INDIRA AND OTHER STORIES
beggar maid, and have not condescended to inform me of your business with me?"
Ah, Radharani! Was that the way to address the man, the sight of whom brought happy tears to your eyes, him, whom the devotion of years moved you to address in the timehonoured Hindu phrases of love and admiration, "my soul's lord," "sole possession of thy poor slave," "the sole object of longing in absence?" And yet how natural that you should rejoice in your maidenly superiority, should wish to provoke him by asking what the little beggar maid Radharani was to you! And again there rose the thought that, after all these long years, the god of your idolatry had condescended to become incarnate for your joy!
It is not for me to describe the thoughts that perplexed the maiden's bosom. Let my lady readers, learned doubtless in love's lore, imagine the situation, and think what an inexperienced maiden ought to have said under such novel and exciting circumstances. Meanwhile, let me admit that Radharani was a little
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