Through the open window Butterfly sees the "other woman."
"Who are you?" Mechanically her lips frame the words, as she stands there, paralyzed—stunned. But the question was perfunctory; the explanations that follow only confirm what she knew at first sight.
Very gently the American wife proposes to Butterfly to adopt her child and bring him up as her own.
The Japanese mother listens dumbly—then slowly realizes that unless she consents to this plan her boy will have no name.
Butterfly says very little—but she accedes. She asks, however, that Mr. Pinkerton himself shall come for the child. "Come in half an hour—in half an hour."
Agreed to this, the Consul and the American lady go away.
Susuki is now quietly ordered to leave the room. She protests, but her mistress is firm; she wishes to be alone.
When the weeping maid has gone, Butterfly lights a lamp at the little shrine and bows before it. Then she takes from the wall a dagger, but drops this as the baby suddenly enters, shoved in by Susuki—faithful slave! who, forbidden to enter herself, thus blindly tries to frustrate Butterfly's ominous wish to be alone.
The child rushes to its mother's arms, and Butterfly clasps it wildly, calling it all the extravagant love-names Japanese fancy can devise.
"'Tis for you, my love, that I am dying!"