The Shinkawas were an old and wealthy merchant family, and while it was, of course, essential to maintain the mutually profitable relationship established with the men from Satsuma and Choshu who had risen to such power within the government, the Baron and his wife held them in secret contempt because of their peasant origins. This was an attitude inherited from their parents, and one that was at the very heart of their newly acquired but unshakable elegance.
