Her wishes were usually ignored; and she was not encouraged to leave the house and grounds. Sadako no longer took her cousin with her to the theatre or to choose kimono patterns at the Mitsukoshi store. She was irritated at Asako's failure to learn Japanese. It bored her to have to explain everything. She found this girl from Europe silly and undutiful. Only at night they would chatter as girls will, even if they are enemies; and it was then that Sadako narrated the history of her romance with the young student. One night, Asako awoke to find that the bed beside her was empty, and that the paper _shoji_ was pushed aside. Nervous and anxious, she rose and stood in the dark veranda outside the room. A cold wind was blowing in from some aperture in the _amado_. This was unusual, for a Japanese house in its night attire is hermetically sealed. Suddenly Sadako appeared from the direction of the wind. Her hair was disheveled. She wore a dark cloak over her parti-coloured night kimono. By the dim light of the _andon_ (a rushlight in a square paper box), Asako could see that the cloak was spotted with rain. "I have been to _benjo_," said Sadako nervously. "You have been out in the rain," contradicted her cousin. "You are wet through. You will catch cold." "_Sa! Damaré!_ (Be quiet!)" whispered Sadako, as she threw her cloak aside, "do not talk so loud. See!" She drew from her breast a short sword in a sheath of shagreen. "If you speak one word, I kill you with this." "What have you done?" asked Asako, trembling. "What I wished to do," was the sullen answer. "You have been with Sekiné?" Asako mentioned the student's name. Sadako nodded in assent. Then she began to cry, hiding her face in her kimono sleeve. "Do you love him?" Asako could not help asking. "Of course, I love him," cried Sadako, starting up from her sorrow. "You see me. I am no more virgin. He is my life to me. Why cannot I love him? Why cannot I be free like men are free to love as they wish? I am new woman. I read Bernard Shaw. I find one law for men in Japan, and another law for women. But I will break that law. I have made Sekiné my lover, because I am free." Asako could never have imagined her proud, inhuman cousin reduced to this state of quivering emotion. Never before had she seen a Japanese soul laid bare. "But you will marry Sekiné, Sada dear; and then you will be happy." "Marry Sekiné!" the girl hissed, "marry a boy with no money and leave you to be the Fujinami heiress, when I am promised to the Governor of Osaka, who will be home Minister when the next Governor comes!" "Oh, don't do that," urged Asako, her English sentimentalism flooding back across her mind. "Don't marry a man whom you don't love. You say you are a new woman. Marry Sekiné. Marry the man whom you love. Then you will be happy." "Japanese girls are never happy," groaned her cousin. Asako gasped. This morality confused her.