She felt in a way that it was cruel to speak to Kayo now of having the baby adopted, but she knew that she could not come here so often herself, and it seemed that if she kept everything brief and free of emotion Kayo too, who was young after all, would not show herself unduly attached to the baby.

‘I have such a lot of milk – I shan’t know what to do when the baby’s gone …’ To hear her talk in this vein with no apparent grief at all only made Tomo feel more pity for her than ever.

In the end Tomo left without seeing the baby awake. She felt her way cautiously down the same dark stairs and was going out to the gate when Kayo, who had come with her to see her off, said as she helped her on with her coat:

‘I don’t think you’re quite yourself, are you ma’am?’

‘Why …? Do I look as though there’s something …?’ asked Tomo.

‘No, I just had the idea you’d got rather thinner. But perhaps it’s my imagination.’ And she smiled girlishly.

‘To tell the truth, I had a cold at the end of the year. I don’t seem to have shaken it off completely, you see.’ She paused a moment. ‘Never mind – it’ll soon get better. It’s already January too, so this cold can’t last long now,’ she added as she went out through the gate. Her hand on the lattice door, Shin looked up at the narrow strip of leaden sky showing between the eaves and said:

‘The clouds are getting awfully low. I only hope it doesn’t start to snow before you get home …’

Tomo disliked traveling long distances by rickshaw. Having grown up in an age without streetcars or trains, she had always been proud of her strong legs, but she hated too to think that she could no longer do what she had when she was younger. For one who took upon herself all the supervision of land and houses and spent one half of every month outside the house, strong legs were a sign of good health that also, by helping to keep her inner self constantly on its guard, had a surprisingly weighty significance in her relations with Yukitomo and Suga. In a large household comprising Yoshihiko, Suga, and three maids in addition to Yukitomo and Takao, Tomo found herself giving constant priority to the affairs of others. They might all have been convinced that Tomo was immortal, for all the thought that any of them gave to her own health.