It was the interpreter of the tea-house that made me permanently hopeless. The interpreter was soft-voiced, gentle, and spoke excellent English. She had lived several years with an American missionary—a woman whom she had loved, she said, very tenderly. The interpreter had been a widow for several years, and had a little girl. She would never marry again, she said, because she would have to give up her child. So she spoke English in the tea-house and taught the children of the master for a pitiful salary. I cannot recall ever having met such frankness in Japan, and this is what she said:
"If you have 750 yen to spare, give it to the poor families of Tokio whose sons have gone to war. You buy Kamura-san from the tea-house and you go away to Manchuria; you will not know whether she goes to school. Most likely her house-mother will sell her again. Anyhow it is useless. She really does not want to go to school. She likes the tea-house, the music, the lights and gossip, and the coming and going of strangers. You cannot change her, and it is no use. Give your money to poor people in Tokio."
After this Kamura-san's instincts told her that something was wrong, and she began to take perceptibly more notice of the young officer. Once, as I was told, she said to him:
"I always liked you best—you are so pretty."
I charged her with this statement.
"Who told you that?"
"Never mind."
"He is a liar," said Kamura-san calmly.
And once I caught her making eyes at him behind my back—something that she had never done with me. With this, too, I charged her.