Page:Sidnay McCall--The dragon painter2.djvu/164



IX days were gone. The marriage was a thing accomplished, yet old Kano sat, lean, dispirited, drowned apparently in depths of fathomless despair, in the centre of his corner room. Mata, busy about her household tasks, sometimes passed across the matting, or flaunted a dusting-cloth within a partly opened shoji. At such moments her look and gesture were eloquent of disdain. Her patience, long tried by the kindly irritable master, was about at an end. Surely a spoiled old man-child like the crouching figure yonder would exhaust the forbearance of Jizo Sama himself!

Six days ago he had been happy,—indeed, too happy! for he and Uchida had drunk themselves into a condition of giggling bliss, and had needed to be taken away bodily