped to coerce a wilful girl.
The entrance gate and court of the Tabata villa had taken on, strangely, the look of its master. The gate was of unpolished cedar, studded with brass nails half a foot across, and barred with hinges that might have swung a hill. The massive panels now stood hospitably ajar. Above them leaned a single pine, red-stemmed and tall, of the indigenous Japanese variety. It, too, resembled Haganè. The house beyond was but little larger or more pretentious than that of Onda the kerai; but the variety of woods used in finishing bespoke both taste and great wealth. The roof, with its dark-blue scalloped tiling was edged at the rim with flattened discs of baked clay, and in the centre of each, in rough intaglio, curved the crest of the Haganè clan.
Sombre shoji opened, before the visitors had time to dismount. Just within, a superb suitatè, or single screen of gold, painted in snow-laden bamboo trees, shut out interior vistas. Yuki was conducted to a woman's apartment, where she could remove her wraps and examine her shining blue-black coiffure for a misplaced hair. Tetsujo strode to the guest-room. At sight of Prince Haganè seated, still alone, he gave a great sigh of relief. Haganè turned with a smile,—"You love not our foreign friends, good Tetsujo."
"I love them as our cat loves pickled plums, my liege."
Haganè laughed indulgently. "At least you can distinguish the men from the women,—be sure to give me the signal should one of the young males prove to be he who was with Yuki on the hatoba, and who so rudely forced an entrance to your premises."
"I shall not forget," said Tetsujo.
The wide room was unchanged but for an unusually elaborate flower-composition in the tokonoma (recess). A most valuable set of pictures, three in number, and all mounted alike on priceless brocade, filled the soft, gray tinted space beyond the flowers.