HE Lady Wistaria arose with the sun. Without waiting to pin back the long, silken hair which hung like a cloud of lacquer about her, she stole softly to the casement of her chamber.

The perfume which stole up to her was sweeter and stronger far than that wafted from the trees laden with the dews of the early morning. Yet the trees were bare of blossoms and would not bloom for a month to come. Nevertheless the ledge of Wistaria’s casement was piled with the living spring blossoms of plum and cherry. She could not but caress them with her hands, her lips, her eyes, her burning cheeks. With little, trembling hands she searched among them and found what she sought—a scroll—a narrow, thin, wonderful scroll, long, yet only a few inches in width, with golden borders down the sides, and the faint, exquisite tracings of birds and flowers intertwined among the words that leaped up at her almost as though they had spoken. It was a poem to her—her grace, beauty, modesty, loveliness, its theme:

There were many other verses, but the Lady Wistaria was too much moved to have either the vision or the mind to read beyond the first stanza. As became her rank and the painful tuition of years, she should have pushed very deliberately the flowers from her sill and torn the scroll into ragged pieces, a chastisement prescribed by every etiquette for the temerity of a presumptuous lover.

But the Lady Wistaria did nothing of the sort. She gathered the flowers tenderly and took them in. Then she came back to the casement, and, leaning far out, gazed with piercing wistfulness out into the little garden below. For some minutes she waited, the patience of her caste fading away gradually into that of the impatience of her sex.

A voice beneath her casement! She leaned farther over. A young man’s eager, glowing face smiled up at her like the rising sun. Again the Lady Wistaria forgot the training of years. Her trembling voice floated down to him:

“Pray you do consider the perils in which you place yourself,” she implored.

“I would pass through all the perils of hell so I might reach you in the end,” he fervidly whispered back.

“Oh, my lord, look yonder! See, the sun is pushing its way upward above the mountains and the hill-tops. Do you not know that soon my uncle’s guards will pass this way?”

“Under the heavens there is nothing in all this wide world worthy as a gift for you, dear lady. That you have deigned to accept my honorable flowers and my abominably constructed poem has given me such strength that I am prepared to fight a whole army of guards. Ay! And to give up readily, too, my life.”

“And if you love me,” she replied, “you will guard with all your strength that life which you are so recklessly exposing to danger.”

“Ah, sweetest lady, can it be true then that you condescend to take some concern in my insignificant existence?”

She made no response other than to pluck from the climbing vine about her casement one little half-blown leaf and drop it at his feet.

As he stooped to pick up the leaf a form interposed itself, and a half-grown man looked him steadily in the face. With a little cry the Lady Wistaria vanished from her casement.

Meanwhile the intruder, instead of being the aggressor, was defending himself against the flashing blade of the infuriated lover. Too proud to call for aid, the youth opposed to the lover found himself outmatched before the skill and fire of the other. So thinking caution better than valor, he flung his sword at the feet of the lover. The latter, picking it up by the middle, returned it to his opponent with a low bow of utmost grace. Then with one hand on his hip and the other holding his sword, he addressed the youth.

“Thy name?”

“Catzu Toro. And thine?”

“Too insignificant to be spoken before one who bears so great a name as thine,” returned the other, bowing with satirical grace.

“How is that?” cried Catzu Toro—“insignificant? What, one in thy garb and with thy skill of swordsmanship?”

The victorious one, shrugging his shoulders imperceptibly, again bowed with a smile of disclaimer.

“May I be permitted,” he said, “to put one question to you, my lord, and then I am perfectly prepared to give myself up to your father’s guards, though not, I promise you, without a struggle, which I doubt not your vassals will long remember.” And he blithely bent the blade of his sword with his two hands.

“Nay, then,” cried the youth, impetuously, “You do me injustice. I am ready to swear protection to one who has acted so bravely as thou. But a question for a question, is not that fair?”

“Assuredly.”

“Very well, then. You serve the Prince of Mori?”

“In a very humble capacity,” returned the other, guardedly.

“In what capacity?” inquired the young Toro, quickly.

“Ah, that is two questions, and you have not even deigned to listen to my one.”

“Speak,” said the youth, curbing his curiosity and impatience.

“The Lady Wistaria—she is your sister?”

“My cousin,” answered the other, briefly.

“Will you tell me how it is possible for one unfortunately attached to an unfriendly clan to pay court to your cousin?”

“Two questions, that!” exclaimed Toro, promptly, whereat they both laughed, their friendship growing in proportion to their good-humor.

“Now,” said Toro, “I will answer whatever questions you may put to me, if you in return will only satisfy my mind concerning certain matters which I am perishing to know.”

“A fair exchange! Good!”

“Then,” said Toro, unloosening his own cape from his hips, “pray throw this about you, for I fear you will be observed by my father’s samurai. Even my presence,” he added, with a sigh, “could hardly protect you, for I, alas! am under age.”

