Beena had reason to be in a bad temper. Without any reason her mother had started an argument about going to Sita’s house. ‘Why don’t you work at home instead of going to Sita’s every day?’ she had asked. ‘Because Sita is very good at her studies and can help me.’ ‘Why don’t you ask her to come here?’ ‘Because it is much quieter there. Here there are you and Champak. There, there is no one.’ ‘What’s happened to Madan’s wife and child?’ ‘I don’t know; she has gone to her parents.’ Then her mother came out with a suggestion which made Beena positively angry. ‘Your sister-in-law is left alone in the house when I go away. Today even Shunno is not in. You take her with you.’

‘What will she do there?’ asked Beena in an exasperated tone. ‘We go away to study in Sita’s room, what will she do, kill flies?’

‘She can knit or read; she is lonely. Anyhow, I do not like you being alone in the houses of strangers. People talk.’

‘Talk about what? What do I do there?’

‘I do not care; you have to obey your mother. You take Champak with you today and see how it goes. If she does not like it, she can come away.’

Beena walked out of the room in a huff. ‘After today, I am never going to Sita’s. I don’t care if I pass or fail.’

Champak did not protest as much as was expected. Although she was being deprived of a chance of being alone in the house, her curiosity about Wazir Chand’s household, which had become the chief topic of conversation over the last month, had been thoroughly roused. Buta Singh often spoke of Wazir Chand, sometimes critically, as people do about their colleagues. Beena was full of the family, particularly Sita. And her husband had begun to see a lot of Madan. She had never met him but had seen him play against the English eleven. ‘I am not at all lonely here,’ she said in the dutiful tone she adopted in speaking to her mother-in-law. ‘But if you want me to go with Beena, I will.’

There wasn’t much conversation in the tonga. Sabhrai made some feeble attempts to make up but Beena continued to reply in gruff monosyllables. When they got to Wazir Chand’s, the roles between mother and daughter were reversed. Sitting in the verandah was Madan, smoking and reading a newspaper. It wasn’t such a quiet place to study after all; Sabhrai felt she had done well to bring her daughter-in-law along. Beena knew her mother would not believe her if she told her that Madan was not usually at home in the mornings. ‘Bhraji, you haven’t gone to college today?’ she asked begging for an explanation.