The day after the incidents narrated in the preceding chapter, he entered Tula’s apartment, and requested her to dismiss her attendants.
“Sit down, my brother,” she said, when they were alone. “You look vexed. What has happened?”
Going to a table close by, he commenced despoiling a vase of flowers. She repeated the question.
“I am glad,” he answered, “to find one whom the coming of the strangers has not changed.”
“What now?”
“I have been again and again to see Nenetzin, but she refuses me. Is she sick?”
“Not that I know.”
“Then why is she so provoking?”
“My brother, you know not what it is for a girl to find her lover. Nenetzin has found hers.”
“It is to talk about him I want to see her.”