I do not
know why she had been waiting that evening in the inner room, or why
she had been lying alone there in the dusk. She asked me no question.
She said no word. She simply placed her cool hand on my forehead, and
kissed me, and departed.
The next morning Hemangini said to her aunt in my presence : "If you
want to stay on, you can. But I don't. I'm going away home with our
family servant."
The aunt said there was no need for her to go alone, for she was going
away also. Then smilingly and mincingly she brought out, from a plush
case, a ring set with pearls.
"Look, Hemo," said she, "what a beautiful ring my Abinash brought for
you."
Hemangini snatched the ring from her hand.
"Look, Aunt," she answered quickly, "just see how splendidly I aim."
And she flung the ring into the tank outside the window.
The aunt, overwhelmed with alarm, vexation, and surprise, bristled like
a hedgehog. She turned to me, and held me by the hand.
"Kumo," she repeated again and again, "don't say a word about this
childish freak to Abinash.
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