‘Beebee! he looked sorrowfully on them. “They speak of love,” he said; “why hast thou brought them to one who is dying?”
‘“She is fair,” I said—“most lovely. Her eyes are large, her lips are red; in beauty she is like a rose when it opens to meet the morning sun which drinks the fragrant dew from its cup. She has seen thee, O Syud, and her liver has become water.”
‘“What misfortune is around me?” he said. There was no anger in his tone, but sorrow. “I have no love now but for one; but let that pass. Go to her who sent thee: say I pity her—say, as we have never met, and I know her not, so let her turn her thoughts to another; she will see many in the Durbar.”
‘He had thought thee one of the palace dancers; thou knowest they are high and proud, and men account themselves fortunate to win a smile from them: I eagerly undeceived him.
‘“She is no Tuwaif,” I said; “she is a householder, and as far above them in beauty as the moon is above a star.”’
‘And what said he, Sozun?’
‘Then he grew grave, my pearl, and said sternly,—“Such love is sinful—it is impure; bid her forget it. She hath a lord—what am I to her? Why hath she looked on me with eyes of passion? Begone! say to her, Kasim Ali Patél is no man of dishonour, but pure and unstained; as yet, no dissolute or debauched gallant. Away! thou art an offence to me.” Beebee! I tried to speak; he would hear nought. “Begone! begone!” alone sounded in mine ears, and his eyes were so large and so severe that I trembled.’
‘And was this all, Sozun? was this all? Ah fool! ah fool! why didst thou not say I was a Tuwaif—anything—a slave—he would have heard thee. Ah fool! couldst thou not have pleaded for me in words—hot, burning words, such as would have inflamed his heart, dried up the cold dew of his virtue, and turned him to me with a love as violent as mine own? Couldst thou not have said that I live upon his look?—one look I had, only one, which mine own thoughts have magnified into years of intercourse—couldst thou not tell him that I am one who will brook no control? Ya Rehman Alla! couldst thou—’
‘But he said he loved another,’ interrupted Sozun, vainly endeavouring to stem the torrent of her mistress’s words.
‘What, another! O woman, thou didst not say so—thou didst not dare to say it. He loves another! Then he can love, if he has loved another. Who is she? couldst thou discover her, O dull one? A Tuwaif perhaps—some vile and worthless one, some scum of perdition! No, he is too noble for that.—Water, Sozun, water! By Alla, I choke! Enough—now take the vessel. Thou saidst another. Ha! if it were she! if it were she! What dost thou think?’