merest hint suffices. The general drift was clear — rain-clouds were dripping, peacocks were calling, and a lover was pining for his mistress.
Akshay was trying to utter his unspoken thoughts through the medium of the ballad but it gave expres- sion to the emotions of two other persons present. Two hearts beat in unison, immersing themselves in the waves of melody. Nothing now seemed common or unclean and the whole world swam in a rosy mist. It was as though all the passion that had ever throbbed in human hearts were gathered up and showered on these two lovers and that it now pulsated within them in all its super-abundance of bliss and anguish, longing and distress.
There was no pause either in the rain or in the sing- ing. Hemnalini had only to say, "Don't stop, Akshay Babu, give us another song," and he burst out, noth- ing loth, into another ballad. This time the melody was like dark banked-up masses of clouds with light- ning darting through them, but in this too lay am- bushed the yearning of a human heart.
It was late when Akshay went home that night. As Ramesh took his leave he gazed for one moment at Hemnalini as though through a mist of song. Hemna- lini met his eye with a dazed glance for the glamour of the melody had also fallen on her.
There had only been a momentary break in the rain and as Ramesh went home it came pouring down again. He could not sleep that night. Hemnalini like- wise sat for a long time in the darkness listening in a reverie to the continual patter of the raindrops. The refrain,
Nida nahin bin saina,
haunted her also.
Next morning Ramesh said to himself :
