Page:Sidnay McCall--The dragon painter2.djvu/39

 below, and followed Umè to the zashiki, or main room of the house, with the best view of the garden.

The tea was delicious in its first delicate infusion; the pickled plums most stimulating to a morning appetite.

"Rice and fish will soon honorably eventuate," Umè assured him as she went back, smiling, into the kitchen.

Kano pensively lifted a plum upon the point of a toothpick and began nibbling at its wrinkled skin. Yes, why could she not have been a son? As it was, the girl could paint,—paint far better than most women even the famous ones of old. But, after all, no woman painter could be supreme. Love comes first with women! They have not the strong heart, the cruelty, the fierce imagination that go to the making of a great artist. Even among the men of the day, corrupted and distracted as they are by foreign innovations, could real strength be found? Alas! Art was surely doomed, and his own life,—