s 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)."

"And again," she rioted with him, "one's heart, which was here (in
herself), is gone--gone--utterly gone--"

"That is quite proper," the soldier said. "For if you kept your own, you
would have two and I none!"

"It is trying to get out!" she cried in mock alarm, holding it in.

"Let it come!"

But, just then, they heard the sigh of a moving screen, and the acid
face of Hoshiko's mother looked in. She said nothing, only let her eyes
rove from face to face. But that was very cooling. She closed the shoji
and went away--apparently.

Now, for the benefit of her mother, whom she knew to be still behind the
fusuma, Hoshiko tried to look very severe. She had taken the poppies
from behind her ear and had pinned a napkin about her hair, and turned
up the sleeves of her kimono, making herself all the lovelier as she
very well knew in this fashion of a nurse.

"You are to wash your hands in this cold water to refresh you. Then I
will take it away and bring you other water for your face."

But, in the end, she washed his hands for him, and his face, too, amid a
great deal of laughter and splashing.

"And now," he said, "I will take every advantage of my defenceless
enemy. I will make her give me my breakfast."

Though she demurred, Hoshiko was quite mad to do it.

"Beware!" she whispered, as she let a persimmon slip from between her
chopsticks into his mouth. "In the East, walls have not only ears but
eyes!"

"And no conscience!"

"What would you?"

She hoped that he might desire walls without senses, where they might be
fearlessly alone.

"Another persimmon!" he laughed.

"No," she pouted, for his punishment, "nothing but the rice."

"Not all the hard hearts," he sighed, "are behind the walls!"

Then she gave him the most luscious of the persimmons.

"You haven't told me yet," he insisted, "what I did and what you did
while I was unconscious. That is always interesting."

She filled his mouth with rice.

"But what did you do and what did I do?"

It came through the rice.

"Please drink," she said.

"What did you do, what did I do?" he sputtered.

"Pardon me while I wipe your mouth."

"But what--"

"Nothing. I did nothing, you did nothing."

"It must have been very dull for you," sighed the defeated soldier.

"