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280 been very successful in my plans for your own future. But I still hope that we may be able to arrange something not too contemptible. I promise you at any rate that you shall not be made ridiculous. I am keeping my ears open and have one or two projects in mind, but for the moment it is exceedingly difficult to arrive at a decision. Meanwhile, do not be deceived by the tears and protestations of young men who have nothing better to do than amuse themselves at the expense of confiding creatures such as you. I know what I am talking about’ … and so on, speaking more and more kindly as he went along.

In old days the scoldings which she had received on account of her intimacy with Yūgiri had been the more distressing to her because she had not at that time the least idea what all this fuss was about. But now that she was a little better acquainted with such matters, she recalled with burning shame time after time when she had mentioned to her elders things which she now saw it was the wildest folly ever to have repeated. The old Princess frequently complained that Kumoi never came to see her. This put the child in great embarrassment, for the truth was that she dared not go, for Tō no Chūjō would be sure to think that she was using her duty towards the old lady as a pretext for clandestine meeting with her lover.

But another question was at this time occupying a good deal of Tō no Chūjō’s attention. What was to be done with this new daughter of his, the Lady from Ōmi? If, after going out of his way to track her down, he were now to send her home again merely because certain people had said disobliging things about her, he would himself figure as intolerably capricious and eccentric. To let her mix in general society was, judging by what he had heard and seen of her already, quite out of the question. But if he