The odor of good food attracted Tatsu's senses if not his eyes. He ate greedily, hastily, not seeing what he ate. His manners were those of an untutored mountain peasant.
"Dragon Maid," purred Kano, "weariness has come upon you. Retire, I pray, and deign to rest."
"No!" said Tatsu, loudly. "She shall not leave this room."
"My concern is for the august maiden who has found favor in your sight," replied Kano, with a deprecating gesture. "Here, Tatsu, let me fill your cup."
Tatsu threw his cup face down to the floor, and put his lean, brown hand upon it. "I drink no more until my cup of troth with the maiden yonder."
Umè-ko's startled eyes flew to his. She trembled, and the blood slowly ebbed from her face, leaving it pale and luminous with a sort of wonder.
"Go!" said Kano again, and, in a daze, the girl rose and vanished from the room.
Tatsu had hurled himself toward her, but it was too late. He turned angrily to his host. "She is mine! Why did you send her away?"
"Gently, gently," cooed the other. "In this incarnation she is called my daughter."
"I believe it not!" cried Tatsu. "How came she under bondage to you? Have I not sought her through a thousand lives? She is mine!"
"Even so, in this life I am her father, and it is my command that she will obey."
"She is a good daughter," pursued the other, amiably. "She has never yet failed in docility and respect. Without my consent you shall not touch her,--not even her sleeve."
"I have sought her through a thousand lives. I will slay him who tries to keep her from me!" raved the boy.
"To kill her father would scarcely be a fortunate beginning," said Kano, tranquilly. "Your hope lies in safer paths, dear youth. There are certain social conventions attached even to a Dragon Maid. Now if you will calm yourself and listen to reason----"
Tatsu sprang to his feet and struck himself violently upon the brow. The hot wine was making a whirlpool of his brain. "Reason! convention! safety! I hate them all! Oh, you little men of cities! Farmyard fowls and swine, running always to one sty, following always one lead,--doing things in the one way that other base creatures have marked out----"
Kano laughed aloud. His whole life had been a protest against conventionality, and this impassioned denunciation came from a new world. The sound maddened Tatsu. He leaped to the veranda, now a mere ledge thrust out over darkness, threw an arm about the slender corner-post, and strained far out, gasping, into the night. Kano filled his pipe with leisurely deliberation. The time was past for fear.