"Oh wonderful!" exclaimed Binodini. "How is it that the chakor[1] has left the moon to seek the cloud?"
"These fine sentiments of yours are beyond poor me," said Asha. "Why scatter your pearls in the desert, better keep them for somebody who can pay you back."
"And who may that gifted one be?" asked Binodini.
"Your brother, my husband!" said Asha. "I'm not joking, he's been worrying me about making your acquaintance."
"So he sends for me by his wife's command, does he!" thought Binodini to herself. "Well, he doesn’t get me so easily, that's all."
She would not hear of it. And Asha felt very small, indeed, when she had to tell her husband so.
Mahendra was greatly incensed. To object to meet him! Did she take him for just the ordinary sort of male person! Any one else, by this time, would have contrived a hundred and one excuses to see her and cultivate her acquaintance. She ought to have known him better by the very fact of his having refrained from doing so. Had she come to know him she would at once have realised the difference between him and the ordinary run of men!
As it happened, Binodini only the other day had thought bitterly to herself—"I have been here so long, how is it that Mahendra never even makes an attempt to see me? While I am with Pishima can he not find an excuse to come and visit his mother? Why this supreme indifference? Am I a lifeless image? Am I not a human being, a woman? If he once came to know me, he would find out the difference between me and his spoilt pet of a Chuni!"
Asha proposed to her husband, "Let's pretend you've gone to college, and I'll bring my Eyesore into our room. Then you suddenly come in from behind. That'll serve her right."
"What has she done to deserve this severe punishment?" asked Mahendra.
"No really," said Asha, "I'm fearfully angry. To object to meet even you! I can't rest till I take her pride down a bit."
"As I'm not dying to meet your dear friend," said Mahendra, "I must decline to do so by stealth."
With his hand in hers Asha begged of Mahendra, "As you love me, you must,—just this once. I only want to break through her proud reserve; after that do as you please."
Mahendra kept silent. "Do," pleaded Asha. "There's a darling."
Mahendra's eagerness was getting the better of him, so, with the display of an exaggerated indifference, he agreed.
In the silence of a brilliant autumn noon-day, Binodini, seated in Mahendra's room, was teaching Asha how to embroider slippers on canvas. Asha was absent-minded and continually looking towards the door, so the number of mistakes she made was enough to convince Binodini of her utter incapacity.
At last Binodini got annoyed, and taking away the work from Asha's hands said: "This seems to be quite beyond you. Let me go—I have other things to do!"
"Just wait a little," said Asha. "Let me try once more, I won't make any mistakes this time," and she again pretended to set to work.
Meanwhile Mahendra gently came up to the door behind Binodini, and stood there. Asha, with head bent over her work, shook with silent laughter.
"What have you found to laugh at, all of a sudden?" asked Binodini.
Asha could contain herself no longer. She laughed out aloud, threw the canvas at her companion and said, "You're right, my dear, this is beyond me." With which she threw her arms round Binodini's neck and went off into peals of laughter.
Binodini had seen through the whole thing. Asha's excitement and demeanour had betrayed her. She knew exactly when Mahendra had come and stood in the doorway behind her. And affecting an utter simplicity she allowed herself to be caught with Asha's transparent device.
Mahendra entered saying, "Why should this unfortunate creature be deprived of his share in the joke?"
Binodini gave a great start, adjusted the end of her Sari as a veil, and made as if she would rise to go. Asha held her down by the hand.
Mahendra said with a smile: "May it please you[2] to remain seated and let me
