“I am guilty of no wrong, I do assure you, my lady aunt. But I arose to enjoy the sun’s awakening, and—and I did find these honorable flowers on my sill, and indeed they spoke to me of—of the coming summer, and so many things, dear aunt, that I was fain to take them in.”
“Then do, pray, my little dove, inform me what you know concerning this presumptuous fellow who placed them on your sill.”
“Oh, my lady, he is indeed honorably noble.”
“I do assure you. He is—” she broke off, painfully debating in her mind the wisdom of confessing the truth to her aunt.
“Ah—ho! Then, if that is so, you spoke a lie just a moment since when you said you did not know your lover’s name.”
Wistaria attempted to speak, but broke off, faltering and stammering piteously.
“May I inquire, then,” continued her aunt, relentlessly, “whether you are unacquainted with the honorable name of our august guest?”
“Oh, my lady, I do believe that—that he assumed another—only—just for the innocent romance of wooing me under an assumed title.”
“So! And pray how comes it, then, that my son’s honorable guest should also happen to be your lover? If in order to woo you he came hither under an assumed name, then it would seem that you had some previous acquaintance with him?”
“He followed our cortege from Yedo, madame,” confessed the unhappy girl.
“What! You do not mean to tell me that he is that insolent Mori courtier of whom I heard only after my arrival home?”
Wistaria pressed her hands tightly together. She seemed overcome. Then suddenly she raised her head with almost defiant bravery.
“He is of the Mori clan, madame,” she said.
“The Mori clan!” The lady’s voice rose shrilly. “How came he, then, to enter our grounds?”
“He came, my lady, by the south river, where there is a break in the wall.”
“But how could he know this? Answer me that at once.”
“Will you deign to inform me whether you condescended so far as to answer the love-letters of this young man, for I have no doubt he favored you with many?”
“I wrote only one insignificant reply,” said Wistaria.
“And what, pray, did you say in this reply?”.
“I implored him to follow us no farther. I besought him to give up the impossible exploit of entering our grounds, and, knowing what would be his fate if he attempted to do so, I also informed him that if he must indeed enter, to do so by way of the south river, that a portion of our grounds ran down to this honorable river and was unprotected by the walls, which otherwise surrounded us on all sides.”