6
Morning and another day of peacock-blue and gold.
After breakfast Trent visited the confined Guru Singh. The native was no more communicative than before but Trent did not press his point, for a better plan than blatant questioning had asserted itself.
When he returned to the deck he found Dana Charteris stretched out in her chair, her slim person a symphony in white.
"Good morning," was her greeting as she motioned him into the chair beside her. "I reached a very definite decision last night."
He smiled. Andantino con languore this time. There was a refreshing draught in the mood that he instantly felt—light, golden wine to the senses. Her eyes were like liquid amber.
"Really?"
"Yes. I used to think that all Englishmen were cold-mannered creatures and quite indifferent to their wives, as fiction has it. I've undergone a metamorphosis."
He continued to smile as he packed his pipe.
"Are you accusing us as a nation of polygamous practices?" he asked.
She made a grimace. "Please don't try to be clever or you'll spoil my opinion—and you know countries are judged by single representatives. I warn you that I'm in a desperately serious mood, despite all indications. As proof, I've been wondering if too much travel, too long a sojourn in foreign lands, doesn't affect one's ideas and philosophies—in other words, intoxicate one and leave a craving for the wine of exotic environment."
He contemplated the possibility that her remark was intended as personal; dismissed it; waited for her to continue. Which she did.
"Since you won't be human and ask why I think that, you force me to confess that I'm leading up to a—a personal example."
"Namely?"
"Well—yourself."
Another smile; he lighted his pipe. "Go on."
"Really, would you be satisfied in a prosaic English or American city—after—all this?"—with a vague gesture.
He didn't know; hadn't thought about it. Perhaps—perhaps not.
"I don't believe you would," was her opinion. "You've absorbed a certain amount of atmosphere that has poisoned you in so far as living elsewhere is concerned. I shouldn't be at all surprised, either, to learn that you think Indian and Chinese religions superior to ours?"
"Aren't they?"
"Are they?"
"You, yourself, spoke a few days ago, if I remember correctly, of the philosophies and doctrines of the East—doctrines that have nothing to do with mints or stock-exchanges, as you expressed it."
"Yes. But now I'm comparing the principles of religion—those adopted by our thinkers and real philosophers. Oh, we have our nobler types, who haven't been blinded by earth-dust! It may be a taint of the flesh in me, but I can't adjust myself to the belief that the ascetics and shrivelled yogis that I've seen are the proper habitations for pure spirituality. If the manifestation isn't wholesome, how can the inner conception be? You wouldn't fill an unclean vessel with holy water, would you? It's the methods and instruments through which the East voices its philosophies that I rebel against. That which mutilates, or even neglects, the body, can't be a true religion.... But really, I'm afraid I'm getting beyond my depth. What I originally intended to say is this: occultism is dangerous to those of the West, minds and bodies of a different substance than those of the Orient. I knew a man who became interested in theosophy. After a time he entered some secret cult that had a temple in the Himalayas. It grew to be an obsession, and now ... well, he tried to touch flames that were not conceived for man-tampering and they seared him."
Trent chuckled. "In other words," he said, "you're afraid I'm a Buddhist or a Mohammedan at heart, or, if by good fortune I'm not, you wish to warn me against exotic religions." Another chuckle. "It's flattering. What other conclusions have you drawn?"
"Just at present," she responded, smiling maliciously, "I think you're horrid."
He sobered. "Please go on. It's like looking into your house from the neighbor's window. I'm really interested."
"Or curious? Men who have not ventured into matrimony are, as a rule, inquisitive. And that suggests another question. It seems to me that one alone would be much more receptive to these"—she smiled—"these paganisms than one in union with another. Loneliness—that is, isolation—is food for heresies."
That showed him an old vista at a new angle. There was no misinterpreting her meaning.... Women. A few, but none of consequence; puerile passions and brief affairs of the starlight, never the full ruddy glow of a riper devotion, the finding of the One Woman.... And again, that might not have been her meaning at all. She—At a sudden inspiration he spoke—before he considered.
"Why, no, I'm not married, if that's what you mean."
She gave him a queer look—half smiling, half vexed. There was a faint suffusion of color in her cheeks.
"I'm not quite sure," she announced, swinging her feet to the deck, "but I've almost decided that you're impossible. However, I'll leave you alone to decide for yourself."
And she did.