"The men," I said, "but do they see that it is ugly and ludicrous and——"
"Comic," he helped me.
"Do they know," I asked, taking his unknown words, "that it's comic?"
"The glamour," he said, "conceals it from them. To the best among them it is sacred even."
"And the Comely Ones?"
"It is their chief mission," he replied. "Always remember that. It's sacred." He fixed his kind eyes gravely on my face.
"Ah, worship, you mean," I said. "I understand." Again we stared for some minutes. "Yet all are not comely, are they?" I asked presently.
The fire again shone faintly in his eyes as he watched me a moment without answering. It caught me away. I am not sure I heard his words, but I think they ran like this:
"That's just the point where civilization—so far—has always stopped."
I remember he ceased tinkling then; our talk ceased too. I was exhausted. He told me to remember what he had said, and to lie down and rest. He rang the bell, and a man, one of the four who had held me, came in.