Page:Broken Ties and Other Stories.pdf/123

 After another long silence, Damini murmured; ‘You know what I am.’

‘You also know what I am,’ I rejoined.

Thus was the proposal mooted, relying more on things unspoken than on what was said.

Those who, in the old days, had been under the spell of my English speeches had mostly shaken off their fascination during my absence; except only Naren, who still looked on me as one of the rarest products of the age. A house belonging to him was temporarily vacant. In this we took shelter.

It seemed at first that my proposal would never be rescued from the ditch of silence, into which it had lumbered at the very start; or at all events that it would require any amount of discussion and repair work before it could be hauled back on the high road of ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

But man’s mind was evidently created to raise a laugh against mental science, with its sudden practical jokes. In the spring, which now came upon us, the Creator’s joyous laughter rang through and through this hired dwelling of ours.

Ail this while Damini never had the time to