Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/18

4 hidden behind the ever-present fan, which she draws from the ample folds of her obi.

My friends at Nagasaki told me that I was foolish to marry a mousmé, especially as I was to return to England so soon.

“Why not hire one for the remaining period of your stay?” suggested Kotmasu, who dined with me at my little toy-like villa so often that he began to offer advice as a matter of course. “Misawa would find you a mousmé,” he continued, “whom you could put off as easily as an old glove. A real mousmé, not a geisha girl with a past, an ambiguous present, and a who-knows-what future.”

Others of my friends laughed till they made the paper partitions of my house shiver like the strings and parchment of the samisen. “You will tire of her,” said they.

Yet others with a knowing smile, “She will tire of you. They are all the same.