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176 all the while, it seems to me a queer thing to quarter her on a perfect stranger. Perhaps I do not quite understand what you propose … but wouldn’t it be more natural to tell her father that she is here and give him a chance of acknowledging her? That is what we have been trying to do, and we shall be very glad if you would help us.’ The conversation was overheard by Tamakatsura; she felt very uncomfortable at being thus publicly discussed and, shifting impatiently in her seat, sat with her back to the talkers. ‘I see you think I am taking too much upon myself,’ said Ukon. ‘I know quite well that I am no one at all. But all the same Prince Genji often sends for me to wait upon him and likes me sometimes to tell him about anything interesting that I have seen or heard. On one occasion I told him the story of Madam here—how she had been left motherless and carried off to some distant province (for so much I had heard). His Highness was much moved by the story, begged me to make further enquiries and at once let him know all that I could discover….’ ‘I do not doubt,’ said the nurse, ‘that Prince Genji is a very fine gentleman. But it seems from what you tell me that he has a wife of whom he is fond and several other ladies living with him as well. He may for the moment have been interested in your story; but I cannot imagine why you should suppose he wants to adopt her, when her own father is so close at hand. It would oblige me if you would first help us to inform Tō no Chūjō of Madam’s arrival. If nothing comes of that…’

Ukon could keep up her end no longer. Unless she told the nurse of Genji’s connection with Yūgao, further conversation would be impossible. And having got so far as to confess that Genji had known Yūgao, Ukon plunging desperately on finally managed to tell the whole terrible story. ‘Do not think,’ she said at last, ‘that Genji has