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Rh If only she could persuade Genji to go on playing a little while longer, she felt sure she could pick up enough of the right method to prevent a complete catastrophe, and she sat as near as possible to the zithern, watching his fingers and listening intently. ‘Why does it not always produce such lovely sounds as that?’ she said laughing. ‘Perhaps it depends which way the wind is blowing….’ She looked very lovely as she sat leaning towards him, with the lamplight full upon her face. ‘I have sometimes known you by no means so ready to listen,’ he said, and to her disappointment pushed the zithern from him. But her gentlewomen were passing in and out of the room. Whether for this or other reasons his behaviour to-night continued to be very serious and correct. ‘I see no sign of those young men I brought with me,’ he said at last, ‘I am afraid they grew tired of gazing at every flower save the one they came to see, and went away in disgust. But it is their father’s visit to this flower-garden that I ought all the while to be arranging. I must not be dilatory, for life is full of uncertainties…. How well I remember the conversation in the course of which your father first told me how your mother had carried you away, and of his long search for you both. It does not seem long ago….’ And he told her more than he had ever done before about the rainy night’s conversation and his own first meeting with Yūgao.

‘Gladly would I show the world this Child-flower’s beauty, did I not fear that men would ask me where stands the hedge on which it grew.’

‘The truth is, he loved your mother so dearly that I cannot bear the thought of telling him the whole miserable story. That is why I have kept you hidden away like a chrysalis in a cocoon. I know I ought not to have delayed….’ He paused, and she answered with the