She had enjoyed the love of a man old enough to be her father and a life of luxury beyond her station, yet as a man used to handling women Yukitomo had seen to it that even as he brought the young girl to the full flowering of womanhood she had always followed a course that did not clash with his keeping her in his own home, a course that she herself had docilely followed until she had become her present impotent self. Although Tomo seemed to mean nothing to Yukitomo where love was concerned, although in practice nothing about either of them conveyed any suggestion of marital affection, the patience and strength of will with which Tomo, unaided by her husband’s love, maintained her position as mistress of the house gave Suga a sense of inadequacy that weighed on her day and night like an incredibly heavy stone.

Tomo’s daily life held no ease or relaxation whatsoever. Deep down beneath the relaxed, gracious movements of her body there lay concealed a constant, tense determination not to be outdone. Whatever outrages she might suffer at the hands of a husband with whom she had severed all ties of the flesh, she bore them unprotesting, with all the strength in her body. Knowing that anything she said to the women on whom Yukitomo bestowed his favors would produce an immediate and sensitive reaction in him, she never interfered with either Suga or Yumi. Yet precisely because of her silence, the close guard that she kept on every action in her own daily life acted as a strong though invisible check on Suga. And Yukitomo, who was well aware of this restraint that Tomo placed on Suga and the others, was quite content that it should be so.