Page:Madame Butterfly; Purple eyes; A gentleman of Japan and a lady; Kito; Glory (1904).djvu/204

 She tried to smile. It was an inward sob, though.

"Yes, some other time."

"Some other time, then," he acquiesced.

And that night again she did not sleep.

And when she looked for him in the morning he did not come. And she had never wanted him so badly—madly. She went up-stairs and sat all the day where she could see the new house. But he did not come. And so for three days, till she was ill. In the dusk of the fourth came his servant. She saw him and hastened down to meet him.

"Is he ill?" she asked. "My brother—is he also ill? Speak—speak quickly!"

The man grinned. He carried a huge bunch of cherry-blossoms.

"No; he is not—ill," he said.

He fastened the blossoms at the door. Owannon's heart was leaping so that it took both hands to keep it in her bosom.

"What do you mean?" she cried; "by all the gods, what do you mean?"

For you must know that this was the way a Japanese made a proposal of marriage in those days.

"How should I know?" said the man,