‘You may be right. But whether one can have children or not, what one does is the same isn’t it?’

‘Don’t!’ said Suga strenuously. ‘Don’t tell me so clearly about something I can’t do anything to change myself. You are going to leave here … but I’ve got to stay here … always … I think you’re inconsiderate!’

Her black eyes opened wide in resentment and she grasped Yumi’s hand tightly in her own.

Some two months after returning to her parents’ home, Yumi went to Iwamoto’s home in Tamurachō as his bride.

It was an evening of steady drizzle in the rainy season, and it was after nine when Tomo came home by rickshaw from the reception to which she had been invited. At Tomo’s greeting, Yukitomo, who was playing go with his doctor, looked round with a stone held between the tips of his long-jointed fingers.

‘How was it? Did Yumi make a properly solemn bride?’ he asked, and placed the stone on the board. He seemed to be winning and his voice was good-humored.

‘She was a very well-bred looking bride – nothing fussy, an ordinary kimono with just a flower ornament in her hair,’ said Tomo in Suga’s direction, and Yukitomo smiled and nodded. As she was making some vague answer to what Tomo had said, Suga gazed covertly at Yukitomo’s profile, whose sunken temple showed how much he had aged recently; she was looking for some change of expression, but he was as unconcerned as though he were hearing about the marriage of a distant relative.

Iwamoto continued to come to the house on matters concerning the land and houses, and each time Tomo and Suga would inquire after Yumi, whereupon he would wring his hands bashfully and reply with a little duck of his head:

‘She’s doing fine, thank you.’

Miya, hearing on one of her visits how happy Iwamoto seemed to be, collapsed in frivolous giggles at the news.

‘When Yumi’s there alongside Mr. Iwamoto they must make a real beauty and the beast,’ she said. Then something apparently occurred to her, for she turned to Yukitomo and said, ‘Papa – why don’t we go and have a look to see how the basket-man’s doing? You haven’t been yet either, have you?’ she added with a sideways glance at Suga.

Suga, who had been hoping to go and visit Yumi herself sometime and did not like the thought of the fuss involved in going with Miya and Yukitomo, made some vague reply, but Miya seemed much taken with her latest idea and went on in a wheedling tone:

‘Really, Papa – why don’t we? Let’s go today if we’re going. Yumi’s place is in Tamurachō, so on the way back I’d like to go to the Ginza and look at hair ornaments.’