Page:The Tale of Genji.pdf/237

Rh at all. No one has ever insulted me like this before,’ and she burst into tears. ‘Let us talk about it some other time,’ said Genji; ‘I did not mean…’ and freeing himself from her grasp he rushed out of the room, leaving her in great dudgeon. She felt indeed after his repulse prodigiously old and tottering. All this was seen by His Majesty who, his toilet long ago completed, had watched the ill-assorted pair with great amusement from behind his Imperial screen. ‘I am always being told,’ he said, ‘that the boy takes no interest in the members of my household. But I cannot say that he seems to me unduly shy,’ and he laughed. For a moment she was slightly embarrassed; but she felt that any relationship with Genji, even if it consisted of being rebuffed by him in public, was distinctly a feather in her cap, and she made no attempt to defend herself against the Emperor’s raillery. The story soon went the round of the Court. It astonished no one more than Tō no Chūjō who, though he knew that Genji was given to odd experiments, could not believe that his friend was really launched upon the fantastic courtship which rumour was attributing to him. There seemed no better way of discovering whether it was conceivably possible to regard the lady in such a light than to make love to her himself.

The attentions of so distinguished a suitor went a long way towards consoling her for her late discomfiture. Her new intrigue was of course carried on with absolute secrecy and Genji knew nothing about it. When he next met her she seemed to be very cross with him, and feeling sorry for her because she was so old he made up his mind that he must try to console her. But for a long while he was completely occupied by tiresome business of one kind and another. At last one very dismal rainy evening when he was strolling in the neighbourhood of the Ummeiden he heard this lady