Binodini. "My life's not been so overburdened with love as to make me reject what's offered!"
"Then come to my room," said Mahendra taking both her hands in his. "I caused you pain today. You've also grievously wounded me by coming away. I'll know no rest nor comfort till all that is wiped away."
"Not to-day," said Binodini. "Let me go to-day. If I've given you pain, forgive me."
"Then do you forgive me too, else I'll have no sleep to-night."
"I forgive you," said Binodini.
Mahendra was determined to wrest some token of Binodini's forgiveness, of her love. But a glance at her face gave him pause.
Binodini went away down the stairs. Mahendra went up with slow steps and began to pace the terrace. That Vihari should have suddenly found him out, at last, gave him an unwonted sense of freedom. The humiliation of secrecy seemed to have in a great measure disappeared, now that even one person knew all about it. "I'll not pose as a moral creature any more," thought he. "But I love—it's not false that I love!" In his exaltation, he even prided himself on being frankly had. He seemed to fling a challenge to the whole world, spread out before him under the twinkling stars, as he said to himself: "Let those, who will, think ill of me—but I love!" and he allowed the image of Binodini in his heart to overshadow the whole of his horizon, of his world, of his life's duties.
It was as if Vihari had upset and broken his stoppered bottle, and allowed the stains of Binodini's black eyes and hair to overflow and blot out all the whiteness and all the writing of the past.
XXVIII
When Mahendra got up the next day, his heart was full with a delicious anticipation. The morning sunshine put a golden touch on all his thoughts and desires. With the lifting of the screen behind which his love had so long been hidden, some covering seemed to be taken off the everyday world. His meeting with Binodini today, Mahendra felt, would be something different from the ordinary. It would be real and yet dream-like—it would be free from the restrictions and responsibilities, the materiality of the social world.
Mahendra was restless and fidgetted about the house; he would not risk going to college, for no almanac could tell when would come the propitious moment for such a meeting.
He could hear the voice of the busy Binodini, sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes in the pantry. This did not please him, for today he had placed Binodini in a region far removed from the world of necessity.
The time refused to pass. Mahendra got through his bath and meal. The silence of the noon-day interval of work settled on the household. Yet Binodini was not to be seen. Mahendra's nerves jangled to mixed impulses of rapture and pain, impatience and hope.
Coming back to his room, Mahendra found the "Poison Tree" lying on the floor-bed. He was reminded, with a thrill, of their little scrimmage, and leaning against the bolster which had the impress of Binodini on it, he took up the book and began to glance through its pages. He gradually became absorbed in the story, and knew not how long he lay there, or when it had struck five.
Then at last Binodini made her appearance with an enamelled brass tray on which were fruits and sweets and a fragrant iced melon-squash. "What's the matter with you, friend Mahin?" she said, as she put the tray down on the floor near a cushion-seat. "It's past five, and you've not yet washed or changed?"
Mahendra felt jarred. Need she have asked what the matter was? Should she have had any doubts on the point? Was this only just an ordinary day? Lest something quite different to what he had anticipated should happen, Mahendra dared not remind her of any claim based on yesterday. As Mahendra sat down to eat, Binodini brought in his winter clothes which had been put out to air on the terrace, and began to deftly fold them up and stow them away. "Wait a minute," said Mahendra, "after I've finished I'll help you."
"Whatever you may do, friend Mahin," said Binodini in mock supplication, "for goodness' sake don't try to help."
"So you think me a good-for-nothing, do you?" said Mahendra as he finished. "All right, let me be tried," and he came over and made one or two ineffectual attempts to fold some of the clothes.
"Don't worry me, sir," complained
