But it is no use. I may be mad. We shall see, I tell him with an indwelling confidence; and he nods his head and remarks stolidly, “Yes, we shall see.”
I should be angry with Kotmasu if I did not know that his opposition, like all the disagreeables of childhood, was intended “for my good.”
In the end he promises to introduce me to my inamorata’s family, and let circumstances rule the rest.
I go out into the sunlight, down the creaking outside stairs, quite light-hearted, and only haggle for ten minutes with Yen-kow the jeweller for a prospective engagement ring with a magnificent pink pearl.
I am sure as I leave the shop with the ring in my pocket that my weakness over the bargaining has lowered me fifty per cent. in the eyes of the stout little jeweller.
I go and buy some hyacinths, and then transact some of my business.
Kotmasu is coming to take me to see Mousmé at sundown.
I am at home again early in the afternoon, and, with a view to my proposed marriage, I begin to take stock of my surroundings.
I have lived long enough in Japan to see nothing exceptional in a marriage which will probably be concluded in a space of time that would be considered extremely short to a Western mind. The worst of it is, I am returning to England for good in less than nine months’ time, and what will my people say to my choice?