Page:Tales of Bengal (Sita and Santa Chattopadhyay).djvu/97

Rh floral wealth, which was transformed into votive offerings for the young girls who were to form the dancing party. A crowd of waiters and servants moved to and fro making everything ready for the feast. I did not stop long to look at all this as three boys and a geometry lesson were awaiting me.

When I returned, the feast was in full swing. The sweet voice of women pierced the silence of the evening and the air was heavy with the fragrance of flowers. The lane was packed with sight-seers and I had to fight my way through them. Every now and again they would voice their appreciation of the music with all the strength of their lungs, though the guests who had been specially invited to listen paid scant attention to it: indeed many of them were already past the stage when they could appreciate anything at all.

As I could hardly move through the dense crowd, I had perforce to stop. The whole building was festooned with rows of light. All the doors and windows stood open and light streamed out of them into the outer darkness.

Suddenly my roving eyes were fixed in a bewildered stare. How was this! How came she to be here? How came this dull strange house to harbour the flame-like beauty which my heart knew so well? How had I remained ignorant so long of her near presence?

The beautiful creature, who stood by the window and looked as regal as the veritable queen of heaven, was none other than Surama. Though I had last seen her in her father's cottage and now she stood in a great mansion, though her body seemed to glitter with diamonds and rubies and the former soft expression had given place to the hardness of a statue of marble, yet I could not mistake her. Though her flashing eyes were no longer like pools of tenderness and innocence, yet I knew her still. For a minute she gazed down on the garden beneath, and her G