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At that time, now a week ago, he had been pleased, and Kano irradiated. Already he was cursing himself for his pains, and crying aloud that, had he dreamed the consequences, never had the name of Tatsu crossed his lips! Ando's anticipated joys in Yeddo lay, as yet, before him. Hourly was he tormented by visits from the impatient Kano. Neither midnight nor dawn were safe from intrusion.
'When this great Deity built the palace, clouds rose up thence. Then he made an august song: 'Ya-kumo tatsu: Idzumo ya-he-gaki; Tsuma-gomi ni Ya-he-gaki-tsukuru: Sono ya-he-gaki wo! Now the temple of Yaegaki takes its name from the words of the august song Ya-he-gaki, and therefore signifies The Temple of the Eightfold Fence.
Tatsu fell down upon his knees, pulling at the old man's sleeves. "Father, father, have pity! I will be self-controlled and docile as I have been these long, long months. But now there is a thing so great that would possess me, my soul faints and sickens. Father, I ask your help, your tenderness. I think I have wronged you from the first, my father!"
She hurried back to Tatsu, seized his clenched hand with her small, icy fingers, and almost dragged him from the room. Kano sat as she had left him, motionless, now, as the white jade vase within the tokonoma. His anger, crimson, blinding at the first possession, had heated by now into a slow, white rage. All at once he began to tremble.
After the Dragon Maid was won, well then, this halting insect man need not trouble them. They left the house together, Tatsu in scowling silence at the unwelcomed comradeship, Kano hard put to it to match his steps with the boy's long, swinging mountain stride. "What am I to do with this wild falcon for a month?" thought Kano, half in despair, yet smiling, also, at the humor.
"She stands among rocks and weeds, and looks marvellously like " He broke off, thinking it better not to mention his daughter's name. "But I repeat, no dragon-thought is here." Tatsu reached out, took the picture, and tore it into shreds. Then he rose to his feet. "Good-by," he said. "I shall now make a quick returning. You are of the blind among men.
The old man would have been as surprised and far angrier than his daughter, had he known that Tatsu's pictures, stolen craftily by the confederates, Uchida and Mata, and sold in Yokohama for about a tenth of their true value, were the source of this sudden affluence. Tatsu remained ignorant, also. But, provided they took no image of Umè's face, he would not have cared at all.
Just in the midst of some specially delicate stroke, Tatsu would snatch her hands away, press them against his lips, his eyes, his throat, hurl the painting things to the four corners of the room, drag her down to his strong embrace, and triumph openly in the victory of love.
Perhaps old Kano moved so softly that he might not lose the echoes of this cry. The two men seemed alone in the silent scene. Once Tatsu thought his eye caught a swift flicker, as of a gray sleeve, but he was not sure. At any rate he would not think of it, or speculate, or marvel! He was beginning to tremble before the unknown.
In an instant more he would be gone forever. "Tatsu, wait!" almost screamed the old man. "Surely you cannot mean to return when you have but now arrived! Be seated. I insist! There is much to talk about." "I have nothing to talk about. When a thing is to be done, then it is best to do it quickly. Good-by!"
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