"I understand, your Highness. But what am I to do if other visitors come?" "Ah, little Princess Hagané, it is in such straits that your experience of foreign social hypocrisy must be made to serve you. It is of imperative need that you do not leave this room after the hour of the Rat (1 P. M.). Yet it is also imperative that you receive, equally, all guests. Those unbidden you must get from the house." "It is a difficult task, Lord, but it may be done." "That is a brave wife. Remember that not only from the time of the Rat, but this hour, too, this very moment, commences your vigilance. Tale-bearers and enemies may be lurking near. If human ingenuity can keep a meeting secret this will be kept, but, alas, in a time of great issues the dragon's teeth sow spies instead of men. Do you understand all I have said, my Yuki?" "I understand, your Highness, and am honored to do your august bidding." Before leaving her he gazed for another moment steadily into her upraised face. "You are pale to-day as your name, my small snow-wife; yet your eyes move and glitter with a strange unrest." "I beseech your Highness concern not your weighty thoughts with my unimportant outer appearance." "I must not do so, indeed," murmured her husband. "My chief thought now must be my Imperial Master. Farewell, little one. I shall arrive at one, if not before." Yuki followed him to the door for a last wifely obeisance. The carriage had been waiting for some moments. After the loud rattling of wheels came a hollow silence. Yuki stood on the granite doorsteps looking outward with unseeing eyes. The house-shadow shrank closer to the huge cube that cast it. Sunshine, like a golden fluid, brimmed up the azure walls of day. From garden-beds nearby, and from path-borders leading into hazy distance, blossoms beckoned. She saw only an iridescent blur. The jinchoké (called by foreigners Daphen Odora) rose in waxen masses of white or arbutus pink. Azaleas heaped formless hillocks with Tyrian hues, and the long yellow sprays of yama-buki, to which Gwendolen had so often been compared, poised waiting for the breeze, or else tossed in bright indignation at the sudden desertion of a bird. Sweet odors flowed inward, and whispered her to follow. Still half unconsciously she stepped down to the gravelled path and began to walk in the garden.