IX

IX

There was plenty of work at the new bank, and Kutami divided his time between it and his old affairs. In the street one morning as he was going to the bank he came upon Chukei, thenakodo, of whom he had not a thought since that day he saw him at Kudo-san’s gate.

“Good morning, Chukei-san,” he said; “what young people are you trying to make happy now?”

“Not your son, surely,” answered the middleman, instantly scenting the possibility of afortunate stroke, and bowing very low to make a good impression.

“Ho, ho!” cried Chobei, with a hearty laugh. “You are quite right. Surely not my son. He has no thought of marrying yet.”

“Be not oversure,” replied thenakodo. “One never can tell what is in the minds of these likely young fellows.”

“That is so,” returned the banker; “but I think I know my son quite well enough. I saw you coming from Kudo-san’s house a while ago. That must have been a proposal for his pretty daughter?” He chucked at his shrewdness in guessing.

Chukei was not much inclined to discuss his clients’ affairs, but he was tempted by the hope of gaining a new one, and besides, he loved a bit of gossip.

“Yes,” he answered grinning sheepishly, “and a very good proposal it was, too.”

“Indeed,” said Chobei, with neighborly interest. “I had not heard of the wedding.”

“No, and you will not,” replied the matchmaker, a little sourly, for it always angered him to think of the good business he had lost because of O-Mitsu’s refusal. “My proposal was not accepted.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed Kutami; “that is very strange. Who was the man?”

“Yamamoto-san, the silk merchant,” responded thenakodo. “His son is one of the finest young men in the city.”

“Yes, indeed,” said the banker, “I should think any man would be glad to have his daughter make such a fortunate marriage. What did Kudo-san say?”

“That was the greatest surprise,” answered old Chukei. “He said his daughter did not wish to marry.”

“Well, well!” cried the banker. “Who ever heard of a girl refusing to marry when her father wished her too? Things have changed very much in Japan when that can happen.”

“They have indeed,” replied thenakodo. “Least of all would one have thought it of Kudo-san, but it is quite true. I have been there three times since summer, each time with a very excellent marriage to offer, and always it has been the same answer.”

“I wonder what the reason can be,” said the banker thoughtfully. “It is certainly very strange. Good morning, Chukei-san,” and Chobei went on to the bank, leavingthe middleman quite uncertain whether he had made a good investment of his gossip or not.

Jukichi’s neighbors had not missed the visits of thenakodoto his house, and as he had only one daughter and there was no wedding, it was quite evident that several proposals for O-Mitsu had been rejected. It was whispered about, in Lower Timber Street, that it was the girl herself who had made the refusals. But if Jukichi had any regrets, they never appeared. He loved the spirited girl and her gentle ways about the house, and it mattered nothing to him if the neighborhood gossips talked of the scandal of a girl who dared disclose a preference of her own contrary to the wish of her father. Such a wonder might not be heard of again in all Japan. He did not care. He enjoyed his home and his ease, and she was the great factor in both.

Perhaps if he had been less fond, he might have been more suspicious. Yet it had not occurred to the simple Samurai that there could be reasons for his daughter’s hot distemper with the hopeful authors of Chukei’s vicarious proposals other than her own demonstrativedesire to remain in the old home with him. The clever girl was shrewder than he guessed. But who shall follow the blind trail of Love and pick out his footprints with the certainty which may say, “There he stepped,” or “Here he stopped,” or “See where he ran!”

There was lively interest in the house in Azalea Street that evening when Chobei recounted his conversation with thenakodo. O-Koyo listened with the kindly sympathy that ever kindles the matchmaking maternal heart. As for Soichi, he heard with a growing feeling of impending disaster that made it difficult for him to conceal his emotion. O-Mitsu had never told him anything of this, and if she had been rejoiced at the discovery of qualities in him which she had not anticipated, it was his turn to be surprised at her ability to keep to herself a subject which she knew would be so disquieting to him. He got out his little writing-box and began a letter to her. O-Koyo sighed fondly as she glanced at the corner where he sat with his ink and brush, busily covering a long roll of paper with she knew not what words.

“Ah,” she said, “if only one of the proposalshad been for Soichi perhaps she would not have refused.”

