‘I shall name you “Lakshmi.”’
‘But that is an old-fashioned name, Jotin!’
‘Yes, but you are my old-fashioned Mashi. Come to my house again with those beautiful old-fashioned manners.’
‘I can't wish that I should come and burden your home with the misfortune of a girl-child!’
‘Mashi, you think me weak, and are wanting to save me all trouble.’
‘My child, I am a woman, so I have my weakness. Therefore I have tried all my life to save you from all sorts of trouble,—only to fail.’
‘Mashi, I have not had time in this life to apply the lessons I have learnt. But they will keep for my next birth. I shall show then what a man is able to do. I have learnt how false it is always to be looking after oneself.’
‘Whatever you may say, darling, you have never grasped anything for yourself, but given everything to others.’
‘Mashi, I can boast of one thing at any rate. I have never been a tyrant in my happiness, or tried to enforce my claims by violence. Because lies could not content me, I have had to wait long. Perhaps truth will be kind to me at last.—Who is that, Mashi, who is that?’
‘Where? There's no one there, Jotin!’