The giving of a geisha party such as Ikamon proposed involved no small amount of preparation and entailed much thought and care, yet when the "Harvest Moon" came--for that was the time selected--everything had been gotten in readiness, and Maido and his family occupied their booth, surrounded by all that luxury and refinement could offer to still the cares of man. Shibusawa entered into the spirit of the occasion with every possible determination to do his part, but down in his heart there lived a yearning, and with each repeated failure came a corresponding hope for Kinsan. He had sought her long and earnestly, and now grasped at each straw. "Would she, could she be there that night?" The young prince could not avoid facing Takara, who sat to his left, across the big auditorium, and each look from her burned into him a still deeper sense of his ingratitude. Tetsutaisho occupied an adjoining booth, and no color in Shibusawa's cheek escaped his eye. An inner consciousness smote him, and he looked out into the brilliant scene before him for relief. And as he became transported, that subtile, elusive something seemed all but there, for the geisha party, the universal and proper form, probably fits the case quite as well as any other opera or means devised for the diversion of mankind. Here, in ancient Japan, it is the very acme of united, contributive art, and whether the affair be a small or a grand one matters not; the ever festive and elastic geisha meets the emergency. If but the modest return of a chance relation, whereupon the trifling consequences of a happy trade in jack-knives is discussed, or if it be the social fête, where the destinies of a monarch are framed and harangued, the geisha party is the occasion, and it stands for all that opportunity may or can require. No demand can be too exacting, no hope too flattering. It paves the way to good-fellowship, and inspires the heart to nobler deeds. Ikamon chose it as a means for bringing together the best in the land, and he used it as an instrument to touch them, to sway and move them. The matter of finding a suitable place had worried him, and going in person to all of the noted tea houses, one after another, he discarded them as being inadequate or impracticable. Ryogoku, Tsukiji, Asakusa, and others in turn were visited, and none offered suitable accommodation. His wants were exacting, and as he went from place to place his imagination grew and requirements multiplied beyond all hope of fulfilment.