“Hut!” cried her husband sharply. “Our son marry the daughter of Kudo-san! What can you be thinking of?”

“Why not?” she replied quickly, undaunted by his scornful look. “Strange things happen nowadays. Stranger than that have happened already, why not again? We are rich and they are very poor.”

“Ah, yes,” returned Chobei soberly. “That is true. But money is not so much yet, in Japan, and many more very strange things must come to pass before it is. Besides, we are Eta and they Samurai.”

“No, no!” cried his wife, with unaccustomed daring; “we were Eta and they were Samurai. Now all that is ended, and you have the best cause to know it who were yourself associated so closely with this Kudo-san in the school. To be sure we are only Commoners yet, but who knows what may not come? If there should be war, what opportunities for advancement may it not bring? One who can do for himself what you have done may do a great deal more. Why should not you, or Soichi himself, win the promotionthat would make old Kudo-san glad to consent?”

She paused, excited and trembling, surprised at herself for making so much argument against her husband. Chobei sat looking at her in astonishment. Never before had she shown such feeling.

“Whatever is the world coming to,” he exclaimed at length, “when foolish women can talk like that!”

He filled his little pipe and exhausted the pellet of tobacco almost at one puff. But Soichi said nothing at all, and went on making his brush fly like a dragon over the paper as if he had heard not a word of their talk. O-Koyo said no more, and her husband smoked furiously, rapping his pipe on thehibachito knock out the ashes, as if he meant to smash it to pieces. At length Soichi rolled up his yards of affectionate ideographs and slipped them deftly inside the long, narrow envelope, with sprays of delicate pink cherry blossoms trailing over it. Then he went out into the night and stole down to the corner of Kudo-san’s fence. Only the plum-tree saw him slip the cap of the bamboo post and lay his love letter carefully inside. Thenhe strode off toward the path up the hill. His heart was in a tumult. Straight up to the old shrine he went, paused a moment before it, and hurried on to their trysting-place at the big rock. There he sat down, and a long time pondered the strange, exciting news he had heard that evening. When he returned he found his father still silently smoking rapid pipefuls and O-Koyo sitting beside him with never a word, her hands busy with sewing. As he entered Chobei looked up and asked:

“Where have you been?”

“I went out to walk,” answered Soichi, “and climbed up to the shrine on the hill-top.”

Perhaps it was his talk with thenakodo, perhaps it was the suggestion of his wife that had set Chobei to thinking definitely about the future of his son. Theretofore there had been only a vague recognition of the fact that sometime Soichi would marry. Now suddenly it came to him that the boy was grown to man’s estate, that the condition he half dreaded, half expected, was already come. With the realization came back the mental picture of old Chukei. It was time to look about them, he thought, to consider the possibilityof finding a suitable mate for his promising son, and, perhaps, to employ the middleman. After a time Chobei put aside his pipe and began to speak of what he had been thinking. Soichi listened like the dutiful son he was, and O-Koyo heard gladly, for even if it were not to be the beautiful daughter of the Samurai, she would be happy to see the son of whom she was so proud well married, and the daughter in the house would make her cares much lighter. When at length there came a pause in which Soichi could speak, it was with an air of quiet unconcern that he said:

“But first I must do my service in the army. If war does come, perhaps there will be no need for Chukei-san.”

Then, because they were alone in their own privacy, where no outside eye or ear might see or hear, and it was not necessary to conceal their genuine emotions, they gave full rein to the expression of their sober feelings, and the mother, who would be proudly scornful of tears or outward show of grief if the time should come to send her boy to the hardships and hazards of camps and battlefields, gave the hot, protesting drops unheeded flow. ButSoichi showed the mettle that was in him, saying calmly:

“But if the Emperor wishes it!”

Reverently the Commoner and his wife bowed at the mention of that name and the suggestion of his possible desire. There was no more loyal family in all his realm than they, and if he needed the sacrifice of all they had, and life itself, they had only to know his need to make the offering. The proudest opportunity life held was to die for him, and it was with heartfelt acquiescence that they heard their son add:

“Then I should be sorry that I had only one life to give him.”

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