Page:Indira and Other Stories.pdf/49

 My husband agreed to undergo this heroic test.

 

Whatever means of inflaming males Providence has entrusted to our sex, these I heartlessly employed in the torture of my husband during his week's trial. How am I, a woman, to describe a woman's arts and wiles? If by right of womanhood I had not known how to kindle the flame, why was there such a blaze in the poor man's heart last night? But by what means I lighted the fire, how cunningly I blew it when it smouldered, how I managed to set my husband's heart aflame, I cannot for sheer shame tell the tale of all this.

If any of my fair readers has ever engaged in the task of man-slaughter, and has succeeded in her endeavour, then she will understand. If any of my male readers has ever suffered at the hands of a destroying angel, I need not tell him of my tactics. Are not we women, in short, the thorns of this weary world? Is it not mere