THE DRAGON PAINTER
More than once during sewing hours, Umè-ko herself had wondered how her father was able to give her silks of such beauty and variety. With the unthrift of the true artist, Kano was always poor. The old man would have been as surprised and far angrier than his daughter, had he known that Tatsu's pictures, stolen craftily by the confederates, Uchida and Mata, and sold in Yokohama for about a tenth of their true value, were the source of this sudden affluence. Tatsu remained ignorant, also. But, provided they took no image of Umè's face, he would not have cared at all. New garments, new mats, dainty household furnishings, were showered upon him, too; but they might have been autumn leaves, for all the interest he showed.
To gain his Dragon Maid,—to know that in this life she was irrevocably his,—that was Tatsu's one conscious thought.
The wedding day came at last. Umè-ko had written no letter on the eve of it, but all night long she felt that he was near her,
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