No one doubted for a moment that Ramesh would pass his law-examination. The Goddess of Learning, who presides over universities, had always showered petals on him from her golden lotus and had rained on him medals, and scholarships to boot.
Ramesh was supposed to be going home after the examination, but he seemed to be in no particular hurry to pack his trunk. His father had written bidding him return home at once. He had replied that he would come as soon as the results of the examination were announced.
Jogendra, son of Annada Babu, was Ramesh’s fellow-student and lived next door to him. Annada Babu belonged to the Brahmo Samaj and his daughter Hemnalini had recently sat for the First Arts examination. Ramesh was a constant visitor at their house. He appeared regularly at tea-time, but tea was apparently not the only attraction as he was to be found there at other hours also.
Hemnalini used to walk up and down on the roof drying her hair after her bath and reading as she walked. Ramesh, likewise, used to sit book in hand by the stair-turret on the roof of his lodgings engaged in solitary study. Such a place is certainly suitable for quiet reading, but there were considerable distractions also, as a little reflection will show.
So far there had been no talk of marriage on either side. There was some reason for Annada Babu’s failure to raise the subject; a young friend of his had gone to England to read for the bar and the old gentleman had his eye on this youth as a possible son-in-law.
A lively discussion was in progress at the tea-table one afternoon. Young Akshay was not very successful in passing examinations, but he was not a whit behind more scholarly youths in his thirst for tea and for other harmless indulgences; so he too made frequent appearances at Hemnalini’s tea-table. He once argued that the masculine intellect is like a sword and that even without a keen edge its weight makes it a formidable weapon, while woman’s wit is like a penknife — sharpen it as you will it is capable of no serious task, and so on.
Hemnalini was ready to submit in silence to Akshay’s preposterous contention, but her brother Jogendra likewise advanced arguments in depreciation of feminine intelligence. This brought Ramesh into the fray; he roused himself from his torpor and began to chant the praises of womankind.
In the ardour of his feminism Ramesh had finished two extra cups of tea when the bearer brought in a letter addressed to him in his father’s handwriting. Glancing through it he was constrained to accept defeat while the argument was still at its height and he rose hastily to go. There was a chorus of protest and he had to explain that his father had just arrived from home.
“Ask Ramesh Babu’s father to come in,” said Hemnalini to Jogendra, “we can offer him a cup of tea.”
“Please don’t trouble,” Ramesh interposed hastily, “I had better join him at once.”
Akshay rejoiced inwardly. “The old gentleman might object to taking anything here,” he observed, in allusion to the fact that Annada Babu was a Brahmo and Ramesh’s father an orthodox Hindu.
Braja Mohan Babu, Ramesh’s father, greeted his son with the remark, “You must come home with me by the morning train to-morrow.”
Ramesh scratched his head. “Is there any special urgency?” he asked.
“Nothing in particular,” said Braja Mohan.
Ramesh looked inquiringly at his father, wondering why in these circumstances he was in such a hurry, but Braja Mohan did not think it necessary to satisfy his son’s curiosity.
In the evening, when his father had gone out to visit his Calcutta friends, Ramesh sat down to write him a letter; but after he had written the traditional form of address to an honoured parent, “To thy revered lotus foot,” his pen refused its task, although he told himself repeatedly that he was bound to Hemnalini by an unspoken vow and that it would be wrong to conceal this tacit engagement any longer from his father. He composed various drafts in various styles, but finally he tore them all up.
Braja Mohan went peacefully to sleep after supper. Ramesh ascended to the roof and prowled disconsolately up and down like some spirit of night with his eyes fixed on his neighbour’s house. At nine o’clock Akshay made his belated exit, and at half-past nine the street door was locked. At ten the light in Annada Babu’s sitting-room went out, and by half-past ten the whole house was buried in slumber.
Ramesh had to leave Calcutta early on the following morning. Braja Mohan Babu took care to give him no opportunity of missing the train.