THE WRECK
41
changed her clothes early in the afternoon and had then sat down to wait with her eyes on the clock.
For a long time she had consoled herself with the thought that Ramesh's watch might be slow and that he would turn up at any minute. When that theory be- came untenable she had settled down into the window- seat with her needlework, controlling her impatience as best she could. On the top of it all, Ramesh, when he did arrive, wore an abstracted air and made no attempt to explain*his tardiness, lie appeared to have completely forgotten his promise to come early.
The tea-hour was a trying ordeal to Hemnalini that day. When it was at last over she made a special ef- fort to pierce Ramesh's abstraction. On a table set against the wall some books were laid out and she lifted these and made as if to take them out of the room. Her movement aroused Ramesh from his stupor, and he was at her side in an instant. "Where are you taking them to?" he asked. "Wasn't it to-day we were going to choose the books to take with us?"
Hemnalini's lips were quivering and it was with dif- ficulty that she restrained the tears that welled up in her eyes.
"Never mind," she said in a tremulous voice, "we can't do it now." She hurried upstairs and flung the books on the floor of her bedroom.
Her flight deepened Ramesh's despondency. "You don't seem to be very well to-day, Ramesh Babu," remarked Akshay, laughing in his sleeve.
Ramesh muttered something that no one could catch. Annada Babu, however, had pricked up his ears at Akshay 's allusion to Ramesh's state of health.
"That's just what I said myself when I saw him," he remarked.
"People like Ramesh Babu," Akshay went on with his tongue in his cheek, "consider it infra dig. to de- vote any attention to their health. They live in the
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