All of this is rasa-lap, a sweet duel of words: Chandravali's envoy, the clever Padma, has come as if to make peace. She steps up to Radhika with a smile: "Everything is settled between our camps now, no more rivalry — for you have done what pleases all the gopis of Vraja. What is it? This: remember how at the Yamuna, while we bathed, Krishna stole all our clothes? And today I see, Radhika, that you have stolen his clothes. You have taken revenge on him for us all! So now there is peace, nothing left to quarrel over." Honeyed words — but a needle hidden within: how would Radhika come to have Krishna's yellow garment, if not... The sakhis flare up: "Shameless girl! What are you insinuating against her? Don't you dare think anything ill of her!" But Padma is already bowing her farewell, sweet as honey: "Let me go — I must hurry to sing Krishna's pastimes for Chandravali: she is pining away for him in separation." One more dart, then gone. Under every gentle word she was hiding a dagger.