“Is it possible?” said the stranger, with such affected surprise that the boy flushed with delight.

“Now, my lord”—he hesitated, doubtfully, as though hoping the other would supply the name—“now, my lord, let me explain to you why I truly sympathize with you in your love for one who must seem impossible.”

“Not impossible,” corrected the lover, softly, thinking tenderly of the Lady Wistaria’s fears for him.

“I, too,” confessed Toro, “am in the same plight.”

“What!” cried the lover, in dismay; “you also adore the lady?”

“No,” replied Toro, shaking his head with sad melancholy; “but I have conceived the most hopeless attachment for a lady whom I may never dream of winning.”

“Then I am much mistaken in you. I thought, my lord, that you were not only a brave man, but a daring knight.”

“But you cannot conceive of the extremity of my case,” cried the youth, piteously, “for consider: the lady I love not only belongs to our rival clan, but is already betrothed.”

“Well, but betrothals have been broken before, my lord, and the days of romance and adventure are not altogether dead in the land.”

“Ah, yes, that is true, but my rival is not only more powerful, but in every respect more prepossessing and attractive.”

“Indeed? Well, all this interests me very much. Still, I must say, my lord, that though I am in the service of the Mori, I have not seen the knight or courtier who could prove so formidable a rival to you, either in graces or rank—for are you not the son of the great lord of this province?”

“And has not our neighboring lord a son also?”

“Wh—what!” cried the stranger, darting backward as though the youth had dealt him a sharp and unexpected blow; then scanning the other’s face closely, “You do not mean—the Prince—?”

“Yes—the Prince Keiki. That swaggering, bragging, noisy roustabout, who bears so many cognomens.”

“Hum!” said the other. “They call him the Prince Kei—, truly—”

“Yes,” said the youth, jealously, “and also ‘Hikal-Keiki-no-Kimi’ (the Shining Prince Keiki).”

“You have told me strange news indeed,” said the Mori courtier. “I did not know of the betrothal of our Prince. It is very sad, truly.”

“Sad! To be betrothed to the Princess Hollyhock sad?”

“For you, my lord,” replied the other, with a slight smile.

Toro doubled his hands spasmodically as he frowned with the fierceness of a samurai, that the other might not observe the soft moisture of a woman in his eyes.

“Now let me tell you a secret,” said the stranger, touching his arm with confidential sympathy. “Upon my word, the Princess Hollyhock is not betrothed to the Prince Keiki.”

“My lord, you do not say so! Are you sure?”

“As sure as I am that I am here now.”

“Oh, the gods themselves must have sent you hither!” cried the youth. “Will you not accept my protection and constant aid in your suit for my cousin?”

“You are more generous than—”

“Your Prince, you would say,” interrupted Toro, bitterly.

“—than the gods, I was about to remark,” said the other, gravely. “Now let us form a compact. You on your side will promise me protection and aid here on your estates, and I will swear to you that you shall win and wed the Princess Hollyhock.”

“I have a small house yonder, my lord,” cried the impulsive youth, excitedly. “It is kept by my old nurse. Come you with me thither. I shall lend you whatever clothes you may require and you shall remain here as long as you wish. I will introduce you to my family as a friend—a student from my own university in Kummommotta. Then you can make suit to Wistaria, and, having once wed her, who can separate you, let me ask?”

“Not the gods themselves, I swear!” cried the other.

“And your name—what shall I call you?”

The courtier hesitated for the first time.

“My name is insignificant. It is a Mori name, and therefore dangerous in your province.”

“You must assume another, then.”

“Hum! Well, what would you suggest, my lord?”

“How will Shioshio Shawtaro do?”

“Not at all. It has a trading sound.”

“Ho! ho! How about Taketomi Tokioshi?”

“Too imperious.”

“Fujita Gemba?”

“No, no.”

“Then do you choose yourself.”

“My lord, waiving aside all our political differences, do you not think it would be loyal for me to take the name of one of my own people?”

“What, a Mori name? You are very droll, my lord. Why not keep your own name, then?”

“Ah, but it is not the Mori family name I wish to assume, but a surname.”

“It might be dangerous.”

“Oh, not without the family name and title attached. Suppose I take the name of Keiki?”

“What! The name of my rival!”

“My prince, my lord,” said the other, bowing deeply.

“Nevertheless my rival.”

“Not at all; and if he were so, why not grant him this little honor, seeing you are to worst him in the suit for the lady?”

“That is true.”

“The name will sound vastly different with another family name attached. Suppose I assume the name of Tominaga Keiki? That is somewhat different from Mori Keiki, is it not?”

“Somewhat.”

“Then Keiki is my name.”

“Kei—Very well. Let it be so.”