gentlewomen would themselves never have dreamed of discouraging far less distinguished attentions, let alone those of such a personage as Prince Genji, and they now urged his claims upon their mistress as one ‘for whose sake a little virtue was surely worth sacrificing.’ But after all her efforts in the past to keep free of such an entanglement, this was hardly the moment to give in; for she felt that both he and she had now reached an age when such things are best put aside. She feared that even her inevitable allusions to the flowers and trees of the season might easily be misinterpreted, and even if Genji himself was under no misapprehension, there are always those who made a business of getting hold of such things and turning them to mischief, and in consequence she was careful to avoid the slightest hint of anything intimate or sentimental. About this time a rumour ran through the Court to the effect that Genji was in active correspondence with the former Vestal, abetted and encouraged by Princess Nyogo and the lady’s other relatives. The pair seemed very well suited to one another and no one expressed any surprise at the existence of such an attachment. The story eventually reached Murasaki’s ears. At first she refused to credit it, making sure that if he were indeed carrying on any such intrigue it would be scarcely possible for him to conceal it from her. But observing him with this tale in her mind she thought that he seemed unusually abstracted and depressed. What if this affair, which he had always passed off as a mere joke between himself and his cousin, were to turn out after all to be something important—the beginning of what she dreaded day and night? In rank and in accomplishments perhaps there was little to choose between Asagao and herself. But he had begun to admire and court this princess long, long ago; and if an affection grounded so far back in the past were now to resume its sway over him, Murasaki
