She seemed completely unaware of his presence. Her hair, falling thick and free at the sides, was done up in a full ‘margaret’ at the front and tied on top with a silk gauze ribbon in an iridescent light blue like a cicada’s wings. Her thin summer kimono of muslin with its pattern of lilies on white was tied with a red sash, but her figure as she stood alone by a large clump of flowering pampas had a somehow dejected air as though she might be crying. Two large black swallowtail butterflies were tumbling over and over each other about the red ears of the pampas as though to symbolize Ruriko’s feelings of anxiety.

This girl, he thought, was soon to lose her mother. At the idea of the cruel sorrow that would rack that frail body, an overwhelming pity welled up in Takao’s breast.

‘Ruriko.’

Almost before he realized it he had put his hands on the wooden rail of the veranda and called to her in a loud voice, a voice with an unusual resonance.

Ruriko seemed not to realize where the voice calling her came from, and raising eyes still moist with tears looked about her till he called out again and she finally noticed him watching her from the second floor of the building halfway up the slope.

‘Takao! Hello!’ she called in a youthful voice. In the same moment she smiled gaily with the tears still in her eyes, and the grief shrouding her young body vanished like a thin garment slipping to the ground.

‘They say Mother’s in a bad way, don’t they? When did you come from the hospital?’

‘Just a while ago. Mother said to ask Grandfather to come. I was going to phone, but she said she wanted me to come. So I brought the message.’

‘I see … And did Grandfather say he’d go at once?’

‘He’s going after he’s had his dinner and Dr. Akiyama’s given him his neuritis injection. He says I’m to stay here tonight.’

‘I’ll go with him. I was going to see her while it was still light, but a friend who’s going back to the country tomorrow had lent me his notes, so …’

As he told the glib lie he looked down at Ruriko’s face with its fair, almost translucent skin that showed no sign of the heat and the abundant black hair falling on either side of her slender neck.

‘I’ll join you in a moment.’

‘No, I’ll come up. It’ll be cooler there, won’t it?’

Flashing a smile at him she turned her body swiftly as a swallow and disappeared behind the rock garden. Takao lowered himself into the reclining chair, a vaguely rueful smile still lingering on his gaunt cheeks. Almost immediately he heard the sound of light footsteps on the staircase and Ruriko appeared at the corner of the L-shaped veranda.