She sat down on the couch beside me and handed Nathan a parcel elaborately wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with pink ribbons. “It was to take my place,” she said. “I found it in the store and thought you would read it tonight while I went to the séance. Do you know the spirits?” she asked, turning to me. I replied that I did not, and she informed me that I had missed half my life by not becoming acquainted with the supernatural. She told me that she had not only heard spirit voices imparting news of the other world, but had also been witness to the unaided peregrinations of chairs and tables and vases of flowers and, on one occasion, to the levitation by will alone of one of the sitters. “A year ago, my uncle, the tea-merchant, spoke to me. He died in Kobe three years before. He told me I must not marry according to my father’s choice. I am a Samurai daughter. How can I disobey my father?” She laughed. There was in her laugh something controlled and artful as if it were part of a song. “He should be happy at what my uncle said, shouldn’t he?” and she pointed her finger at Nathan who was undoing the ridiculous pink bows on her present. “What would my father say,” she whispered to me, “if he knew I had a beau like him? In a place like this? I call him Gacho. It means ‘goose.’ ”

“And I call her ‘hototogisu’ which means ‘cuckoo,’ ” said Nathan bitterly. He had succeeded in removing the wrapper from the parcel and he withdrew a book. “Oh, thanks,” he said, “I’ve wanted to read it.” And he put it down on his desk.

“Now I must go,” said Kakosan. “I am so obliged to meet you, Miss Marburg. Will you please go to the movies with me sometimes? Do you love the movies?” I said I had no burning passion for them, but I would be delighted to go to a matinée some day.

“Let’s wait until the Garbo comes. I love the Garbo best of all. If I were not a Japanese girl, I would most like to be a Swedish girl.”