Birbal paused on Âtma's threshold listening to her deep voice backed by the burring hum of her spinning wheel, and as he listened he shivered. This thought of unending life aroused from death or ever the tired eyes were fast closed appalled him. Not for him such slight slumber!
Then he knocked. There was a sound of quick uprising from within, a swift echo of footsteps and then Âtma's voice at the door said with a breathlessness in it:
"What is't? Hast brought news--is all well?"
"Well or ill matters naught" he replied cavalierly. "Open! I come from the King."
But the phrase had lost its charm, "Go thy way, Chamberlain of Princes!" came the mocking answer. "Once bit, twice shy."
"Thou mistakest, sister" urged Birbal, who knowing Mirza Ibrahîm's reputation, had no difficulty in guessing the cause of Âtma Devi's refusal. "I am Maheshwar Rao, disciple by birth of thy dead father."
The reassurance was deft, and the door held ajar upon the chain showed Âtma's figure, tall, low-browed, defiant.
"What wants my lord?" she asked, and her voice trembled as if from some secret perturbation. "A kiss like my Lord Ibrahîm, ere I turned him out, close clipped in an embrace for which he cared not? Yet enter--in the King's name enter to the house of his Châran."
Something there was of strain, of anxiety, in face and manner, that made Birbal's keen eyes seek round the roof for its cause. Then he laughed. "Nay! I seek no kisses, widow, where a lover has just left his lips."
She stared at him haughtily. "What means my lord?"