35

To~ no Chu~jo~ had heard of these events and was much disturbed. “You should not have been so hasty,” he said to his daughter. “There is probably an explanation, and this is the sort of thing that gives a woman a bad name. But what is done is done. You have made your position quite clear and there is no need for you to rush home again now that you are here. His position should soon be clearer.”

He sent one of his sons with a note for the Second Princess.

“A bond from another life yet holds us together?

Fond thoughts I have, disquieting reports.

“Nor, I should imagine, will you have forgotten us.”

The young man came marching in. The princess's women received him at the south veranda but could think of nothing to say. The princess was even more uncomfortable. He was one of To~ no Chu~jo~'s handsomer sons, and they were all very handsome, and he carried himself well. As he looked calmly about him, he seemed to be remembering the past.

“I feel as if I belonged here,” he said. It had the sound of an innuendo. “You must not treat me like a stranger.”

The princess sent back that he had found her in a very unsettled state and that she could not, she feared, give his father a proper answer.

“This is no way for a grown woman to behave,” said one of the women who crowded about her. “And it will seem very rude if one of us tries to answer in your place.”

How she wished that her mother were here, to protect her and explain away everything, even details of which she might not approve. Tears fell to mix with the ink.

She finally managed to set down a verse, though it had a fragmentary and unfinished look about it.

“Disquieting reports, resentful thoughts—

Of one who does not matter in the least?”

She folded it into an envelope.

“You may expect to see a great deal more of me,” said the young man to the women. “I would feel much more comfortable inside the house. Yes, the ties are strong, and I shall come often. I shall tell myself that because of my services over the years I have been given the freedom of the house.” It was all most suggestive.