Jewel Weed. Alice Ames Winter
difference between Hafiz and chutney. And Mr. Early’s mind was of such a broad catholicity that it would be hard to tell which side of his career he most enjoyed, the variety-show or the still-hunt.
Thus it will be seen that this great man, who was a credit to the new art movement of our time, and of whom St. Etienne, a young western city, felt justly proud, was in his usual element when he introduced to the society, in which he was now a fixed star, a light from the Far East. And Swami Ram Juna seemed so sure that he himself was right and all the rest of the world was wrong, that Mr. Early felt him to be a kindred spirit.
The impression deepened as he found himself alone with the Hindu. He had rather dreaded the strange demands and customs that might meet him; but the man of bronze and the snowy turban proved himself to be the best of table companions, suave, courteous and sympathetic. He seemed even to take a kindly interest in such matters of a day as Mr. Early’s incursions into the realms of art and literature. Through dinner they chatted almost gaily, and afterward, while Mr. Early smoked, the Swami joined him in the slow sipping of a liqueur.
There is a frankness of those who have nothing to hide; there is a frankness which makes a mask for him who is, below the surface, all mystery. As Sebastian studied his companion, he told himself that this simple creature was after all a man, perhaps adapting himself to public demands as any clever fellow would; and, as this thought occurred to him, Mr. Early’s benevolence increased.
“You ought to write a book,” he said with the air of one projecting a novel thought. “With your gift for expression, and your—ah—insight into realities, you couldn’t fail to make a success of it.”
“It is my intention,” said the Hindu.
Mr. Early looked a little taken aback, but brightened again with a new suggestion.
“Why not do it here?” he asked. “Come, where could you find a more fitting place? You have your rooms in a wing of the house all to yourself. That gives you perfect solitude. I should be delighted to have you for my guest while you do your work; and when you finish, I know enough of the tricks of the trade to help you push it a bit.”
“Of a certainty truth is self-vigorous, and needs no tricks to keep it living.”
“Ah, yes,” the man of business answered cheerfully. “But one may boost it—one may boost it, my dear fellow.”
The Swami bent his great head and appeared to meditate. When he looked up, his spiritual eyes were narrowed to a speculative slit, and he studied the face on the other side of the comfortable log fire.
“My friend, you are generous. You offer me a home, and I am fain to accept it, if I may put the offer in another form. For the present I must return to India. Too long already have I been away from the atmosphere which is to me life. I must see some of the brothers of my soul. I must saturate myself with repose and with the underlying—with Karma. Also, in this too-vigorous country, that is unattainable. But here, in this place, one who is filled with the message might give it forth to his brothers—or perhaps to the sisters, who appear the more anxious for it. Here the very energy of the air says ‘give’ rather than ‘grow’. If I might a year—six months hence—accept your hospitality?” He looked tentatively at Mr. Early.
“My home is yours. Do what you like with it,” said Mr. Early benignly. He was thinking how well a picturesque cut of the Hindu’s head would look on the covers of The Aspirant, combined with a judicious puff within.
The Swami smiled serenely.
“I observe,” he went on in his delicate voice, “that the wing on the ground floor, in which you have given me room, has two apartments, divided by a little passage, and that the little passage gives not upon the public highway, but upon a garden, quiet and lovely, that faces the sun and is shut in by brick walls and hedges. The farther one of these rooms is bare and but slightly furnished, though my bedroom is sumptuous like that of a maha-rajah. Still the bare small room pleases me best. If I might have this room when I come again! If I might keep the bare room sacred to my meditations, all unentered save by myself! It means to me much that no alien mind, no soul of a common servant, should mar the serenity of the atmosphere in that spot where I sit alone with myself. I would have it dedicated to the greater Me. It would be the cap-sheaf—do you not so say in this land of great harvests?—thus to give shelter not only to my body, but to my soul, in this bare and quiet little room.”
“Why, certainly, certainly!” Mr. Early could not help thinking that a guest who spent most of his time alone in an empty room would prove no great tax upon his entertainer.
“I thank you,” said Ram Juna, rising and making a salaam of curious dignity and courtesy. “You bid me lecture. You bid me write and instruct in the sacred truths. That will I do when I come again; and my consolation shall be the unblemished hours when I sit alone in the little room which faces the sun. You comprehend me? You understand?”
And Mr. Early, who never, if he could help it, spent a half-hour in either solitude or idleness, answered again:
“Why, certainly, certainly.”
“In some months, then, I may return, noble friend. And now I will bid you farewell until the dawn.”
The Swami, with marvelous lightness of foot in spite of his huge body, made off for his own domain. If Mr. Early, who now sat and yawned alone by the dying fire, could have peeped in on the excellent Ram Juna, he would have been much gratified by the evident satisfaction with which the Oriental surveyed the quarters which were one day to be his. The Swami strode at once across the bedroom, across the little passage that opened into the garden, into the unused room beyond. Here with a swift thrust he turned on the electric light, then moved from window to window, opened them, examined the heavy wooden shutters which he closed and unclosed, craning his bull-neck through the opened sashes. Around and under each piece of furniture he peered, nodding and smiling his approbation of everything. As he came out, he paused for some moments to examine the lock on the door.
“Quite inadequate, quite inadequate,” he muttered with a frown. “We must do better than that.”
He stood and thought a moment, then put out the light, stepped to the garden door and disappeared into the night.
With so light a tread did he come back that Mr. Early, should he have been listening, could have heard no warning footstep to tell him that his guest was returning.
Back in his own bedroom, Ram Juna peeped into the luxurious bath-room with placid delight.
“So much water, so easily hot,” he said. “It is admirable. All is admirable.” He sank in a heap, cross-legged, in the middle of the floor, with large hands folded over his stomach, and large eyes narrowed, while a kindly smile spread over his face, and his head nodded at rhythmic intervals, for all the world like a benevolent Buddha. The ruby glowed and sparkled like a living thing in the light and movement; and thus he sat for some hours.
CHAPTER IV
AT MADELINE’S
“Now,” said Richard Percival, as he and Norris stowed themselves away in his automobile, “we shall leave the city, in which are contained how many loves and struggles and silk umbrellas at reasonable prices, and go to the lake where there is no civilization to bother and distract. The lake is ‘The Lake’ par excellence to St. Etienne. It was created by Providence for summer homes. Therefore it was placed only ten miles from the Falls. Providence was a good business woman. Generations of savages lived and died—chiefly died—here. They came where the Father of Waters roared and tumbled and they made their prayers to the Great Spirit, but the sight never suggested to them a great city. Then came the Anglo-Saxon, whatever