“For if you should do so,” said Aoi, sadly, “they might persuade you to abandon us.”
“Ah, no; never, mother. No one could ever do so.”
“Save Yamashiro Yoshida,” said Aoi, quickly.
A cloud stole for an instant over the girl’s face. She sighed as she repeated, half under her breath:
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About a fortnight later the honorable Yamashiro family condescended to pay a visit to the house of Aoi. Although they lived but a field’s length away, they came in their carriages, very elegant jinrikishas, drawn by liveried runners.
The father was imperious and lordly. A man of samurai birth, he had been one of the first to take advantage of the change in government and go immediately into trade, thus placing behind him all the traditions of caste. In Tokyo he had acquired an enormous fortune. He had a partnership there in a European store. He had purchased much of the land in the region of Sendai, and the townspeople looked with some apprehensions upon his steady advance, knowing that wherever he set his heel the land was despoiled of beauty.
Sendai in these latter years had become quite a bustling commercial city, and all because of Yamashiro’s enterprise. In ten years he had altered the little coast town’s exclusive policy. Thus the townspeople came to believe that Sendai could no longer remain a secluded place of abode, but would become an ugly, commercial centre, a stamping-ground for tradespeople, and in time an open port for the barbarians. In the face of the dissatisfaction of his townspeople Yamashiro steadily kept to his march of progress. Realizing that he could never have the affection of his neighbors, he openly tried to play the despot over them.
A plastic little pupil was his wife, the typical Japanese matron, who, bowing to the will of her lord in all things, scarcely ever spoke save to echo his words, and who lived but for his pleasure and comfort.
The boy Yoshida was like his father, save that he spent his restlessness upon the pleasures of youth. Having no occasion to work, and being provided with an unlimited supply of money, Yoshida frittered his way through life with the idle and rich young men of Sendai, leisurely inventing amusements for themselves, seeking and chasing every butterfly. Not a geisha of Sendai but knew the gallant Yoshida.