Page:A Wreath of Cloud.djvu/84

80 some one had just entered the room. ‘There! What a shame! I’ve startled you. And I made sure you heard me come in. But I see you don’t know who in the world I am. Well, your poor father, the old Emperor, who loved his joke, used to call me the Grandam. Perhaps that will help you to remember….’ Could this be…. Yes, surely it was that same elderly Lady of the Bedchamber who had flirted with him so outrageously years ago, at the time of the Feast of Red Leaves. He seemed to remember hearing that she had joined some lay order and become a pensioner in the late prince’s household. But it had not occurred to him that she could possibly still be in existence, and this sudden encounter was something of a shock. ‘I am distressed to find,’ he answered, ‘that those old days are becoming very dim in my mind, and anything that recalls them to me is therefore very precious. I am delighted to hear your voice again. Pray remember that, like the traveller whom Prince Shōtoku found lying at the wayside, I have ‘no parent to succour me’ and must therefore look to old friends such as you for shelter from the world’s unkindness.’ It was extraordinary how little she had changed in appearance, and her manner was certainly as arch and coquettish as ever. Her utterance, indeed, suggested that she now had very few teeth left in her head; but she still managed to impart to her words the same insinuating and caressing tone as of old. It amused him that she spoke of herself as though she had been a mere girl when they first met and that she continually apologized for the changes which he must now be noticing in her. He was amused, but also saddened. For he could not help thinking that of all the gentlewomen who had been this lady’s rivals scarce one was now left at Court. Most were dead; others had fallen into disgrace and were eking out a