DAS Nazrul has returned, most fortunately. I was able to unlock the refrigerator. I have soda water.

FLORA Thank you, Mr Das!

Das enters the bedroom.

DAS (Approaching the bed) Should I pour the water for you? (On the little table by the bed, outside the mosquito net, there is a glass with a beaded lace cover. Das pours the water) Nazrul was delayed at the shops by a riot, he says. The police charged the mob with lathis, he could have easily been killed, but by heroism and inspired by his loyalty to the memsahib he managed to return only an hour late with all the food you gave him money for except two chickens which were torn from his grasp.

FLORA Oh dear … you thanked him, I hope.

DAS I struck him, of course. You should fine him for the chickens.

Flora lifts the net sufficiently to take the glass from Das, who then steps back rather further than necessary.

FLORA (Drinking) Oh, that’s nice. It’s still cold. Perhaps there really was a riot.

DAS Oh yes. Very probably. I have sent Nazrul to fetch the dhobi—you must have fresh linen for the bed. Nazrul will bring water but you must not drink it.

FLORA Thank you.

The punkah begins to flap quite slowly, a regular beat.

DAS I’m sure the electricity will return soon and the fan will be working.

FLORA What’s that? Oh, the punkah!

DAS I have found a boy to be punkah-wallah.

FLORA Yes, it makes a draught. Thank you. A little boy?

DAS Don’t worry about him. I’ve told him the memsahib is sick.

FLORA The memsahib. Oh dear.

DAS Yes, you are memsahib. Are you all right now, Miss Crewe?

FLORA Oh yes. I’m only shamming now.

DAS May I return later to make certain?

FLORA Are you leaving now? Yes, I’ve made you late.

DAS No, not at all. There is no one waiting for me. But the servant will return and … we Indians are frightful gossips, you see.

FLORA Oh.

DAS It is for yourself, not me.

FLORA I don’t believe you, Mr Das, not entirely.

DAS To tell you the truth, this is the first time I have been alone in a room with an Englishwoman.

FLORA Oh. Well, you certainly started at the deep end.

DAS We need not refer to it again. It was a calamity.

FLORA (Amused) A calamity! That’s not spoken like an artist.

DAS Then perhaps I am not an artist, as you said.

FLORA I did not. All I did was hold my tongue and you had a tantrum. What would you have done in the rough and tumble of literary life in London? I expect you would have hanged yourself by now. When Nymph in Her Orisons came out one of the reviewers called it Nymph In Her Mania, as if my poems which I had found so hard to write were a kind of dalliance, no more than that. I met my critic somewhere a few months later and poured his drink over his head and went home and wrote a poem. So that was all right. But he’d taken weeks away from me and I mind that now.