"If there is nothing to fear for you, there is for me. If I am seen with you what will be my position?"
Shrinking at this, Debendra said: "Let us go. Would it not be well that I should renew acquaintance with your new grihini?"
The burning glance of hate cast on him by Hira at these words, Debendra failed to see in the uncertain light.
Hira said: "How will you get to see her?"
"By your kindness it will be accomplished," said Debendra.
"Then do you remain here on the watch; I will bring her to you."
With these words Hira went out of the summer-house. Proceeding some distance, she stopped beneath the shelter of a tree and gave way to a burst of sobbing: then went on into the house—not to Kunda Nandini, but to the darwans (gatekeepers), to whom she said—
"Come quickly; there is a thief in the garden."
Then Dobe, Chobe, Paure, and Teowari, taking thick bamboo sticks in their hands, started off for the flower-garden. Debendra, hearing from afar the sound of their clumsy, clattering shoes, and seeing their black, napkin-swathed chins, leaped from the summer-house and fled in haste. Teowari and Co. ran some distance, but they could not catch him; yet he did not get off scot-free. We cannot certainly say whether he tasted the bamboo, but we have heard that he was pursued by some very abusive terms from the mouths of the darwans; and that his servant, having had a little of his brandy, in gossip the next day with a female friend remarked—
"To-day, when I was rubbing the Babu with oil, I saw a bruise on his back."