And he seemed to her to make the garden beautiful like the spring-time.
A strange longing came over her. She became so helpless that her
friends were alarmed.

Then Cloud-chariot asked one of her friends: "My good girl, what is
your friend's sweet name? What family does she adorn?"

And the friend said: "This is Sandal, sister of Friend-wealth, and
daughter of the king of the Siddhas." Then she earnestly asked for the
name and family of Cloud-Chariot from a hermit's son who had come with
him. And then she spoke to Sandal with words punctuated by smiles: "My
dear, why do you not show hospitality to the fairy prince? He is a
guest whom all the world would be glad to honour."

But the bashful princess remained silent with downcast eyes. Then the
friend said: "She is bashful. Accept a hospitable greeting from me."
And she gave him a garland.

Cloud-chariot, far gone in love, took the garland and put it around
Sandal's neck. And the loving, sidelong glance which she gave him
seemed like another garland of blue lotuses. So they pledged themselves
without speaking a word.

Then a serving-maid came and said to the princess: "Princess, your
mother remembers you. Come at once." And she went slowly, after drawing
from her lover's face a passionate glance, for which Love's arrow had
wedged a path. And Cloud-chariot went to the hermitage, thinking of
her; while she, sick with the separation from the lord of her life, saw
her mother, then tottered to her bed and fell upon it. Her eyes were
blinded as if by smoke from the fire of love within her, her limbs
tossed in fever, she shed tears. And though her friends anointed her
with sandal and fanned her with lotus-leaves, she found no rest on her
bed or in the lap of a friend or on the ground.

Then when the day fled away with the passionate red twilight, and the
moon drew near to kiss the face of the laughing East, she despaired of
life, and her modesty would not let her send a message in spite of all
her love. But somehow she lived through the night. And Cloud-chariot
too was in anguish at the separation. Even in his bed he was fallen
into the hand of Love. Though his passion was so recent, he had already
grown pale. Though shame kept him silent, his looks told of the pangs
of love. And so he passed the night.

In the morning he arose and went to the shrine of Gauri. And his
friend, the hermit's son, followed him and tried to comfort him. At
that moment the lovelorn Sandal cam