“Great king!” rejoined the young statesman, “one thing vouchsafe to hear from me. You have not done well in that you have told my name. You should never let a woman think that your left hand knows the secret which she confided to your right, much less that you have shared it to a third person. Secondly, you did evil in allowing her to see the affection with which you honour your unworthy servant—a woman ever hates her lover’s or husband’s friend.”
“What could I do?” rejoined the young Raja, in a querulous tone of voice. “When I love a woman I like to tell her everything—to have no secrets from her—to consider her another self——”
“Which habit,” interrupted the pradhan’s son, “you will lose when you are a little older, when you recognize the fact that love is nothing but a bout, a game of skill between two individuals of opposite sexes: the one seeking to gain as much, and the other striving to lose as little as possible; and that the sharper of the twain thus met on the chessboard must, in the long run, win. And reticence is but a habit. Practise it for a year, and you will find it harder to betray than to conceal your thoughts. It hath its joy also. Is there no pleasure, think you, when suppressing an outbreak of tender but fatal confidence in saying to yourself, ‘O, if she only knew this?’ ‘O, if she did but suspect that?’ Returning, however, to the sugar-plums, my life to a pariah’s that they are poisoned!”
“Impossible!” exclaimed the prince, horror-struck at the thought; “what you say, surely no one ever could do. If a mortal fears not his fellow-mortal, at least he dreads the Deity.”
“I never yet knew,” rejoined the other, “what a woman in love does fear. However, prince, the trial is easy. Come here, Muti!” cried he to the old woman’s dog, “and off with thee to that three-headed kinsman of thine, that attends upon his amiable-looking master.[67]”
Having said this, he threw one of the sweetmeats to the dog; the animal ate it, and presently writhing and falling down, died.
“The wretch! O the wretch!” cried Vajramukut, transported with wonder and anger. “And I loved her! But now it is all over. I dare not associate with such a calamity!”
“What has happened, my lord, has happened!” quoth the minister’s son calmly. “I was prepared for something of this kind from so talented a princess. None commit such mistakes, such blunders, such follies as your clever women; they cannot even turn out a crime decently executed. O give me dulness with one idea, one aim, one desire. O thrice blessed dulness that combines with happiness, power.”
This time Vajramukut did not defend talent.
“And your slave did his best to warn you against perfidy. But now my heart is at rest. I have tried her strength. She has attempted and failed; the defeat will prevent her attempting again—just yet. But let me ask you to put to yourself one question. Can you be happy without her?”