were times when he had to help her up on broken walls and
over fallen sculptures. And more and more as he possessed her thus for
one day he wanted to possess her indefinitely. For the hands were very
soft, the eyes luminous, the small body where it touched his exquisite.

He found it hard to believe--that, like a courtezan, she would beg him
to stay. Yet, it was for but one day! No woman of joy would stop there!
At last he spoke:--

"Were you educated in Japan--or China, angel of my earth-heaven?" he
asked of her.

"In China, lord, such things as a girl learns after three years, but in
the Japanese way entirely."

There was little enlightenment in that.

"And have you known many men?"

"Yes," she answered at once, thinking that was what he wished.

"No!" cried Isonna.

The two girls turned together. Hoshiko was about to chastise the maid.
But she was terrified at the pallor of her face. Nevertheless she
insisted, with a certain pathetic dignity:--

"I said--yes!"

"I say no!" stubbornly cried the maid. "None! none!"

Arisuga deprecatingly waved his hand, and courteously believed what they
disagreed about.

"What does it matter?" he said.

But the maid whispered tragically to her mistress:--

"See what you have done!"

"What?" asked Hoshiko.

The maid's whisper was sinister.

"Do you wish him to think that you have been any one's? Every one's?
That is why he asked."

"It is not!" protested Hoshiko. "He asked to learn how many others love
me."

"And why should he ask that?"

"Because _he_ loves me," was Hoshiko's enigmatic answer.

There was no time at this moment for further explication. Arisuga had
evidently decided something which was in his mind when he asked his
first question, and Hoshiko fancied that his decision was against her.
For he laughed (not as she would have wished him to laugh), and took an
almost rude and assured possession of her.

"When the mistress says yes and the maid says no, one must believe his
eyes, which say it is improbable that so fair a flower has bloomed
unseen even in this arid plain of China!"

"You think, then, that I _have_ had--twenty lovers?" asked Hoshiko.

"Certainly," laughed Arisuga.

"No!" still cried the maid in her terror. "You believe, lord, that she
has had none--not one--until you came!"

"Certainly," laughed the soldier again.

The two girls looked at each other dazedly. Arisuga laughed again in
that unpleasant way.

"Now he will neve