24

The Third Month came. Wisteria and _yamabuki were in brilliant flower. In the evening light they brought memories of a beautiful figure once seated beneath them. Genji went to the northeast quarter, where Tamakazura had lived. A clump of _yamabuki_ grew untrimmed in a hedge of Chinese bamboo, very beautiful indeed. “Robes of gardenia, the silent hue,” * he said to himself, for there was no one to hear him.

“The _yamabuki_ wears the hue of silence,

So sudden was the parting at Ide$ road.+

“I still can see her there.”

He seemed to know for the first time—how strange!—that she had left him.

Someone having brought in a quantity of duck's eggs, he arranged them to look like oranges and sent them off to her with a casual note which it would not have embarrassed him to mislay.

“Through the dull days and months I go on thinking resentfully of your strange behavior. Having heard that someone else had a hand in the matter, I can only regret my inability to see you unless some very good reason presents itself.” He tried to make it seem solemnly parental.

“I saw the duckling hatch and disappear.

Sadly I ask who may have taken it.”

Higekuro smiled wryly. “A lady must have very good reasons for visiting even her parents. And here is His Lordship pretending that he has some such claim upon your attentions and refusing to accept the facts.”

She thought it unpleasant of him. “I do not know how to answer.”

“Let me answer for you.” Which suggestion was no more pleasing.

“Off in a corner not counted among the nestlings,

It was hidden by no one. It merely picked up and left.

“Your question, sir, seems strangely out of place. And please, I beg of you, do not treat this as a billet-doux.”

“I have never seen him in such a playful mood,” said Genji, smiling. In fact, he was hurt and angry.