[All sit down together.
ŚAKOONTALÁ [aside].—How is it that the sight of this man has made me sensible of emotions inconsistent with religious vows?
KING [gazing at them all by turns].—How charmingly your friendship is in keeping with the equality of your ages and appearance!
PRIYAMVADÁ [aside to Anasúyá].—Who can this person be, whose lively yet dignified manner, and polite conversation, bespeak him a man of high rank?
ANASÚYÁ.—I, too, my dear, am very curious to know. I will ask him myself. [Aloud]. Your kind words, noble Sir, fill me with confidence, and prompt me to inquire of what regal family our noble guest is the ornament? what country is now mourning his absence? and what induced a person so delicately nurtured to expose himself to the fatigue of visiting this grove of penance?
ŚAKOONTALÁ [aside].—Be not troubled, O my heart, Anasúyá is giving utterance to thy thoughts.
KING [aside].—How now shall I reply? shall I make myself known, or shall I still disguise my real rank? I have it; I will answer her thus. [Aloud]. I am the person charged by his majesty, the descendant of Puru, with the administration of justice and religion; and am come to this sacred grove to satisfy myself that the rites of the hermits are free from obstruction.
ANASÚYÁ.—The hermits, then, and all the members of our religious society have now a guardian.
[Śakoontalá gazes bashfully at the King.
PRIYAMVADÁ AND ANASÚYÁ [perceiving the state of her feelings, and of the King's. Aside to Śakoontalá].—Dear Śakoontalá, if father Kanwa were but at home to-day———