At first Tomo had echoed sympathetically Suga’s indirect complaints, but realizing that at such times Suga later confided Tomo’s half of the conversation to Yukitomo, whose bad temper was thereupon vented upon her own unsuspecting self, she had taken of late to brushing aside any tales that Suga came bearing.

Now that he was within sight of sixty the presence of Yumi, for whom he had never cared as he had for Suga, was undoubtedly more of a burden than otherwise for Yukitomo. Without seeming to do so, he was hinting that Yumi should leave and become a respectable married woman, and Yumi herself was of like mind: so much at least Tomo gathered from Suga’s ponderous speech that always sounded as though she had something lodged in her back teeth.

If Yukitomo and Yumi felt that way, no one could complain if Yumi took herself off the Shirakawa register and returned to her own family. Provided they added a sum of money corresponding to the clothes and personal effects that had been made for her during the past everybody should be satisfied. And yet … At this point, a new thought struck the wary Tomo.

Supposing Yumi went back to her parents and got married, would she refrain from talking to her husband of the illicit liaison between Miya and Yukitomo? It would not matter so much if she were an ordinary servant, but for such a story to be told by a woman who had been in their household for so long, supposedly as an adopted daughter, could do the Shirakawa name nothing but harm.

If she was to be married off anyway, would it not be possible to find somewhere where she would be inseparably associated with the family? Considering every possibility in turn, Tomo suddenly remembered someone unexpectedly close at hand – her nephew Iwamoto. Of course Iwamoto, now, would probably agree to any suggestion she made.

Precisely because he was perfectly aware that Yumi was Yukitomo’s concubine, he would also know that the concubines in the Shirakawa household were by way of being housekeepers who could sew and cook, and he should be well acquainted with Yumi’s easy-going, almost masculine nature. Above all, he was familiar with her attractive, refined oval face and the ample clothes and domestic articles that were unquestionably too good for a man of his present standing. Tomo broached the subject with Iwamoto with a ninety-percent confidence that he would agree. If Yumi objected, of course, that would be the end of it, but Tomo knew from long years of observation in the same household that Yumi was not by nature choosy.