SUDARSHANA.
What reward do you deserve for your services to-day?
ROHINI.
Nothing from you—but I had my reward from the King as it should be.
SUDARSHANA.
That is no free gift, but an extortion, of reward. I do not like to see you put on what was given in so indifferent a manner. Take it off—I give you my bracelets if you leave it here. Take these bracelets, and go now. [ROHINI goes out.] Another defeat! I should have thrown this necklace away,—but I could not! It is pricking me as if it were a garland of thorns—but I cannot throw it away. This is what the god of the festival has brought me to-night—this necklace of ignominy and shame!
V
[GRANDFATHER near the door of the Pleasure House. A Company of Men]
GRANDFATHER.
Have you had enough of it, friends?
FIRST MAN.
Oh, more than that, Grandpa. Just see, they have made me red all over. None has escaped.
[Author’s note: During the spring festival in India people throw red powder on each other. In this play this red powder has been taken to be the symbol of the passion of love.]
GRANDFATHER.
No? Did they throw the red dust on the Kings too?
SECOND MAN.
But who could approach them? They were all secure inside the enclosures.