‘Well! Fancy his saying a thing like that! I imagine he was joking. Just think of it – after all, Konno and Suga are nearly ten years different in age.’

She gave a little forced laugh, and Miya collapsed in mirth, screwing her eyes up into narrow creases as though she found the idea irresistibly funny.

‘But you know, that’s not really the point in this kind of case,’ she said. ‘What does it matter so long as they’re fond of each other …? Even so, I suppose it would be hard for Father himself, if he lost Suga after all this time.’

Miya spoke as though the whole matter was remote from herself, blithely disregarding her own secret.

‘It certainly would be hard! For me, if not for Father. By now it’s too late to have another woman in the house, and … No, I’m sure that Suga herself, even though she takes his part a lot, isn’t mixed up with Konno in any way,’ Tomo concluded firmly, and took her leave, but from then on she began to watch anxiously for signs of intimacy between Suga and Konno.

In the long years that she had been plagued by Yukitomo’s ways with women Tomo had naturally acquired the intuitive ability to detect the presence or otherwise of physical relations between a man and woman. Even when she was with many other people she could tell by some sixth sense, through the exchange of private glances, if a relationship was other than regular. And so far as she could judge by that instinctive sense, no such secret had as yet developed between Suga and Konno.

The one thing that had changed of late was that Suga obviously took Konno’s part, yet she seemed to show no awkwardness towards Yukitomo, who actually seemed to take pleasure in the growing intimacy between her and the young man.

Only the other day a letter from Konno’s parents saying that they wished to come to see the sights of Tokyo had been passed on to Suga by Konno and by Suga to Yukitomo, who had immediately proposed that they be invited to stay at the Shirakawa residence.

Konno refused vehemently. ‘They’re only country folk, and I’d be embarrassed if the maids made fun of them …’ But Yukitomo insisted almost angrily that he invite them.

‘If they’re going to do the sights of Tokyo, you should go with them too, Suga,’ he said. ‘If Konno went by himself when he was supposed to be working, his parents would probably feel awkward.’

He took a considerable sum of money out of a stationery box and handed it to her. Suga herself had looked unusually animated.