Gonji pleaded for time, one, two, three more years. Moonlight was very young. They could afford to wait.
His father, at heart as soft toward his son as his wife was stern, surrendered, as always.
“Arrange it with your mother, then. I am going to Tokio for a week.”
It was a difficult subject to breach to his mother, and Gonji avoided it fearfully; nor did he mention the matter to his wife, whose wistful glance he had begun to avoid. Indeed, he saw less of his wife each day, for his mother was careful to keep the girl constantly employed in her service, and in the intervals of leisure Moonlight would go to the shrines or to the Kiyomidzu springs. Gonji, moreover, was making an effort to conceal somewhat of his affection for his wife from his mother in an effort to conciliate her; and he even made advances toward the older lady, waiting upon her with great thoughtfulness and seeming anxious for her constant comfort and happiness. But all his efforts met with satirical and acid remarks from his mother, and not for a moment did she change in her attitude to the young wife.
The subject, avoided as it had been by the young husband, was bound to come up at last. It was plain that it occupied the mind of Lady Saito at this time to the exclusion of all else. She broached it herself one morning at breakfast, when, besides her son and her daughter-in-law, Ohano was present, ostentatiously vying with the young wife in replenishing the older woman’s plate and cup.
“Now,” said Lady Saito, abruptly, turning over her rice bowl to signify her meal was ended, “it must be plain to both of you that things cannot continue as they are. The fate of all our ancestors is menaced. Come, Moonlight, lift up your head. Suggest some solution of the problem.”
“I will double my offerings at the shrines,” said the young creature, with quivering lips; and at the contemptuous movement of her mother-in-law, and the smile upon Ohano’s face, she added, desperately: “I will wear my knees out, if necessary. I will not leave the springs at all, till the gods have heard my prayer.”
Lady Saito tapped her finger irritably against the tobacco-bon. Ohano solicitously filled and lit the long-stemmed pipe, and refilled and relit it ere the mother of Gonji spoke again.
“Of course, it is very hard. So is everything in life—hard! We learn that as we grow older; but there are the comforting words of the philosophers. You should study well the ‘Greater Learning for Women.’ Really, my girl, you will find there is even a satisfaction in unselfishness.”
Two red spots, hectic and feverish, stole into the waxen cheeks of the young wife. Her fingers writhed mechanically. Her eyes were riveted in fascination upon the face of the one who had tormented her now for so long. Wayward, passionate, savage impulses swept over her. She felt an intense longing to strike out—just once!
Something was touching her hand. Her fingers closed spasmodically about Gonji’s. A sob rose stranglingly in her throat, but she held herself stiffly erect. Death, she felt, would be preferable, rather than that they should see how she was suffering.
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