Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan, volume 2.pdf/109

Rh about the lonely evenings she had spent in her own kitchen in Osaka, with the dark pine-grove outside, and she contrasted it with the jolly atmosphere of this supper-table.

They chatted on gaily until after the dessert and fruit was finished. Shunkichi, who had drunk a little too much wine, lounged on a cushion under the dim light of the lamp. He was happy, and fired off quite a number of his own witty epigrams, and his ever-ready flow of wit quite rejuvenated Nobu-ko as she listened to him. After a time she looked up very earnestly and said, “I want very much to write novels myself!” Shunkichi made no answer, but rambled on again with some quotation from Gourmont as follows, “The Muses being females, men alone were free to capture them.” Both the young women disagreed with Gourmont. Teru-ko remarked rather seriously, “Then could no one expect a woman to be a musician? Wasn’t Apollo a man-God?”

And thus they chatted on, and as they talked they never noticed how the time was passing, and when they eventually discovered that it was very late, they prevailed upon Nobu-ko to stay for the night.

Before going to bed, Shunkichi opened an ‘amado’ sliding-door on the outside of the verandah, and stepped into the garden. After a little while he called apparently to no one in particular, “Just come out here and look at the wonderful moon!” Nobu-ko slipped on a pair of garden-clogs which she found on the steps, and alone followed him into the garden. The cool night dew