“Alone?” I suggest to my companion, who merely shakes his head and laughs, replying, “No. The _geisha_ is light of foot—a butterfly, coming without sound, the heavy circling flutter of her fan like the beatings of the wings of the great grey moths outside there in the garden.”
The footsteps of Gazelle came on, and then halted outside. There was no knocking at the door. How can one beat upon fragile paper panels with one’s fist? And the usual little knocker of brass, a grotesque lizard, or miniature lion-head with bristling whiskers indicated and large white-balled eyes, was missing. The door-panel, with its flight of storks, and stiff but wonderfully realistic bed of rushes from which the storks had risen, was slid aside, and through the narrow opening the little dancing-girl fluttered softly in, like some gay-hued butterfly or large-winged night-moth.
“It is Snowflake!” exclaimed Kotmasu, and ere the dainty little figure bowed low before us, I caught a fleeting glance of recognition shot to him from beneath her drooped eyelids.
What a droll doll she is! Childish, with an assumption of innocence which is as charming as it must be unreal. An elegant, slender little figure, full of dainty grace. Her face painted—till it looked positively funny—its whiteness hiding the native transparency of her warm-hued skin, all damask rose and nut-brown tinted. And the two little dabs of rouge—oh! with what inartistic exactness they are placed, one on either cheek. The little rosebud of a mouth, with childishly pouting lips, is reddened brilliantly. And the delicate nostrils of her charming little nose—so piquant, so _retroussé_—are coloured just the same. Her jetty hair—somewhat coarse, I admit, but so glossy—is taken back from off her whitened brow, and lies in smooth, heavy coils on the shapely little head. A silver pin or two, and one of mother-of-pearl, with some charming baby-curls in rebellion on the nape of her slender neck, soften any severity.
And her dress. Plum-coloured brocade, with long pendent sleeves and a double tunic, the under one of a different stuff and very light, opening to disclose garments, such as her Western sisters are struggling for, of canary-coloured satin, vanishing into the curious _tabi_ of white cotton, shoes and stockings all in one, with separated toes.