Shino went through the window and worked slowly round the room, hugging the wall, evading dancers, and threading his way through groups of chattering men and women of all nationalities. He came at last to the platform on which Hana Inuzuka was still standing, and climbed up the few steps to her side.
"This is luck, Miss Inuzuka," he said, with an assurance that he was far from feeling. "Am I really fortunate enough to find you without a partner?"
She turned to him slowly, with a little crease growing between her arched eyebrows, as if his coming were inconvenient and she resented the interruption to her thoughts, and then she smiled quite frankly.
"I said I would not dance until everybody was started," she said rather doubtfully, looking over the crowded floor.
"They are all dancing. You've done your duty well. Don't miss this delightful mood," he urged persuasively.
She hesitated, tapping her folded fan against her chin.
"I refused a lot of men," she said, with a grimace. Then she laughed suddenly. "Come along, then. I am noted for my bad manners. This will only be one extra sin."
Shino danced well, but with the girl in his arms he seemed suddenly tongue-tied. They swung round the room several times, then halted simultaneously beside an open window and went out into the garden of the inn, sitting down on a wooden chair under a flashy Japanese hanging lantern. The entertainers was still playing, and for the moment the garden was empty, lit faintly by coloured lanterns, adorned by the hanging leaves from the palm trees, and little bonsais in uniformed pots outlining the winding paths.
Shino leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees.
"I think you are the most perfect dancer I have ever met," he said a little breathlessly.
Miss Inuzuka looked at him seriously, without a trace of self-consciousness.
"It is very easy to dance if you have a musical ear, and if you have been in the habit of making your body do what you want. So few people seem to be trained to make their limbs obey them. Mine have had to do as they were told since I was a small child," she answered calmly.
The unexpectedness of the reply acted as a silencer on Shino for a few minutes, and the girl beside him seemed in no hurry to break the silence. The dance was over and the empty garden was crowded for a little time. Then the dancers drifted back into the inn as the music started again.
"It's rather jolly here in the garden," Shino said tentatively. His heart was pounding with unusual rapidity, and his eyes, that he kept fixed on his own clasped hands, had a hungry look growing in them.
"You mean that, you want to sit out this dance with me?" she said with a boyish directness that somewhat perplexed him.
"Yes," he stammered rather foolishly.
She opened her fan and nonchalantly appraise its inscriptions up to the light of the lantern. "I promised this one to Asuma Sarutobi. We quarrel every time we meet. I cannot think why he asked me; he disapproves of me even more than his aunt (Lady Utatane) does—such an interfering old lady. He will be overjoyed to be let off. And I don't want to dance tonight. I am looking forward so tremendously to tomorrow."
"Are you really determined to go through with this tour?"
She stared at him in surprise. "Why not? My arrangements have been made some time. Why should I change my mind at the last moment?"
"Why does your brother let you go alone? Why doesn't he go with you? Oh, I have no right to ask, but I still need to ask," he broke out with intense emotion.
She shrugged her shoulders with a little laugh. "We fell out, Kiba and I. He wanted to go to the Land of Lightning. I wanted a trip into the desert. We quarrelled for two whole days and half one night, and then we settled with our differences. I should have my desert tour, and Kiba his; and to mark his brotherly appreciation of my gracious promise to follow him to the Lightning Country without fail at the end of a month he has offered his very presence to accompany me for the first stage, and dismiss me on my way with his blessings. It annoyed him so enormously that he could not order me to go with him, this being the first time in our wanderings that our inclinations have not jumped in the same direction. I came of age a few months ago, and, in future, I can do as I please. Not that I have ever done anything else," she acknowledged hesisitantly, with another laugh, "because Kiba's ways have been my ways until now."
"But for the sake of one month! What difference could it make to him?" he asked in astonishment.
"That's Kiba," replied Miss Inuzuka drily.
"It isn't safe," persisted Shino.
"I don't agree with you. I don't know why everybody is making such a fuss about it. Plenty of other women have travelled in much wilder country than this desert."
He looked at her curiously. She seemed to be totally unaware that it was her youth and her beauty that made all the danger of the expedition. He fell back on the easier excuse.
"There seems to be unrest amongst some of the villages. There have been a lot of rumours lately," he said seriously.
She made a little movement of impatience. "Oh, that's what they always tell you when they want to put obstacles in your way. The authorities have already done that and in exaggeration. However, when I asked them for facts, they only gave me general informations. I asked if they have any power to stop me. They said they have not, but strongly advised me not to make the attempt. I said I should go, unless the Earth Government (they are currently in the Earth Country) arrested me…."
Shino stared at her not knowing what to say nor think. The young woman is so determined.
"Why not? I am not afraid. I don't admit that there is anything to be afraid of. I don't believe a word about the villages in the neighbouring country being restless. Sunas (people from Wind Country) are always moving about, aren't they? I have an excellent caravan leader, whom even the authorities vouch for, and I shall be armed. I am perfectly able to take care of myself. I can shoot straight and I am used to camping. Besides, I have given my word to Kiba to be back here in Iwagakure (capital of Earth Country) in a month, and I can't get very far away in that time."
There was a resolute in her voice, and when she stopped speaking he sat silent, consumed with anxiety, obsessed with the loveliness of her, and tormented with the desire to tell her so. Then he turned to her suddenly, and his face was very pale. "Miss Inuzuka—Hana—put off this trip only for a little, and give me the right to go with you. I love you. I want you for my wife more than anything on earth. I won't always be a penniless junior officer. One of these days I shall be able to give you a position that is worthy of you; no, nothing could be that, but one at least that I am not ashamed to offer to you. We've been very good friends; you know all about me. I'll give my whole life to make you happy. The world has been a different place to me since you came into it. I can't get away from you. You are in my thoughts night and day. I love you; I want you. My God, Hana! Beauty like yours drives a man mad!"
"Is beauty all that a man wants in his wife?" she asked, with a kind of cold wonder in her voice. "Brains and a sound body seem much more sensible requirements to me."
"But when a woman has all three, as you have, Hana," he whispered fiery, his hands closing over the slim ones lying in her lap.
But with a strength that seemed impossible for their smallness she disengaged them from his grasp. "Please stop. I am sorry. We have been good friends, and it has never occurred to me that there could be anything beyond that. I never thought that you might love me. I never thought of you in that way at all, I don't understand it. When God made me He omitted to give me a heart. I have never loved any one in my life. My brother and I have tolerated each other, but there has never been any affection between us. Could it be possible? Put yourself in Kiba's place. Imagine a young man of nineteen, with a cold, reserved nature, being burdened with the care of a baby sister, thrust into his hands unwanted and unexpected. Was it likely that he would have any affection for me? I never wanted it. I was born with the same cold nature as his. I was brought up as a boy, my training was hard. Emotion and affection have been barred out of my life. I simply don't know what they mean. I don't want to know. I am very content with my life as it is. Marriage for a woman means the end of independence, that is, marriage with a man who is a man, in spite of all that the most modern woman may say. I have never obeyed any one in my life; I do not wish to try the experiment. I am very sorry to have hurt you. You've been a splendid friend, but that side of life does not exist for me. If I had thought for one moment that my friendship was going to hurt you I need not have let you become so intimate, but I did not think, because it is a subject that I never think of. A man to me is just a companion with whom I ride or shoot or fish; a pal, a comrade, and that's just all there is to it. God made me a woman. Why, only He knows."