her age affected Ishvari profoundly; now she truly appreciated her inward progress, although one aspect of her life remained to be explored—a higher love between woman and man. Were her feelings for Nartaka exaggerated by decades of solitude? “Since you are so perceptive, dear Mandakini,” she said impulsively, “would you care to throw some light on why Nartaka has not bothered to visit me here?”

“Ah, mistress, from all I’ve heard, that man is like the wind blowing over the Sarasvati in winter,” Mandakini murmured. “Swift and incomprehensible, with no discernible pattern.”

“I think I love him, Mandakini,” Ishvari whispered, blushing.

“But you hardly know him!”

Which remark prompted Ishvari to relate all her experiences with the baff...

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