‘You mean Miss Yumi, don’t you?’ said Suga when Kin had finished, blinking her eyes as though the light was too strong for them. ‘If that’s it, then there’s nothing worth speaking to the mistress about. Just tell Mother, please, that there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Really ….? No, I suppose there isn’t.’ Kin rested the mouthpiece of her pipe against her cheek and nodded with an equivocal expression.

‘Then, so far as you can tell there’s no sign that the same thing’s going to happen to Yumi?’ Kin added.

‘Oh no, I didn’t mean that.’ An unintended smile appeared on the cheeks that were like cream-colored handmade paper. The smile was devastatingly innocent but Kin shivered as though an icy hand had brushed the back of her neck.

‘It’s already happened,’ Suga continued. ‘Before long the master will have settled things with her parents and she’ll be coming to live with me in this room.’

She spoke smilingly and without hesitation but Kin listened with rounded eyes, the mouthpiece of her pipe still resting forgotten against her cheek.

‘I see … Then surely, your mother’s justified in worrying, isn’t she?’

‘But there’s nothing at all to worry about. Yumi’s a straightforward girl, more like a boy in her outlook, so she and I seem to be well matched.’

‘That’s all very nice, I suppose, but if the master should turn his affections to Miss Yumi it would be no laughing matter, you know.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said with the same innocent smile as before. It was a smile without substance, as if she were being drawn uncomprehendingly down into some unknown darkness.

Again a creeping horror down Kin’s back made her look at Suga intently. Suddenly she felt a surge of curiosity to peer behind the concealing curtain and discover just how Shirakawa was bending Suga to his purpose.

‘ “All right”? You mean, the master talks about everything like that to you?’

‘Well, not exactly everything …’

She broke off, her cheeks aflame, her expression embarrassed. She seemed ashamed at having said something she shouldn’t.

‘But, I mean to say, your mother’s not going to be satisfied with your words alone. If you want to stop her worrying, you’ll have to do it properly … I can see your mother will have to come and talk to the mistress.’

‘Oh, really!’ Suga frowned and shrugged slightly as though in irritation. Just then a tortoiseshell kitten that had been curled up in a ball on a cushion of Y¯uzen silk came over to her with a tinkling of its bell, so Suga picked it up and put it on her lap. Stroking its soft fur she began talking slowly, without looking Kin in the eye, almost as though to herself.