Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/180

166 Where is she?

I push back one of the panels to enter the next room. Perhaps she is there. The room is so dark that I can scarcely see across it; but in the dimness I can just discern a something stretched upon the floor.

I step hastily forward.

Yes, it is Mousmé lying there, with her face, upturned, looking a white, featureless oval in the gloom, her gown elongating her slender figure, and her huge sleeves of blue flowered silk with orange linings spread out like the maimed wings of a brilliant, long-bodied moth.

I stoop down.

Is she asleep? No, but she is terribly still. Is it a coquettish ruse on her part, and will she open her eyes in a minute or two, and burst out laughing in my face, and then pull it down for a shower of kisses from her rosebud mouth?