Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/60

46 I would go down and consult Kotmasu—that was the best thing to do.

I gulped down two or three tiny cups of tea, and hastily sought my hat.

Oka’s wife was under the verandah, reeling silk off the cocoons on to strangely primitive wooden wheels, fixed between two upright pieces of wood stuck into a flat stone or cake of hardened, sun-baked clay for firmness. She rose, however, with a smile, and bowing, gave me one of my gayest paper umbrellas, “to match the morning.” Strangely enough, the groundwork was of the colour of Mousmé’s dress the night before. I used not to admire it greatly; now I wondered vaguely why.

I made my way down the hillside, striking the principal street or road after I left my own garden, in which camellias, gardenias, tea-roses and mimosa bloomed with such profusion, that the very air was scented and heavy with the mingled perfume.