Then she marvelled the seeming vanity of all that is more than crude, and out of the black there rushed the possible saving grace of man's own involution-both prayer and confession had failed to wrest her from worse than perdition. "That woman enjoy my husband's favor, in a castle of her own, because she is more than I? Hugh! I'll see her humbled." "Otoshi?" "Yes, my lady." "Fetch the smelling-salts, and my vanity case. Further, I shall not require your service, perhaps, till the sun is risen--at Ozaka." CHAPTER XVI The castle at Ozaka now stood in the main finished, and with Yodogima's occupancy and the kwambaku's favor at once sprang into prominence; not only as a strategic point of first importance, but as the very seat of empire socially, possibly politically, rivaling in all respects, if not eclipsing, Kyoto, the capital and ruling post since the days of Kwammu, some eight hundred years before. This tendency on the part of the barons, to centralize all things at the new seat of power, did not meet with Hideyoshi's broader views; he was democratic at heart, and beside a better judgment may have preferred "toadyism," if such there must be, at long range. He had fought his way into the foremost rank, not to tear down existing institutions or to substitute one man for another in authority or to profit personally at the expense of others: he would rise, no doubt to a heavenly sphere, but in that should not disturb earthly conditions--it were the individual, refractory and crude, who must be thrashed into peaceful, tolerant attitudes--would carve out a new place or adapt himself to an old one, enabling direction and enforcement in a manner at once effective and for the betterment of all mankind. A laudable thought, perhaps, and with an organization in keeping with his power to subjugate Hideyoshi might have become in truth a god--self-made, self-standing, and self-perpetuating: as he no doubt planned and fairly believed within the doing of man. Purposing to distribute and maintain separately these greater divisions of human interest and essential development, the kwambaku had as wisely or unwisely sent Ieyasu into the newer regions at Tokyo, hoping to transfer as far as possible from their capital, not only a possible rival, but the larger business activities of the empire; he had left the mikado, his court and the kuge (royalty) at Kyoto, best fitted as he believed by environment and tradition to perpetuate authority on the one hand and engender respect on the other; with religion or society in the narrower sense he had little to do and much less concern: both seemed essential or vital to priest or layman, nobleman or peasant alike, hence the better adapted without seat or prestige to encourage, less deny; his own fortress he believed well established at Ozaka.