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Rh throw? Never were excitement and suspense more clearly marked on two young faces. The Lady of Ōmi was somewhat homely in appearance; but nobody (thought Tō no Chūjō) could possibly call her downright ugly. Indeed, she had several very good points. Her hair, for example, could alone have sufficed to make up for many shortcomings. Two serious defects, however, she certainly had; her forehead was far too narrow, and her voice was appallingly loud and harsh. In a word, she was nothing to be particularly proud of; but at the same time (and he called up before him the image of his own face as he knew it in the mirror) it would be useless to deny that there was a strong resemblance.

‘How are you getting on?’ he asked on being admitted to the room. ‘I am afraid it will take you some time to get the hang of things here. I wish I could see you more often, but, as you know, my time is not my own….’ ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ she answered, screaming as usual at the top of her voice. ‘I’m here, a’nt I? And that’s quite enough for me. I haven’t had the pleasure of setting eyes on you at all for all these years…. But I’ll own that when I came here and found I shouldn’t be with you all the time, like what I’d expected, I was as vexed as though I had thrown a “double-one” at dice.’ ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Tō no Chūjō, ‘I have not any one at present to run my messages and look after me generally; I had it in mind that, when you were a little more used to things here, I might train you to help me in that way. But I am not at all sure that such a post would suit you. I do not mean that as a lady-in-waiting in some other family you would not get on very nicely. But that would be different…. There would be a lot of other young women. … People would not notice so much. … I am afraid I am not expressing myself very happily. I only mean that a daughter or sister is bound to attract attention.