“We have once more mistaken our names,” said she who was the Princess Sado-ko.
“Oh, true. Now call me Sado-ko! No, call me noble princess, most divine, exalted, august, royal princess! Call me so!”
“A princess is not so addressed,” replied the other, smiling, “save sometimes by a servile, ignorant one.”
“I fear I will be sure to make the most absurd mistakes.”
“So! Then the whole court will call it ‘A new caprice of the foolish Princess Sado-ko.’”
“Again, if you please—call me Sado-ko.”
“Princess Sado-ko!”
“Masago!”
“Nay, call me simply ‘sister,’” said the other, in a trembling voice.
“Sister—there! Does not this beauteous robe become me well?”
“As though it were made alone for you, Masago.”
“No, no,—Princess Sado-ko!”
“I bow my humble head unto the dust, most royal Princess Sado-ko!”
In mock humility the new Masago bowed before the old Masago.
“Yet,” said the latter, with her red lips pursed in thought, “they say it is the latest fashion of the court to wear the foreign style of dress. Is it not so?”
“Yes. It is so.”
“Oh, joyful! Such beautiful and gorgeous gowns as I shall wear. I will send at once to all the most famous foreign cities. Let me see,—to Holland, and to—”
“The Princess Sado-ko never liked the foreign gown,” interrupted the other, shaking her head a trifle sadly.
“But you spoke just now of the caprices of that same Princess Sado-ko. She has already another one.”
Then up and down the room, in the long, trailing robe of Princess Sado-ko, walked, peacock-like, the maiden Masago; while close at hand, with dreamy face and dewy eyes, clad in a simple crêpe kimono, and with flowers—no longer jewels—in her hair, stood Sado-ko.
“Tell me,” said the vain and eager Masago, “when the noble Prince Komatzu shall greet me so,”—she bowed with assumed gallantry—“will I bow thus?” Down to the mat she bent her head.
“Why, no; but thus.” Gracefully, simply she illustrated. “A low, but not too low, obeisance. You are of equal rank, Masa—princess!”
“So—like this?”
“No; this way.”
“Well, it will take me twenty hours to practise thus. I will not sleep till I accomplish it.”
“Oh, you will learn. Bow as you will, Masago. Komatzu will declare your mood has changed, and still insist that you are fair.”
Stooping in her posing, Masago stared a moment at the other.
“Perhaps already he has whispered words of love to you, then?” Her voice was sharply jealous.
“No, my cousin does not know me quite as yet. You will make him better acquainted with Princess Sado-ko.”
“Ah, that I will!”
She raised her long, slim arms from out the graceful sleeves. Her hands she clasped behind her head.
“Oh, what a glorious dream it is!” she said; then, in quick alarm, “A dream? Say that it is not all a dream.”
But Sado-ko sat staring quietly into the future. When she raised her eyes, they softly gleamed.
“A dream it is—a dream, and yet—Oh, Kuonnon, let us not awake!”
“Ah, how can you be so glad—you who are to stay here only Masago?”
“Masago,” repeated the other, softly. “That is well.” She raised a flushing face. “I am like a bird set free, Masago. My very voice is sore to sing.”
Masago threw herself upon the floor beside her.
“That is how I feel, also,” she said.
They smiled into each other’s faces, then drew closer together, their sympathy for each other growing.
“Here is some homely counsel,” said Masago. “Confide small matters to my mother, and lead her on to gossip much with you. She will tell you everything there is to know. She is so simple—so foolish. A little wit upon your part will quickly disarm any suspicion she might have. But be not free in speech with Yamada Kwacho, your new father. A cold and constrained space has always been between us. Do not let the children disturb you with their prattle, and oh, also, pray you show some pride to certain neighbors, for none in all the town have had the same up-bringing as Masago.”
“And is that all,—these simple facts that I must heed to be Masago?”
“All. It is a dull and simple life.”
“And you. Pray trust not the ladies of my suite. They do most heartily detest the Princess Sado-ko, who is given to seclusion, which has often deprived them of much gay pleasures of the new court.”
“But I will change all that,” said Masago.
“That is true.” She sighed. “Well, then, there is nothing else to say. But stay! My maiden, Natsu-no. Oh, pray you, dear Masago, treat her with the greatest kindness, will you not?”
“I will.”
“She is even now without this room, waiting for me, with that dear patience with which she watches and guards me at all times. You know, Masago, she has been with me since I was but a baby. Alas, I shall suffer for her loss!”
Tears for a moment dimmed the eyes of Sado-ko.
“What more?” asked Masago, surveying with delight the width and beauty of her obi.
“What else? Well, Masago, there is one other matter. In the garden of the Palace Nijo there hangs an open cage, just without my chamber. It is the home of my dear nightingale.”
