"Starving!" The word rolled sweeter than any honey under Shunker's tongue. "Then starve away. So thou thoughtest to trick me--me! How didst like the bangles, Kirpo dear? the brave bangles,--he,--he!"
To his surprise the allusion failed to touch her. Instead of breaking into abuse she looked at him curiously, drew her veil so as to hide all but her great dark eyes, and squatted down, as if for a chat, on the ground opposite to him.
"Look here, Lâlâ!" she said. "This is no matter for ill words: 'tis business. What is past, is past. I'm going to give thee a chance for the future--a last chance! Dost hear? So I've come to say I am starving. For six months I paid for my food in this very place; paid for it in thy pleasure. Fair and square so far. But now, because of that pleasure, Râmu is in jail again and I am noseless. Then Râmu's people have taken his sons,--hai! hai! his beautiful sons--from me because of that pleasure. Is not that payment enough, Lâlâ? Shall I starve also?"
"Why not?" chuckled Shunker, "I have no need of thee any more."
Kirpo leaned forward with hand raised in warning, her fierce eyes on his face. "Have a care, Lâlâ! Have a care! It is the last chance. Thou dost not want me; good. I asked for naught to be taken; I asked for something to be given."
"Not a paisa, not a pai!" broke in the usurer brutally. "I'm glad of thy starvation; I'm glad they've taken away thy sons."
"Stop, Lâlâ!" shrieked Kirpo, her calm gone, her voice ringing with passion. "I did not say my sons! I said Râmu's! Look, Shunker, look! I have another,--" as she spoke, she tore her veil aside--"in my arms, Lâlâ! Is he not fair and strong for a two months' babe? Would you not like to have him? No, no, hands off, no touching! He is mine, I say, mine, mine!" She sprang to her feet holding the baby high above his head exultantly. He sat staring at it, and trembled like a leaf.
"Kirpo!" he gasped, "give it to me; by all the Gods in Heaven, I will pay--"
A peal of mocking laughter greeted the words. "Bah! Now I have roused thee. 'Tis all a lie, Shunker, all a lie! Only a trick of starving Kirpo's! And yet, somehow he favours thee as thou mightest have been before the grease came to spoil beauty. For all that not like Nuttu, the sickly one. Nuttu will die, this one will live. Wilt thou not, heart's darling and delight?" She covered the babe with a storm of passionate kisses.
"Kirpo! by all the torments of hell--" urged Shunker.