Page:A Wreath of Cloud.djvu/175

Rh had set out from the city were sturdy-legged peasants and working people who had pressed on through Tsuba without a moment’s rest and long ago secured their places in the holy building. Ukon, being an habitual visitor to the temple, was at once conducted to a place which had been reserved for her immediately to the right of the Main Altar. But Tamakatsura and her party, who had never been there before and had, moreover, the misfortune to fall into the hands of a very unenterprising verger, found themselves bundled away into the western transept. Ukon from her place of privilege soon caught sight of them and beckoned to them to join her. After a hasty consultation with her son, during the course of which the nurse appeared to be explaining, so far as was possible in a few words, who Ukon was and why she had beckoned, the women of the party pushed their way towards the altar, leaving Bugo no Suke and his two followers where the incompetent sacristan had placed them. Though Ukon was in herself a person of no consequence, she was known to be in Genji’s service, and that alone, as she had long ago discovered, was sufficient to secure her from interference, even in such a place as this. Let the herd gape if they chose and ask one another with indignation why two ill-dressed women from the provinces, who had arrived at the last minute, were calmly seating themselves in places reserved for the gentry. Ukon was not going to have her young lady wedged into a corner or jostled by the common crowd. She longed to get into conversation at once; but the critical moment in the service had just arrived and she was obliged to remain kneeling with head lowered. So it had come at last, this meeting for which she had prayed year in and year out! And now it only remained that Genji, who had so often begged her to find out what had become of Yūgao’s child, should welcome the discovery (as she felt sure he