"We must work to make it so. Now that we've this evidence to use, if necessary, we must assist her as a matter of policy." Andr`e's lips were a thin cold line. "Not that I think she's a poor girl. She's the one who's prepared to snare him by any means necessary. Eh?"

Seratard sat back in the red leather chair.

His office bureau was tatty except for a few oils of modern, little-known French painters, Manet amongst them, that he collected cheaply through a Paris agent from time to time. "What's she doing but reacting to a young man's love?" He shoved the paper back. "I don't like these methods, Andr`e. They're distasteful. You encouraged the girl into the morass of half-truths by telling her to give him half the letter."

"Machiavelli wrote, "It is necessary for the State to deal in lies and half truths, because people are made up of lies and half truths. Even princes." And certainly, by definition, all Ambassadors and politicians." Andr`e shrugged. Carefully he folded the letter. "Perhaps we won't have to use it, but it's good to have it because we represent the State."

"Use it, how?"

"The fact that she tore it up and..."

"She didn't," Seratard said, shocked.

"Of course," Andr`e said coldly. "But it's her word against mine and who wins that contest? The fact that she tore up the second page and only showed Struan the first should be enough to damn her in his eyes.

This gives him a perfect excuse to annul any promise of marriage "as he had been deceived." His mother? If she knew about this she would concede us all sorts of concessions to gain possession of it, if he insists on marrying her, against her advice."

"I don't like blackmail."

Andr`e flushed. "I don't like lots of methods I'm obliged to use for our, I repeat our purposes." He put the page with the fine writing into his pocket. "Circulated in society or published, with the details, this document would destroy Angelique. In a court it would damn her. Perhaps it only shows the truth: that she is just an adventuress, in conspiracy with her father who is, who is at best a gambler and soon to be bankrupt, like her uncle. As to encouraging her, I only tell her what she wants to know and say. To help her. It's her mess, not mine or ours."

Seratard sighed. "Sad. Sad that she is embroiled."

"Yes, but she is, isn't she, to our advantage?" Andr`e's lips smiled but not his eyes. "And yours personally, Monsieur?

Judiciously used this would guarantee her into your bed, would it not, if your undoubted charm failed, which I doubt."

Seratard did not smile. "And you Andr`e?

What are we going to do about Hana, the Flower?"

Andr`e looked at him abruptly. "The Flower is dead."

"Yes. And under such strange circumstances."

"Not strange," Andr`e said, his eyes suddenly flat as a reptile's. "She committed suicide."

"She was found with her throat cut, with your knife. The mama-san says you spent the night with her as usual."

Andr`e was trying to work out why Seratard was probing now. "I did but this is none of your business."

"I'm afraid it is. The local Bakufu official sent a formal request for information yesterday."

"Tell him to kill himself. Hana, the Flower was special, yes, she was mine, yes. I paid the very top pillow price for her, but she was still only part of the Willow World."

"As you said so rightly, people are made up of lies and half-truths. The complaint reports that you had a violent row with her. Because she had taken a lover."

"We had a row yes and I wanted to kill her yes, but not for that reason," Andr`e muttered, choked. "The truth is... the truth is she did have some clients. Three--in the other House but this was this was before she became my property. One of them ... one of them gave her the pox, she gave it to me."

Seratard was aghast. "Mon Dieu, syphilis?"

"Yes."

"Mon Dieu, you're sure?"

"Yes." Andr`e got up and went to the sideboard and poured some brandy and drank it.

"Babcott confirmed it a month ago. No mistake. It could only have been her. When I asked her about it, she...."

He was seeing her again, looking up at him in the little house within the walls of the House of the Three Carp, a little frown on the perfect oval of her face. She was just seventeen and five feet tall.

"Hai, gomen nasai, Furansu-san, spot, like yours, but year 'g, mine sukoshi, rittle, hai, rittle, Furansu-san, sukoshi, no bad, go 'way," she said gently with her sweet smile in her usual mixture of Japanese and bits of English, her l's always like r's. "Hana tell mama-san. Mama-san say see doctor, he say no bad. No bad spot but because just begin pillow and I small. Doctor say pray at shrine and drink medicine, ugh! But few week all gon'way." She added happily.

"All gon'way year ago."

"It hasn't "gone away"!"

"Why anger? No worry. I pray at Shinto shrine like doctor say, pay priest many taels, I eat..." Her face crinkled with her laugh, "eat nasty medicine. Few week all gone."

"It hasn't gone. It won't. There's no cure!"

She had looked at him strangely. "All gon', you see me, my body, all, how many time, neh? Of course all gon'way."

"For Christ sake it hasn't!"

Another frown, then she shrugged. "Karma, neh?"' He had exploded. Her shock was vast and she put her head to the tatami and pitifully began to beg his pardon, "No bad, Furansu-san, gon'way, doctor say, gon'way. You see same doctor soon, all go'way...."

Outside their shoji walls he could hear footsteps and whispers. "You have to see the English doctor!" His heart was thundering in his ears and he was trying to speak coherently, knowing that going to a doctor, any doctor, was useless and that though sometimes the ravages could be arrested, perhaps, as sure as the sun would dawn tomorrow, the ravages would one day arrive in force. "Don't you understand?"' he had shrieked. "There's no cure!"

She just stayed bowed, shaking like a brutalized puppy, saying monotonously, "No bad, Furansu-san, no bad, all go'way..."

He dragged himself back and looked again at Seratard. "When I questioned her about it she said she had been cured, a year ago. She believed it, of course she believed it and she was cured. Me, oh yes I was screaming and asked her why she hadn't told Raiko-san and she mumbled something about, What was there to tell, the doctor said it was nothing and her mama-san would have told Raiko-san if it had been important."

"But this is terrible, Andr`e. Did Babcott see her?"

"No." Another swallow of brandy but he felt none of its customary bite, then said in a rush, desperate to tell someone at last, "Babcott told me the pox... he told me an early poxed woman can appear to be without blemish in every way, that she won't always pass it on, not every time you bed, God knows why, but it's inevitable she will sometime if you continue with her and once a sore appears you're lost though after a month or so the sore or sores go away and you think you're safe but you're not!" Now the vein in the center of Andr`e's forehead was knotted and black and pulsating. "Weeks or months later there's a rash, this's the second stage. It's strong or weak depending on only God knows what and sometimes brings hepatitis or meningitis and stays or goes away, the rash, depending on Christ knows what. The last stage, the horror stage, appears anytime, anytime, months up to, up to thirty years later."

Seratard took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow, praying that he would be spared, thinking about the frequent times he visited the Yoshiwara, about his own musume that now he kept for himself alone but could never guarantee had no other lover.

How can you prove or disprove that if there's collusion with the mama-san when they're only interested in fleecing you? "You had the right to kill her," he said grimly. "And the mama-san."