He rose and put on his robe and stepped into the garden. The grass was soft and wet and he trod lightly. There must be no footsteps. Mr. Muraki’s screens would be closed. So much would be safe. He crept past them, nevertheless, until he felt the corner of the house and turned to the right and stood, hidden in mists, and listened. There was the sound of the waterfall. He could hear its steady tinkling splash, and he went toward it, feeling with his hands outspread for trees and shrubs. Then he felt stones under his feet. That was the path toward the waterfall from the summer house — now he was close. The sound was clear. He reached the fall and put out his hand and felt the slight spray of it.
Now he must stand with his back to it and he would be facing Tama’s room. There was no light whatever. If she were asleep he would have to scratch a little on the lattice to waken her. But he must take great care to walk in a straight line, lest he miss the spot. What if he happened upon Mr. Muraki’s room?
He counted to himself, “One — two — three—” Now that silly goose-step would be of some use to him — goose-stepping helped one to walk in a straight line. He lifted each foot high and put it down carefully. In his excitement he laughed a little, under his breath. This was fun — dangerous fun, perhaps. He looked very silly doubtless, if Tama could see him. Lucky there was the mist! He felt his foot strike something and he put out his hand. It was the wooden edge of the narrow veranda. He felt upward with both hands, and, as he thought, the screens were open.
He was about to scratch on them a little, like a mouse, when he thought, “I’d better listen again.”
Yes, the waterfall was directly behind him. Then this was Tama’s room. He scratched on the screen softly. The night was so still he dared not call or cough.
What would Tama say? Now that he was actually standing before her door, he was doubtful of her. Suppose she would not be disobedient at all to her father? She was such a strange mixture of new and old. No one knew when Tama was old-fashioned Japanese and when she was moga.
At first he heard nothing at all. The room was so silent that it was as if no one were there. Then he heard a long sigh and the sound as of a hand flung out in the darkness upon a sleeping mat. Perhaps she was asleep. No, for he heard a wakeful little moan, a sigh again, but now made articulate.
He tapped quickly, little rhythmic taps on the wood. Then he waited a moment and tapped again. A light flickered palely behind an inner screen placed about her bed. Behind its thin silk he saw the shadow of Tama, her long hair flowing behind her. She rose from her mat on the floor and listened. He tapped again. Now she knew someone was there. He could see her shadow, undetermined, move a little away. She would be frightened perhaps.
“Tama!” he said softly, and instantly she was there, holding her long robe about her.
“I-wan!” she whispered, aghast.
“Tama,” he begged, “I had to — I am to be sent to Yokohama — tomorrow, Tama! I don’t know when I’ll come back. Bunji told me your father was angry with you. How can I go away like that?”
“But you — my father would send you back to China if he found you!”
“He won’t find me,” I-wan urged her. “Tama, please — help me!”
“Help you?”
“Don’t be Japanese, Tama — let’s just be us, you and me — such good friends! Didn’t we have a good time on the hills? That was only yesterday.”
“Yes — yes — we did—”
“Tama, I went to see Akio tonight — with Bunji — Akio and Sumie. I never admired Akio so much before. It is brave of him to love Sumie like that. People ought to be brave when they know they are right.”
Tama was holding back her hair in one hand. She stood, staring at him, listening, in her rose-colored sleeping robe.
“Is it — I don’t know if—” she began.
“I won’t come in,” I-wan said quickly. “I’ll stay here. But come to the edge of the garden close to me, so we can talk a little. Please — I am going away tomorrow!”
She did not answer. Instead she made one swift movement and blew out the candle.
“I am afraid someone will see you,” she whispered. Then he heard her beside him. She was sitting on the edge of the veranda floor. When he put out his hand he could feel her shoulder.
“Tama!” he whispered. His heart began to beat hard. He longed to put out his arms and hold her close to him. But she shrank away and he did not dare.
“Sit down beside me,” her voice said, so softly he could barely hear it. “No, I-wan, please — a little away from me. I–I-wan, if anyone hears us something terrible would happen to me. You must hurry.”
“Yes, I will,” I-wan promised.
It was true. If they were discovered, the penalty would be fearful. Once, even in China, he had heard his grandfather say that a sister of his was killed by her father’s orders because she was found with her lover — innocently enough, in a garden, talking. And Mr. Muraki was sterner than anyone in China. “Tama,” he said quickly. “About General Seki. You wouldn’t ever give up, would you?”
“Never!” she said stoutly. He was sitting beside her now, and his shoulder touched hers again.
“I couldn’t bear it, Tama. I’ll come back, somehow. You’ll see.”
“I shall be here,” she whispered.
“Don’t — you know — marry anybody—” he begged. He wanted to say “Only marry me,” but he could not.
It was so enormous a thing to say. They were so young, and there was so much against them. And this was against all lawfulness.
After a moment he heard her little whisper at his ear.
“I don’t want to marry anybody.”
He felt such happiness rush over him at this that he could scarcely sit still beside her. He leaned to her ear.
“Isn’t it wonderful there is this mist?” he said, choking a little. “It’s like a curtain to hide us.”
“A good spirit sent it,” Tama whispered back.
“Will you let me write to you?” he asked. “I have so much to say. No, but how — where shall I send letters to you?”
“To Sumie,” she answered. “Sumie will keep them for me. I go there sometimes.” She said it as quickly as though she had thought of this before.
“How it all fits together!” he cried joyously. “I never thought tonight why I went there to Sumie’s. I had planned nothing!”
“It is fate,” she said solemnly. “There is a fate for us.”
“I wonder what it is,” he answered.
“We cannot know,” said Tama, “but it is waiting for us.”
He wanted to cry out, “I know what it is! It is that we shall love each other!” But he could not.
He had never in his life spoken that word aloud, or indeed heard it spoken with the meaning of the love which he now felt born in his heart. This was so new a thing, so deep and huge in him, that he could not speak of it in the haste of this dangerous moment. There must be time to tell of it. It was not a word to crowd between second and second.
“We can’t hurry fate,” she went on, “and we can’t avoid it.”
“Do you believe, too, in — in two people being born to — to marry?” he asked, stammering.
“Yes,” she whispered.
They were silent. In the darkness they sat, only shoulder touching shoulder. He felt a little shiver down his arm and into his hand and he moved his hand and it touched hers; their hands sprang together.
“Now you must go,” she said, hurrying. “I will write to you, too, as soon as you tell me where — and we will meet again — if it is our fate.”
“It is our fate!” he said firmly.
Their hands clung a little longer. Then she sprang up and a second later there was the sound of the screens sliding softly into place. Alone he fumbled his way into the mist.