my there is
neither eta nor samurai. All are equal. All are sons of the emperor.
This is Yamato Damashii. The New Japan! And I am Shijiro Arisuga! That
is the end!"

And it was the end. Here was a soldier who could vanquish the Medusa
mother of Hoshiko by the cold process of words.

"Witnesses! Sake! I will not leave this lady again until she is my
wife!"

And so terrible was this Shijiro Arisuga in his wrath that everything
happened as he ordered--and they were married. I wish they might have
lived happily ever after. But it was only a few glad weeks. Yet, in
those little days and hours, she did what she had threatened: crept into
his heart so deeply that he was never to dislodge her quite until he
died. And it was here Shijiro Arisuga thought for the second time,
without suspicion to mar it, that the happiest moment of his life had
come.

Fancy the joy of it all! Sure, I cannot tell it. I have no fit words. It
was infinitely better than either had dreamed. The dainty little
creature known as Hoshiko bloomed into splendor as Madame
Shijiro--perhaps because she had no thought--absolutely none--for
anything but him. And he was daily more and more amazed at the number of
thoughts he spent upon her, who, he had once fancied, he could leave
behind for some one else--for many others.

Indeed, it came to such a state that he had little thought for anything
but her. The military death was forgotten--Yone was.

"Now if we dream," he laughed to her one day, "take heed that we do not
wake. For this dream is such as I have never dreamed before. In it are
perfumes and melodies, caresses and touches, passions and calms, sleeps
and wakings, and all delights."

"And you," laughed his wife, flinging herself upon him.

"And you," he laughed back, not putting her away.

"And that thing the foreigners call love."

"Grown larger in our sunny East than they know it in their chilly West!"
added her husband.

TO THE EMPEROR

XVIII

TO THE EMPEROR

But the little paradise she had made for him there was one day invaded
by two soldiers with some mysterious order, the command of which was
that he must rejoin his regiment at once, though there was now no war.

"It is 'on to the emperor,'" laughed Arisuga, "and I must go. I had
forgotten--thank _you_! Forgotten the emperor! The death!"

"Is it far to the emperor?" asked his little wife.

"Yes," sighed and laughed Arisuga, rubbing her cheek against his--you
know