“Oh yes, they’re quite real, and in deadly earnest. Each of them represents a school and each of them thinks I’ve been converted to his point of view. I’ll introduce Morphew.”
He beckoned to a tall young man in black, who looked like a rolled-up umbrella with a jade handle.
“Morphew, this is Miss Scarlett. She’s nearly as advanced as you are. Sylvia, this is Morphew, the Azurist.”
Walker maliciously withdrew when he had made the introduction.
“Ought I to know what an Azurist is?” Sylvia asked. She felt that it was an unhappy opening for the conversation, but she did not want to hurt his religious feelings if Azurism was a religion, and if it was a trade she might be excused for not knowing what it was, such a rare trade must it be.
Mr. Morphew smiled in a superior way. “I think most people have heard about me by now.”
“Ah, but I’ve been abroad.”
“Several of my affirmations have been translated and published in France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, and Holland,” said Mr. Morphew, in a tone that seemed to imply that if Sylvia had not grasped who he was by now she never would, in which case it was scarcely worth his while to go on talking to her.
“Oh dear! What a pity!” she exclaimed. “I was in Montenegro all last year, so I must have missed them. I don’t think you’re known in Montenegro yet. It’s such a small country, I should have been sure to hear about anything like that.
“Like what?” thought Sylvia, turning up her mind’s eyes to heaven.