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Rh personally to a mass of business which the old Minister of the Left used formerly to take off my hands. I am as sorry as you are that we see so much less of one another; but I do my best, and you must really try henceforward to bear with me more patiently. You are no longer a child; yet you make as little effort to enter into my feelings and see my point of view as if you were still in the nursery.’ And with that, just as though she were indeed a small child, he put back in its place a lock of her hair that had become disordered while she was weeping.

But still she turned away from him and would not speak a word. ‘This is quite new,’ he said; ‘who has been teaching you these pettish airs and graces?’ He spoke lightly; but how long, he wondered, was this going to last, how much time were they going to spend in this dismal fashion, while at any moment one of those countless horrors that life perpetually holds over us might suddenly descend upon them and reconciliation be no longer possible? Determined to bring the matter to a head, he said at last: ‘I think you have perhaps been misled by very foolish rumours concerning my friendship with the former Vestal. As a matter of fact, it is of the most distant kind, as in the end you will yourself probably realize. She has always, since I first got to know her years ago, treated me with an exaggerated coldness. This hurts me, and I have more than once remonstrated with her on the subject. As very little now goes on at the Momozono palace, she has a good deal of time on her hands and it amuses her to keep up a desultory correspondence. This is all that has happened between us; and even you will surely admit that is not worth crying about! If it is really this affair that has been on your mind, I assure you that there is no cause whatever for anxiety….’ He spent the whole day in trying to win back her confidence, and his patience was at last rewarded.