longing for this insolent warrior who spoke of love—and touched her not.

This is the tale of the grape that is never pressed, that never loses its sweetness, though white hands squeeze its pulp, day after day, night after night.

This is the tale of the book that is never read to the end, though eyes, moist and smarting with longing, read its pages till the candles gutter out in the gray dawn wind and the young sun sings its cosmic song out of the East, purple and golden.

This is the tale of love which rises like a mist of ineffable calm, then sweeps along on the red wings of eternal desire—the tale of love that is a chain forged of steel and scent, a chain of unbreakable steel mated to the pollen of the glistening areka-flower.

LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!

"See!" said Shivadevi, the old nurse, to Vasantasena, who shimmered among the green, silken cushions of her couch like a tiger-beetle in a nest of fresh leaves. "Vikramavati, the king, has bowed low before you. He has removed from your hands and ankles the pearl and gold fetters. He has taken off your robe of mourning and has thrown about your shoulders a sari woven of moonbeams and running water. He has seated you beside him on the peacock throne, as a free woman—not a slave."

"Yes," replied Vasantasena. "He has placed his head and his heart on the sill of the door of love. He brought me his soul as an offering. And I"—she yawned—"I love him not."

"He has heaped your lap with many treasures," went on the old woman. "Jasper from the Punjab has he brought to you, rubies from Burma, turquoises from Thibet, star-sapphires and alexandrites from Ceylon, flawless emeralds from Afghanistan, white crystal from Malwa, onyx from Persia, amethyst from Tartary, green jade and white jade from Amoy, garnets from Bundelkhand, red corals from Socotra, chalcedon from Syria, malachite from Kafiristan, pearls from Ramesvaram, lapis lazuli from Jaffra, yellow diamonds from Poonah, black agate from Dynbhulpoor!"

Vasantasena shrugged her slim shoulders disdainfully.

"Yes," she said. "He put the nightingale in a cage of gold and exclaimed: 'Behold, this is thy native land!' Then he opened the door—and the nightingale flew away to the green land, the free land, never regretting the golden cage."

"He grovels before you in the dust of humility. He says that his life is a blackened crucible of sin and vanity and regret, but that his love for you is the golden bead at the bottom of the crucible. He has given you freedom. He has given you friendship. He has given you tenderness and affection and respect."

"Yes," smiled Vasantasena. "He has given me his everything, his all. Without cavil, without stint. Freedom he has given me, keeping the bitter water of humility as his own portion. But all his generosity, his fairness, his humility, his decency—all his love has not opened the inner door to the shrine of my heart. In the night he comes, with the flaming torches of his passion; but my heart is as cold as clay, as cold as freezing water when the snow wind booms down from the Himalayas. The madness of the storm and the waves is upon him, but there is no answering surge in the tide of my soul. In my heart he sees the world golden and white and flashing with laughter. In his heart I see the world grim and drab and haggard and seamed with tears. For—generous, fair, unstinting—he is also selfish and foolish, being a man unwise in the tortuous, glorious ways of love. Daily he tells me that I am the well of his love. But never does he ask me if his love is the stone of my contentment."

"Perhaps he does not dare," cackled the old nurse.

"Being modest?"

"Yes."

"Only the selfish are modest, caring naught for the answering spark in the heart of the loved one. And the love of woman is destroyed by humble selfishness as the religion of a Brahmin by serving kings, the milk of a cow by distant pasturage, and wealth by committing injustice. There is no worth in such wealth—nor in such love. This is Veda-truth."

And in a high, proud voice she added:

"I love Madusadan, captain of horse. I will kiss his red, mocking lips and bend to the thrill of his strong body. Pure he is to all the world, to all women—so the bazaar gossip says—but I, and I alone, shall light the lamp of passion in his heart. Free am I! But the unsung music in his heart shall be a loved fetter around mine. Clasped in his arms, life and death shall unite in me in an unbreakable chain.

"I will bury my hands deep in the savage, tangled forest that is his soul and follow therein the many trails. I will read the message of his hooded, brown eyes, the trembling message of his great, hairy hands. His heart is a crimson malati-flower, and mine the tawny orchid spotted with purple that winds around its roots."

"Gray is the hair on his temples. He is the king's senior by ten years."

"Years of wisdom," laughed Vasantasena. "Years of waiting. Years of garnering strength."

"He is not as kindly as Vikramavati, nor as great, nor as generous."

"But he is wise—wise! He knows the heart of woman—the essence, the innermost secret of woman."

"And that is—"

"Patience in achieving. Strength in holding. Wisdom in—not demanding unless the woman offers and gives sign."

And she went out into the garden that stretched back of the palace in wild, scented profusion, bunching its majestic, columnar aisles of banyan figs as a foil for the dainty, pale green tracery of the nim-trees, the quivering, crimson domes of the peepals bearded to the waist with gray and orange moss, where the little, bold-eye gekko lizards slipped like narrow, green flags through the golden, perfumed fretwork of the chandela bushes and wild parrots screeched overhead with burnished wings; and there she met Madusadan, captain of horse, whom she had summoned by a scribbled note earlier in the day, and her veil slipped, and her white feet were like trembling flowers, and she pressed her red mouth on his and rested in his arms like a tired child.

The road of desire runs beneath the feet all day and all night, says the tale. There is no beginning to this road, nor end. Out of the nowhere it comes, vanishing, yet never vanishing in the nowhere; renewing each morning, after nights of love, the eternal miracle, the never-ending virginity of passion.

You cannot end the endless chain of it, says the tale. You cannot hush the murmur of the sea which fills the air, rising to the white, beckoning finger of Chandra, the Moon.

Love's play is worship.

Love's achievement is a rite.

Love's secret is never read.

Always around the corner is another light, a new light—golden, twinkling, mocking, like the will-o'-the-wisp.

Reach to it—as you never will—and there is the end of the chain, the end of the tale.

LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!

"You broke your faith, faithless woman!" said Vikramavati as he saw Vasantasena in the arms of Madusadan, captain of horse.

The girl smiled.

"It was you who spoke of love," she replied, "not I."

"I tried to conquer your love by the greatness of my own love."

"As a fool tries to take out a thorn in his foot by a thorn in his hand."

"I gave you freedom. I gave you the wealth of all