Page:Broken Ties and Other Stories.pdf/84

 ‘First of all,’ said Damini, ‘she is not my own aunt at all. Why should she bear my burden?’

‘All your expenses shall be borne by us.’

‘Expenses are not the only burden. It is no part of her duty to be saddled with looking after me.’

‘But, Damini,’ urged the Swami in his desperation, ‘can I keep you with me for eve ?’

‘Is that a question for me to answer?’

‘But where will you go when I am dead?’

‘I was never allowed,’ returned Damini icily, ‘to have the responsibility of thinking that out. I have been made to realise too well that in this world I have neither home nor property; nothing at all to call my own. That is what makes my burden so heavy to bear. It pleased you to take it up. You shall not now cast it on another!’

Damini went off.

‘Lord, have mercy!’ sighed the Swami.

Damini had laid on me the command to procure for her some good Bengali books. I need hardly say that by ‘good’ Damini did not mean spiritual, of the quality affected by our sect. Nor need I pause to make it clear that Damini had no compunction in asking anything from me. It had not taken her long to find out that making