Page:The Wreck.djvu/196

CHAPTER XXXIX

Next morning Hemnalini rose betimes to seek her father. She found Annada Babu in his bedroom; he had drawn a deck-chair into the window-bay and was silently meditating.

The room was scantily furnished, containing only a cot and a wardrobe. Hanging on one wall was a faded photograph of Hemnalini's dead mother in an elaborate frame, and on the opposite wall was a piece of her work in wools. The wardrobe contained her trinkets and personal effects and had been left undis- turbed at her death.

Hemnalini placed herself behind her father and caressed his head gently on the pretext of plucking out grey hairs.

"Dad," she said, "suppose we have our tea early this morning, then we'll sit in your room and you'll tell me stories about the old days. You can't imagine how I love listening to them."

Annada Babu's understanding of his daughter's moods had become so acute that he instantly divined her motive in wishing to hurry over tea. Akshay would shortly put in an appearance at the tea-table, and Hem intended to avoid him by retiring at the earliest possible moment to the privacy of her father's room.

The state of his daughter's nerves distressed him profoundly: she was as timorous as a frightened deer.

Descending the stairs he found that the water was not yet boiling, and he vented his spleen on the un-

192

Digitized by Google