his rice-bowl in some surprise. The relations
between these two, though externally kind, had never approached
intimacy. Kano indeed idolized his adopted son with pathetic and
undisguised fervor; but with Tatsu, though other things might have been
forgiven, the old man's continued disrespect to his daughter's memory,
his refusal to join even in the simplest ceremony of devotion, kept
both him and old Mata chilled and distant. The one possible
explanation,--aside from that of wanton cruelty,--was a thing so
marvellous, so terrible in implied suggestion, that the boy's faint
soul could make for it no present home; let it drift, a great luminous
nebula of hope, a little longer on the rim of nothingness.

The answer now to Kano's question betrayed a hint of the more rational
animosity.

"You had never seemed to desire it. And I have my place of worship
here."

"Yes, I know. Of course I knew that!" the other hurried on in some
agitation. Then he paused, as if uncertain how to word the following
thought. "I do wish it!" he broke forth, with an effort. "I make
request now that you go with me, this very day, at twilight."

"If it is your honorable desire," said Tatsu, bowing in indifferent
acquiescence. A moment later he had finished his meal, and rose to go.

Kano moved restlessly on the mats. He drew out the solace of a little
pipe, but his nervous fingers fumbled and shook so, that the slim rod
of bamboo tipped with silver escaped him, and went clattering down
among the empty dishes of the tray. Mata's apprehensive face showed
instantly at a parting of the kitchen fusuma. She sighed aloud, as she
noted a great triangle chipped from the edge of an Imari bowl. Only
two of those bowls had remained; now there was but one.

"Tatsu, my son, may I depend upon you? This day, as soon as the light
begins to fail?"

Tatsu, in the doorway, paused to look. Evidently the speaker struggled
with a strong excitement. Something in the twitching face, the eager,
shifting eyes, brought back a vision of that meal on the evening that
preceded Ume's death, when she and her father had leaned together,
whispering, ignoring him, and afterward had left the house, giving him
no hint of their errand. He felt with dread a premonition of new
bitterness.

"I shall be ready at the twilight hour," he said, and went to his room.

That afternoon Tatsu did little painting. Silent and motionless as one
of the frames against the wall,