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Rh her implied nothing more than an unusual access of paternal feeling. It had now quite stopped raining; ‘the wind was rustling in the bamboos,’ and the moon was shining brightly. It was a lovely and solemn night. Tamakatsura’s ladies, seeing that the conversation was beginning to take a somewhat intimate turn, had tactfully withdrawn from her presence.

His visits had for some while been very frequent; but circumstances seldom favoured him as they did to-night. Moreover, now that he had, quite without premeditation, confessed to these feelings, they seemed suddenly to have taken a far stronger hold upon him. Unobtrusively, indeed almost without her being aware of what was happening, he slipped from her shoulders the light cloak which she had been wearing since summer came in, and lay down beside her. She was horrified, but chiefly through the fear that some one might discover them in this posture. Her own father, she ruefully reflected, might refuse to admit his responsibilities towards her and even order her out of his sight, but she could be certain that he would not submit her to such ordeals as she was here undergoing. … She did her best to hide her tears, but before long they burst forth in an uncontrollable flood. Genji was dismayed. ‘If that is what you feel about it,’ he said, ‘you must really dislike me very much indeed. I have not attempted to do anything that the world would consider in the least reprehensible, even were I in no way connected with you. But as it is, we have been friends for almost a year. Surely there is nothing very strange in the way I have behaved? You know quite well that I should never force you to do anything you would be sorry for afterwards. Do not, please, be angry with me. Now that you have grown so like your mother, it is an immense