Newly built the previous year, Shirakawa’s official residence was rumored to be second in size only to the Superintendent-General’s own. A shapely pine tree grew in the center of the drive where the carriages swung round before the entrance, and beyond it was visible a spacious entrance hall with two rickshaws displaying family crests in gold drawn up before it. It seemed that someone was just going out. If it should be Mrs. Shirakawa, thought Kin, it would suit her purposes very well.

In theory long acquaintance had put their relationship on an easy footing yet still Kin found herself somehow constrained in Tomo’s presence, her body growing tense as though she were under some pressure. The fact that today she had come from Suga’s mother bearing a private message to the girl whom three years previously she had helped to place in the Shirakawa household made the thought of Tomo sitting there in her room still more disturbing.

The attractive girl in the elaborate hairstyle who emerged from within when Kin announced her presence at the side entrance – a maid, it seemed, though she was unknown to Kin – kneeled and bowed in the most formal manner, which flurried Kin so much that she had her summon Seki the housekeeper with whom she was more familiar.

‘The mistress and the young lady are just going to a charity bazaar, and a foreign dressmaker is here getting them ready,’ Seki said. ‘Why don’t you come in and watch?’

Her taste for the unusual aroused, Kin accepted the invitation and hurried in Seki’s wake down a long corridor with a highly polished floor.

‘That’s a very pretty, graceful young maid you’ve got. When did she …?’

‘The month before last,’ said Seki, turning round and giving Kin a meaningful look. ‘The story before she came was that she was the very image of the Kabuki actor Eizaburo.’

Kin nodded two or three times noncommittally, reflecting to herself that Suga’s mother might be justified in worrying about the rumor that she had got wind of almost before anyone else.

‘How old is she? And where does she come from?’ The tone was casual, but Kin was aware that her voice as she pressed for more details sounded too strained for someone of her age, and that her neck was flushing hot below her ears.

‘Sixteen, apparently. She’s two years younger than Suga, but her height makes her look more or less the same, you know. It seems her father was in the service of the lord of the Toda clan. She has quite an opinion of herself, if you ask me.’

‘Well!’ said Kin, drawing herself up exaggeratedly as a mark of her astonishment. ‘Even so, I suppose … she’s still … just a …?’ She opened her eyes wider after each phrase, and Seki nodded in time with them.