Kadambini stared solemnly at Jogmaya, and said: "What have I to do with people?"
Jogmaya was astounded. Then she said sharply: "If you have nothing to do with people, we have. How can we explain the detention of a woman belonging to another house?"
Kadambini said: "Where is my father-in-law's house?"
"Confound it!" thought Jogmaya. "What will the wretched woman say next?"
Very slowly Kadambini said: "What have I to do with you? Am I of the earth? You laugh, weep, love; each grips and holds his own; I merely look. You are human, I a shadow. I cannot understand why God has kept me in this world of yours."
So strange were her look and speech that Jogmaya understood something of her drift, though not all. Unable either to dismiss her, or to ask her any more questions, she went away, oppressed with thought.
IV
It was nearly ten o'clock at night when Sripati returned from Ranihat. The earth was drowned in torrents of rain. It seemed that the downpour would never stop, that the night would never end.
Jogmaya asked: "Well?"
"I've lots to say, presently."