"Nonsense," said Rashmani, "he's in the best of health."
"Haven't you noticed him sitting silent for hours together?"
"I should be very greatly relieved if he could sit still for as many minutes."
When all his arrows had missed their mark, and no impression had been made, Bhavani Charan heaved a deep sigh and passing his fingers through his hair went away and sat down on the verandah and began to smoke with fearful assiduity.
On the fifth day, at his morning meal, Bhavani passed by the curds and the milk pudding without touching them. In the evening he simply took one single piece of sandesh. The luchis were left unheeded. He complained of want of appetite. This time a considerable breach was made in the fortifications.
On the sixth day, Rashmani took Kalipada into the room and sweetly calling him by his pet name said, "Betu, you are old enough to know that it is the halfway house to stealing to desire that which you can't have."
Kalipada whimpered and said, "What do I know about it? Father promised to give me that doll."
Rashmani sat down to explain to him how much lay behind his father's promise,—how much pain, how much affection, how much loss and privation. Rashmani had never in her life before talked thus to Kalipada, because it was her habit to give short and sharp commands. It filled the boy with amazement when he found his mother coaxing him and explaining things at such a length, and mere child though he was, he could fathom something of the deep suffering of his mother's heart. Yet at the same time it will be easily understood, that it was hard for this boy to turn his mind away altogether from that captivating foreign fanning woman. He pulled a long face and began to scratch the ground.
This made Rashmani's heart at once hard, and she said in her severe tone: "Yes, you may weep and cry, or become angry, but you shall never get that which is not for you to have." And she hastened away without another word.
Kalipada went out. Bhavani Charan was still smoking his hookah. Noticing Kalipada from a distance he got up and walked in the opposite direction as if he had some urgent business. Kalipada ran to him and said,—"But that doll?" Bhavani could not raise a smile that day. He put his arm round Kalipada's neck and said: