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When Chokichi had finished his work, he changed his clothes, and, hurrying to the tea-house, inquired for Genzaburô, who was waiting for him upstairs. Chokichi went up to him, and began to thank him for the money which he had bestowed upon him. Genzaburô smiled, and handed him a wine-cup, inviting him to drink, and said "I will tell you the service upon which I wish to employ you.
"Now, you will tell me, Ling Chu, did those printed words speak the truth?" Ling Chu nodded. "It is true, master," he said. "The Little Narcissus, or as the foreigners called her, the Little Daffodil, was my sister. She became a dancer in a tea-house against my wish, our parents being dead. She was a very good girl, master, and as pretty as a sprig of almond blossom.
He means no harm in nine cases out of ten; he has been told that Japanese girls don't mind what you say to them, and as to the tea-house girls, well, they are no better than they should be ... but they are good little women, as capable of guarding their virtue as any in the world, and it saddens one to think how often they endure, from a feeling of consideration for the foreigner who does not know any better, they pityingly think, cavalier treatment they would not submit to from a Japanese."
We were anxious to make the best of our way home, and starting at four, with but a short stop at the halfway tea-house, we reached the hotel soon after seven, having taken less than an hour to come five miles over a very bad road, an inch deep in mud. So much for a 'man-power carriage, the literal translation of the word jinrikisha.
Every tea-house along the road is made doubly attractive by prettily dressed attendants-smiling girls who come out and invite passing travellers to rest and buy tea and refreshments.
It isn't much but it has certain possibilities." The two North-countrymen listened with great curiosity as they marched across the grass towards the tea-house. Each possessed the North-country love of the mysterious and the bizarre this last development tickled their fancy and stirred their imagination. "What on earth d'ye make out of it all?" asked Allerdyke.
The prosperous and substantial find contentment in hearing of the unassuming virtues and frugal lives of the poor and unsuccessful. Those of humble origin, especially tea-house maidens and the like, are only really at home among stories of the exalted and quick-moving, the profusion of their robes, the magnificence of their palaces, and the general high-minded depravity of their lives.
And so, much against their will, they tore themselves from one another, Genzaburô returning to his house, and O Koyo going home, her heart filled with joy at having found the man for whom she had pined; and from that day forth they used constantly to meet in secret at the tea-house; and Genzaburô, in his infatuation, never thought that the matter must surely become notorious after a while, and that he himself would be banished, and his family ruined: he only took care for the pleasure of the moment.
Doubtless they are well-intentioned marks of respect, but they caused this person considerable apprehension as he passed among them, and, indeed, give to this unusually pleasant and unassuming spot the by no means inviting atmosphere of a low-class tea-house garden during the festivities attending the birthday of the sacred Emperor.
He returned to his bed of mats, but not to sleep. For days he tried to stifle his passion, but his heart only smouldered away like an incense-stick. Hopelessly in love, without waiting many days he stopped and entered the tea-house. His call for refreshments was answered by Kiyohimé herself! As fire kindles fire, so priest and maiden were now consumed in one flame of love.
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