Page:Indira and Other Stories.pdf/101

 astonished at her own audacity. As the words came from her lips, they had a strange sound of authority—as if she were scolding an authorised lover!

In truth Rukmini Kumar seemed a little abashed as he gently replied, "I was coming to that. At sight of you, the little maiden of long ago came into my mind. It seemed to me—vaguely—it was like the glimmer of a firefly in a dark night—a faint hope arose that this fair Radharani before me might be—my Radharani!"

"Your Radharani, sir!" cried the girl, in pretended indignation, smiling as she spoke, however, at her own disingenuousness, for indeed a smile would come to her lips, though she had to simulate maidenly scorn of rash pretensions.

But Rukmini Kumar caught the significant inflexion of her happy voice, noted joyously that she used the familiar personal pronoun instead of the formal Hindu mode of address.

"Yes," he said, "it is my Radharani. I