Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/95

“Master, let me see the tattoo on my back! If you have given me your soul, I must indeed have become beautiful.”

She spoke as in a dream, and yet in her voice there was a new note of confidence, of power.

“First you must take a bath to brighten the colours,” Seikichi answered her. And he added with unwonted solicitude, “It will be painful, most painful. Have courage!”

“I will bear anything to become beautiful,” said the girl.

She followed Seikichi down some stairs into the bathroom, and as she stepped into the steaming water her eyes glistened with pain.

“Ah, ah, how it burns!” she groaned. “Master, leave me and wait upstairs. I shall join you when I am ready. I do not want any man to see me suffer.”

But when she stepped out of the bath, she did not even have strength to dry herself. She pushed aside Seikichi’s helping hand and collapsed on the floor. Groaning, she lay with her long hair flowing across the floor. The mirror behind her reflected the soles of two feet, iridescent as mother-of-pearl.

Seikichi went upstairs to wait for her, and when at last she joined him she was dressed with care. Her damp hair had been combed out and hung about her shoulders. Her delicate mouth and curving eyebrows no longer betrayed her ordeal, and as she gazed out at the river there was a cold glint in her eyes. Despite her youth she had the mien of a woman who has spent years in tea-houses and acquired the art of mastering men’s hearts. Amazed, Seikichi reflected on the change in the timid girl since the day before. Going to the other room, he fetched the two picture scrolls which he had shown her.

“I offer you these paintings,” he said. “And also, of course, the tattoo. They are yours to take away.”

“Master,” she answered, “my heart is now free from all fear. And you … you shall be my first victim!”

She threw him a look, piercing as a newly-sharpened sword blade. It was the look of the young Chinese princess, and of