Page:A Wreath of Cloud.djvu/76

72 where all is change, it would, I confess, be ungracious not to cherish and encourage a devotion so undeviating as that which you have described.’

She need not, he thought, remind him of life’s uncertainties. For who had in every circumstance great and small more grievously experienced them than he? In reply he sent the poem: ‘Have I not manfully held back and kept cold silence year on year, till the Gods gave me leave?’ ‘Madam,’ he added, ‘you are a Vestal no longer and cannot plead that any sanctity now hedges you about. Since last we met I have experienced many strange vicissitudes. If you would but let me tell you a little part of all that I have seen and suffered….’ The gentlewoman who took his answer noticed that his badges and decorations were somewhat more dazzling than in old days; but though he was now a good deal older, his honours still far out-stripped his years.

‘Though it were but to tell me of your trials and sorrows that you have made this visit, yet even such tidings the Gods, my masters till of late, forbid me to receive.’ This was too bad! ‘Tell your lady,’ he cried peevishly, ‘that I have long ago cast my offence of old days to the winds of Shinado; or does she think perhaps that the Gods did not accept my vows?’ The messenger saw that though he sought to turn off the matter with these allusions and jests he was in reality very much put about, and she was vexed on his behalf. She had for years past been watching her mistress become more and more aloof from the common interests and distractions of life, and it had long distressed her to see Prince Genji’s letters so often left unanswered. ‘I did ill to call at so late an hour,’ he said; ‘I can see that