“A bird?”
“A little bird. Listen, there is a pretty story you would like to hear. Once in the spring, while I was yet a little girl, and grieving for my most beloved grandmother, his Majesty, the Emperor, sent me as a gift of consolation a nightingale within a golden cage. It sang so sweetly to me that I was entranced with delight, and when the days were warm would hang the cage upon my balcony. The garden close at hand was fragrant with the odor of the cherry and the plum, and allured many other nightingales to make their home there. The little birds noticed their play-mate in the cage, and when, at evening, they saw no one in sight—for I was hidden behind my shoji screen—they would approach the cage, and sing all merrily together. These honorably sweet serenades gave me double joy, as you may imagine, and I soon learned to distinguish the voices without and that one within the cage. At first I thought the song of my own bird within the cage sounded sweeter even than those without. Then in a little while it became hard to distinguish them, and at last I could not hear the voice of my small nightingale at all.”
She paused a moment, as though in thought, then resumed, her eyes sweet with moisture.
“I pondered over this odd change, Masago, and then I thought that it must be because those without enjoyed their freedom in the open air, while my poor little bird was shut within the narrow limits of its cage.”
Her eyes became more tender still as she proceeded.
“So I opened wide the door, Masago, and let my little bird go free.”
“Why, then,” spoke the other, “it is gone. How foolish you were, Sado-ko.”
The princess shook her head.
“I thought, like you, that it would fly far, far away, but no! It only flew above my head a space, then soft alighted on a cherry tree close by, and filled the air with its sweet song.”
“But since?”
“Since then, Masago, the cage is always opened wide. Yet still the nightingale makes its home within.”
“It is a pretty tale,” said Masago, thoughtfully, “but I should fear to lose the bird.”
She arose and began once more to survey the long folds of her silken gown.
Sado-ko looked at her in silence, an expression of wistfulness about her eyes.
“It must be late,” said Masago. “The fog is thick without. Should I not go now?”
Silently the princess arose.
“You are eager to try the new life,” she said, smiling sadly, then sighing.
“Yes, I am eager,” said Masago. “Who would not be?”
“Oka, the guide, is without, Masago. He is safe, is he not?”
“Oh, surely.”
“Then there will be no peril in your return to Aoyama?”
“Oh, none,” said Masago, then hesitated a moment. “But I do not think I will go there to-night.” She appeared to be turning something over in her mind. The princess watched her doubtful face.
“I would much rather go to Tokyo straightway,” said Masago.
“That is well, then,” the other assented. “But first you will need to go up to the palace, for there your attendants still remain. Then I would advise that you leave to-night by norimono. Speak little to the maiden, Natsu-no, who is keen-eared and keener eyed; but if you so desire, make inquiries of the Madame Bara, the chaperone. She is absent-minded and stupid.”
“I do not wish to travel by norimon,” said Masago. Then clasping her hands, she said, “Oh, I have long desired to travel in great royal state in a private train, such as it is said the Prince Komatzu uses.”
“Very well, then. But give your orders at the palace. You will be obeyed. And now—you are going?”
“Shaka! I begin to tremble.”
“And I,” said Sado-ko, tremulously.
“Will not the maid discover—”
“Masago, bear in mind, the maid is but a maid. Treat her so.”
“Ah, true! Yet you bade me be most kind to her.”
“Kind, but not familiar.”
“Oh, I will try. Now, what must I do to call her?”
“Why, clap your hands.”
“So simple a signal for a princess?”
“Yes. Just so. I will illustrate.”
Her little signal sounded sharp and clear. Masago started and trembled at its sound. Then she turned toward the opening doors. She heard the low voice of the princess whispering close beside her.
“Speak to her. Say, ‘Maid, take up the light.’”
Masago walked with faltering steps toward the doors. Her voice shook a moment, then raised in nervousness, it sounded oddly harsh.
“Take up the light!” she said.
But at her voice the sleepy Natsu-no started, turned, and looked up at her face in wide-eyed surprise and growing fear; then her eyes went slowly to that other one, now with her back toward her near the shadow of the shoji, the bright outline of her huge obi bow alone in the light. Natsu-no, shaking and trembling, advanced a pace toward her, glancing fearfully meanwhile at that object standing there in her mistress’s habiliments, yet in so strange and unfamiliar aspect.
Masago moved to cover her intense nervousness. The maid’s voice quavered.
“Exalted princess, I—I—” She stammered over her words. Self-confidence asserted itself in Masago. She raised her head imperiously.
“Take up the light and follow me!” she said.
Trembling, dumb, and horror-stricken, the maid obeyed, for she had caught one quick, clear glimpse of that sweet other face.
