"But _why_ is a man satisfied with a hand--even two--when by a strong arm he might have--" she stopped to sigh and to look into the round mirror which the maid was holding up to her--"all!"
"All of what?" asked the astonished maid.
"Me! This."
"Oh!" said the maid.
"If a man calls a girl an angel when he thinks he is in heaven, he has no business to call her only--" she stopped and sniffed disdainfully at the word--"_pleasant_ when he finds he is not."
"What would you, then, have him to call you on earth?" questioned the puzzled maid.
"Angel still."
"Permit him a little time, mistress."
"Time! Time! What do you call time, you ignorant one? It was fifteen minutes! Yes! We had been talking fifteen minutes when he said I was a _pleasant_ person! After saying I was an angel!"
"Oh!" said Isonna--which Hoshiko took for reproof.
"I have known him two weeks!"
"Yes," agreed the maid.
"And if you speak--if you suggest again, that which twice nearly escaped your lips, I will kill you. One night you will lie down, and, into your horrid, tattling mouth, I will pour, as you sleep, a something which will prevent you from ever rising. I have it always ready for you."
"But, your father?" whined Isonna.
"I, not my father, am speaking now!"
"I will be silent," agreed the maid.
"What is the use to take the trouble to tell him? Soon he will go and forget both us and that--what is the use?"
"I will be silent," said the maid, again. "I do not wish to die."
"And then--O Jizo, punish him!" She broke off and addressed another of her goddesses. "And then he had the unparalleled audacity to ask me what I had been doing with him all the while he has been here! After he had said angel repeatedly! O Jizo, punish him!"
"Well, well," comforted the maid, "why did you not inform him? Surely that was not difficult!"
"Oh! it was not, eh? Well, you blind little beast, do you _know_ what I _have_ been doing?"
"You have recovered him from his illness with the utmost tenderness and beauty," said the maid.
"Oh, you little fool!" cried her mistress, first striking her, then embracing her; "I have been falling in love with him. It happened that day they carried him into the house of Han-Hai, where live three daughters, all unmarried. You saw it; you were present! Do you not remember how beautiful and bloody he was? His eyes were closed, the sun shone in his face, and that was pale with here and here the windings of a bandage, like an aureole. Oh, how we both wept! He was so young; and we thought that we could heal him with great care! We wept. My father did the one thing which would stop our tears--brought, him here!"
"Yes--yes!" agreed Isonna.
"Now! Shall I tell him?"
"Oh, no, Lady Hoshi, no! That is a dreadful thing to do," sighed the maid.
"It is not dreadful. It is beautiful."
"But, dear, dear mistress, you must not love a man. That is what your father pays me to prevent!"
"Well, you haven't prevented it. And I shall tell my father, and he, also, will kill you and get me some one who is more useful. That is two killings for you!"
"But I did not know, mistress! Perhaps I do not know love."
"You do not, Isonna. For it has been right under your nose these two weeks. After all, I will not tell my father. For he might give me a maid who would not be as pretty as you," and she hugged Isonna, who was not pretty at all. "And in exchange for my mercy you must not be odious, but recognize that it is too late. Is it a bargain?"
Well, any bargain the lovely Hoshi might propose to the plain Isonna would meet with her approval, though it should mean her death the next instant, and so this one was approved.
ANGEL OF THE EARTH-HEAVEN
XI
ANGEL OF THE EARTH-HEAVEN
Now, the next day, Arisuga, laughing, greeted her with that very word--"angel"! Perhaps he did hear a bit of their talk. For the walls between them were very thin. This was the way of it: He clapped his hands so early in the morning that he was amazed at the despatch with which she arrived. But we are not. For we know that she was waiting just outside of his screens to be called. She meant to dissemble and pretend that she was at a distance. But you can fancy how instantly she forgot that when he called:--
"Angel! Angel of my earth-heaven!" Though there are no angels in the Japanese heavens.
You have seen that, in her presence, he had forgotten his caution!
Observe, now, that he did likewise in her absence! What end but one could there be to such recklessness!
"Stand there! I want to look at you!" he cried when she came. For the light of the morning was in her face--and the light of love, too! "By your Jizo," he said, then, "I am glad you are _not_ an angel!
"Cherry blooms are very pink, But not so pink as you are!"
he sang, laughing, and her heart was so choked with ecstasy that she had to put both hands to her face and run from the room hearing him still call "Angel" after her.
"O Benten," she cried to the goddess of beauty in her room, "that is different! He is not careful now--he is awake to-day! _We_ must beware of him! There is danger!"
And at once she returned--with the water for his bath!
For, that was always her way: when he would say something to make her heart leap into her mouth, to fly from him in the direst panic, suborn the goddess, then hasten back to have it happen again.
"A heart is a strange thing," she laughed to him. "Sometimes it is here (at the proper place for it), sometimes here (in her throat), and sometimes here (in her sandals)."
"And sometimes," laughed the young soldier, "one's heart, which should be here (in his own bosom), is there (in hers)."