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THE WRECK

Naliriaksha's first utterances had been in the nature of a shock to Hemnalini. It was patent to her that he had not revealed his true self to his auditors but had merely been trying to conceal his real personality in a flood of talk. What she did not realise was that he was constitutionally incapable of talking to stran- gers without constraint, and that at his first meeting with any one his shyness led him to assume an air of assurance foreign to his real nature. Even when he essayed to speak out his true thoughts, a jarring note was audible of which he was not unconscious himself. It was for this reason that when the restless Jogendra rose to go Nalinaksha's conscience had re- proached him with insincerity, and he had attempted to escape also. When, however, Nalinaksha alluded to his mother, Hemnalini could not forbear gazing at him in reverent admiration, and her heart went out to him when she observed the expression of grave and earnest devotion that lit up his face the moment he mentioned her. She was conscious of an impulse to question him about his mother, but diffidence forbade.

"You're perfectly right." Annada Babu replied at once to Nalinaksha's last speech. "Had I known this I should never have invited you to take tea. Please forgive me."

"Why should I be denied your kind invitation merely because I don't drink tea?" was Nalinaksha's smiling rejoinder.

After the guest had departed Hemnalini took her father upstairs and began to read the articles in a Ben- gal review to him till he dropped off to sleep. Such surrenders to fatigue had become habitual with the old gentleman of late.

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