40

Kashiwagi still lived alone in the east wing of his father's mansion. He had had his hopes, and though he remained a bachelor by his own choice he was sometimes bored and unhappy. He was good enough, he had still been able to tell himself, to have the lady he wanted if he only waited long enough. But now he was in anguish. When might he again see the Third Princess, even as briefly as on the evening of the football match? A lesser lady might have found an excuse for leaving the house, a taboo or something of the sort. But she was a princess, and he must contrive to send

word of his longing through thick walls and curtains.

He settled upon the usual note to Kojiju~. “The winds the other day blew me in upon your premises, to increase your lady's hostility, no doubt. Since that evening I have been in deep despondency. I brood my days away for no good reason.*

“The trees of sorrow seem denser from near at hand,

And my yearning grows for those blossoms in the twilight.”

Not knowing what “blossoms in the twilight” he had reference to, Kojiju~ thought him a very moody young man indeed.

Choosing a time when the princess had few people with her, she delivered the note. “He seems a rather sticky sort,” she smiled. “I do not know why I take him seriously.”

“Aren't you funny,” said the princess, glancing at the note, which Kojiju~ had opened for her.

Immediately recognizing the allusion and the incident upon which it was based, she flushed scarlet. And she thought of something else, how Genji was always reproving her for just such carelessness.

“You must not let Yu~giri see you,” he would say. “You are very young and you may not pay a great deal of attention to these things. But you really should.”

She was terrified. Had Yu~giri seen and told Genji? Would Genji scold her? She was indeed a child, that fear of Genji should come first.

Finding her lady even more unresponsive than usual, Kojiju~ did not press the matter. When she was alone she got off the usual sort of answer in a flowing, casual hand.

“Away you went, so very coolly. I was incensed. And what do you mean by suggesting that you see poorly? These innuendos are almost insulting.

“Do not let it be known, I pray of you,

That your eye has fallen on the mountain cherry.

“It will never do, never.”

{New Herbs}