Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/138

freshly changed just before they had moved in, rustled a little as she shifted her weight, and a wave of warm air rose over her neck and face.

For a time she thought of nothing but the progress of the story. Unfortunately she was not sleepy.

A steam whistle blew a short blast far away. The night was really too quiet. She could not remember such quiet. She thought of waking the maid and having her move them upstairs so that the three could sleep together. But it would be a nuisance to get up. She went on reading.

The relations of the hero and heroine approached a crisis, and nothing happened. The men were unexciting … she was not likely to remember any of them. Her mind taking in almost nothing, she read on.

Slap.

It was by her pillow. Nothing before and nothing after, only the one sound. Something had fallen on the matting, that much was clear. What would it be? She could not bring herself to look. Laying the magazine down softly on the bed, she pulled her left hand in and clasped her two hands to her breast. The icy cold of the left hand sank into the other.

Her niece was staring over with narrowed eyes.

“What is it?” The aunt started up. “What is it, Setchan?”

“No!” The girl jumped up quilt and all, and buried her head on her aunt’s knee.

“I asked you to tell me what was the matter. What is it, Setchan?”

Setchan raised her head a little. “Don’t!”

The older woman threw the weight from her knee and resolutely looked beyond the head of the bed. In the alcove, several feet farther away than she would have guessed, a large crimson camellia had fallen. It lay on the matting like a turned-down bowl. They had hated to leave the camellias in their old garden and had had the agent break off an armful, which they had brought with them. The celadon vase in the alcove was full of week-old camellias.