He would have cried out, but words seemed a mockery; gathered her in his arms, had it not been vulgar; touched her with his lips, were not the flesh a repulsive thing; entranced her with a look, coaxed her with promises, inveigled her with deception, stolen her, coerced her, done anything to get her--but the tenets of his religion forbade. Numberless generations of denial had made of him a man. All the instincts of brute being stood lost behind the ages of progressive enlightenment. The tutelage of an ancestry that fancy painted looking down with each star twinkle, that science tore from the hard face of phenomenon, that existence itself proclaimed with every heart-beat, guided this man and this woman toward an only rational attainment, to a predestined, uncontrollable end. Man in his weakness had thought differently--no age had brought forth more than conformity, here or elsewhere on earth; history, travel, and science had proven that, and these men and women were not devoid of understanding--had conceived the earth as of heaven, conjured their state to be coexistent with the earth, and made man at once a master and its slave: woman had become the handmaid of fortune, the instrument of fate, and the idol of the gods. Ieyasu pondered, and Yodogima wrought. Clothed in garments that obliterated all trace of form or suggestion, of a texture that hid the weave and a making that disclosed no stitch, yet displayed a handiwork as perfect as it was simple; her hair waved and fastened round without an ornament or a device that could be seen; her feet sandalled in earthen-like wood, and her nails pink and cheeks olive and eyes trustful, Yodogima revealed in her presence and strove with a purpose all that time had been able to wrest from an humbler beginning. The green turf, the broken sky line, birds of plumage and the fragrance of flowers, the open expanse or covered nook, all bespoke a care and a concern intended to move and to weld mankind. Yodogima remained seated, underneath the shade, amid an environment made, not creative. The sun drove its rays fiercer and more propellingly against Ieyasu's stand. It remained for him to give; she could but receive. Love beamed from every distance, floated in close upon them, arose subtilely within, grew hard without, compelling, exacting, and vital. Ieyasu strode down the chiselled steps--overcome with the joy of doing, forgetful of every mandate in restraint--and falling upon his knees before her, whispered: "Yodogima, I love you." Her song only quickened, then lowered a little, perhaps the least bit pathetically. There was neither exultation nor regret, though for the moment a faint realization of duty--arising from a constantly receding past, battling against an urgently progressive present--flushed apparently, then whitened perceptibly her face: she sang more sweetly, if less deeply, than before. Ieyasu's eyes fell to the pebbled floor and his soul seared with anticipation.