I felt that if I remained there, I should never get up at all. With a supreme effort I tore myself off the chair, and hastened towards the door.
From Sandip's dry throat there came a muffled cry: 'Whither would you flee, Queen?' The next moment he left his seat with a bound to seize hold of me. At the sound of footsteps outside the door, however, he rapidly retreated and fell back into his chair. I checked my steps near the bookshelf, where I stood staring at the names of the books.
As my husband entered the room, Sandip exclaimed: 'I say, Nikhil, don't you keep Browning among your books here? I was just telling Queen Bee of our college club. Do you remember that contest of ours over the translation of those lines from Browning? You don't?
- 'She should never have looked at me,
- If she meant I should not love her,
- There are plenty .... men you call such,
- I suppose ...... she may discover
- All her soul to, if she pleases,
- And yet leave much as she found them:
- But I'm not so, and she knew it
- When she fixed me, glancing round them.'
'I managed to get together the words to render it into Bengali, somehow, but the result was hardly likely to be a "joy for ever" to the people of Bengal. I really did think at one time that I was on the verge of becoming a poet, but Providence was kind enough to save me from that disaster. Do you remember old Dakshina? If he had not become a
