"Not only that, but I noticed that the young lady's attitude had changed somewhat from before. When we returned from our trip after a long absence, everything required a woman's hand before we could settle down as usual, but leaving aside the mistress who looked after such things, it seemed to me that the young lady put me first in everything and left K for last. Had it been done too openly, I might have been embarrassed. Depending on the circumstances, I think it could even have aroused a feeling of displeasure in me, but the young lady's manner was so very tactful in that regard that I was delighted. In other words, the young lady, in a way only I could understand, allotted her innate kindness to me in extra measure. So K showed no particular displeasure and remained unconcerned. In my heart, I secretly played a hymn of triumph to him.
Soon summer passed, and from around the middle of September we had to attend to our school coursework again. K and I, according to our respective schedules, began to differ again in the times we came and went. There were about three times a week when I returned later than K, but no matter when I came home, I no longer caught sight of the young lady's figure in K's room. K, as usual, turned his eyes toward me and repeated by rote, 'Just got back?' My nod was almost mechanical—simple and meaningless.
I believe it was around the middle of October. As a result of oversleeping, there was a day I hurried to school still in my Japanese clothes. Since I begrudged the time to lace up my high boots, I slipped on a pair of straw sandals and dashed out. According to the timetable that day, I was supposed to return home before K. When I came back, I slid the lattice door of the entrance open with that expectation. Then, a voice I thought would not be there—K's—caught my ear abruptly. At the same time, the young lady's laughter rang in my ears. Since, as usual, I was not wearing bothersome shoes, I stepped right up into the entryway and slid open the dividing shoji. I saw K seated before his desk as always. But the young lady was no longer there. I only caught a glimpse of her retreating figure as she seemed to flee from K's room. I asked K why he had come home early. K answered that he had felt unwell and rested. When I went into my own room and sat there as I was, before long the young lady brought me tea. Then, for the first time, the young lady greeted me, saying, 'Welcome back.' I was not the sort of easygoing man who could laugh and ask, 'Why did you run away just now?' And yet, in my heart, I was the kind of person who somehow could not get the matter off his mind. The young lady immediately rose and went off along the veranda to the other side. But she stopped in front of K's room and exchanged two or three words with him through the shoji, inside and out. It seemed to be a continuation of earlier, but since I had not heard the beginning, I had no idea what it was about.
Gradually the young lady's manner became more at ease. Even when K and I were both at home, she would often come to the veranda of K's room and call his name. Then she would go in and linger there. Of course she also brought mail and left laundry, so such intercourse, given that the two of them lived in the same house, must be regarded as natural enough; but to me, driven by the fierce single thought that I must possess the young lady exclusively, it inevitably appeared as more than natural. At times it even seemed to me that the young lady deliberately avoided coming to my room and went only to K's. Then you will ask, why not have K leave the house? But doing so would only defeat the very purpose for which I had forcibly brought K here. I could not do that.
