The king cannot bear the idea of returning to his palace, but encamps near the grove of the penitents.  He fears that he may not be able to win the girl’s love, and she is tortured by the same doubt regarding him.  “Did Brahma first paint her and then infuse life into her, or did he in his spirit fashion her out of a number of spirits?” he exclaims.  He wonders what excuse he can have for lingering in the grove.  His companion suggests gathering the tithe, but the king retorts:  “What I get for protecting her is to be esteemed higher than piles of jewels.”  He now feels an aversion to hunting.  “I would not be able to shoot this arrow at the gazelles who have lived with her, and who taught the beloved to gaze so innocently.”  He grows thin from loss of sleep.  Unable to keep his feelings locked up in his bosom, he reveals them to his companion, the jester, but afterward, fearing he might tell his wives about this love-affair, he says to him: 

“Of course there is no truth in the notion that I coveted this girl Sakuntala.  Just think! how could we suit one another, a girl who knows nothing of love and has grown up perfectly wild with the young gazelles?  No, my friend, you must not take a joke seriously.”

But all the time he grows thinner from longing—­so thin that his bracelet, whose jewels have lost all their lustre from his tears, falls constantly from his arm and has to be replaced.

In the meantime Sakuntala, without lacking the reserve and timidity proper to the girls of penitents, has done several things that encouraged the king to hope.  While she avoided looking straight at him (as etiquette prescribed), there was a loving expression on her face, and once, when about to go away with her companions, she pretended that her foot had been cut by a blade of kusagrass—­but it was merely an excuse for turning her face.  Thus, while her love is not frankly discovered, it is not covered either.  She doubts whether the king loves her, and her agony throws her into a feverish state which her companions try in vain to allay by fanning her with lotos leaves.  The king is convinced that the sun’s heat alone could not have affected her thus.  He sees that she has grown emaciated and seems ill.  “Her cheeks,” he says,

“have grown thin, her bosom has lost its firm tension, her body has grown attenuated, her shoulders stoop, and pale is her face.  Tortured by love, the girl presents an aspect as pitiable as it is lovable; she resembles the vine Madhavi when it is blighted by the hot breath of a leaf-desiccating wind.”

He is watching her, unseen himself, as she reclines in an arbor with her friends, who are fanning her.  He hears her say:  “Since the hour when he came before my eyes ... the royal sage, ah, since that hour I have become as you see me—­from longing for him;” and he wonders, “how could she fear to have any difficulty in winning her lover?” “The little hairs on her cheek