"Mark my words!" she said, even as she disposed her bundles about her. "That town-bred woman means mischief. I was a fool to give in to you and Dhyân, instead of having the barber, as to a stranger. Not that I want the little hussy above other brides, but I would not have Nânuk slighted."
Suchêt Singh laughed.
"Twenty mile of an ekka hath shook thy brains out, wife. What talk is this? They are two halves of one pea. As friend Elahi Buksh saith, 'do dil razi to kia kare kazi?' (when two are heart to heart, where's the parson's part?)"
"Tra! That's neither in three nor thirteen," retorted his wife. "Give me the barber[[37]] for certainty."
Meanwhile Pertâbi was howling in the little courtyard, much to big, soft-hearted Dhyân's distress.
"Let her go, but this once," he pleaded aside; "truly thou art over anxious, and she but seven for all her spirit."
"Seventy or seven, God knows thee for a baby," snapped Mai Gunga. "Would I had never listened to thee and thy sister, though, for sure, the children were pretty as marionettes. It was a play to think of it. But a mother knows her daughter better than the father, though it seems thou wilt be ordering the wedding-garments next. So be it, but till then Pertâb goes not to Nânuk; 'tis not seemly."
"I--I don't want Nânuk," howled Pertâbi. "I--I want the fresh molasses--I do--I do."
Want, however, was her master, since her own obstinacy was but inherited from her mother. So she sat sulkily in the sunshine, refusing the armourer's big caresses or the charms of bellows-blowing, while she pictured to herself, with all the vividness of rage, Nânuk going down--going down alone--to watch the great shallow pans of foamy, frothy, fragrant juice shrink and shrink in the dark, low hut where one could scarcely see save for the flame of the furnaces. What joy to feed those flames with the dry, crushed refuse of the cane and leaves! What bliss to thrust a tentative twig, on the sly, into the seething, darkening molasses, and then escape deftly to that shadowy hiding-place by the well, and gravely consider the question as to whether it was nearly boiled enough. Toffee-making all over the world has a mysterious fascination for children, and this was toffee-making on a gigantic scale. The legitimate bairn's part of scraping from each brew never tasted half so sweet as those stolen morsels; if only because, when you threw away the sucked twigs, the squirrels would come shyly from the peepul tree where the green pigeons cooed all day long, and fight for your leavings. Pertâbi could see the whole scene when she closed her eyes. The level plain, the shadow of the trees blotting out the sunshine, the trickle of running water from the well, the creaking of the presses, the babel of busy voices, and over all, through all, that lovely, lovely smell of toffee! Yes! sugar-baking time in the village was heavenly, and Nânuk was greedy--greedy as a grey crow to keep it all to himself!
When Spring brought big Suchêt to pay the village revenue into the office, he and the armourer met, as ever, on the best of terms; nevertheless their subsequent interviews with their woman-kind were less satisfactory.