“Nevertheless,” he murmured, as he followed her, “there is a ‘besides’.”
They found the others in the smaller library, standing in a little semicircle round the Image of the Body. They had evidently only just arrived, for the door of the main apartment was open behind them and through it was a vista of liqueur glasses and coffee cups.
“You are an authority, I believe, Mr. Endacott, upon all matters connected with the East,” Sir Bertram remarked to his visitor.
Endacott nodded. He had adjusted his more formidable-looking spectacles, through which he was steadfastly regarding the Image.
“I think,” he admitted drily, “that I might be said to know more about Chinese art and Chinese objets d’art than any other man alive.”
“I gather from my son,” Sir Bertram continued, “that you are acquainted with the history of this particular Image.”
“Intimately,” was the somewhat sardonic reply. “The fellow statue to this one—the Soul—was acquired, after the desecration of the temple, by the firm with which I was connected in China. Their antiquity alone, apart from their history, makes these twin Images intensely interesting. They are reputed to have been the work of Yun-Tse, the priest after whom the temple was named, and to have been fashioned for the purpose of concealing the jewels and treasures of the temple in times of danger. I see no reason to doubt the truth of the story.”
“Amazing!” Sir Bertram murmured.
“Yun-Tse,” Endacott proceeded, “was the first apostle of Chinese arrestment. He preached the doctrine that China had advanced far enough along the great avenues of art and science and knowledge. He looked still farther ahead and he saw that material progress meant actual retrogression in feeling, in beauty, in genuine achievement. It was he who started the crusade against foreigners.”
“From an æsthetic point of view,” Henry Ballaston ventured a little stiffly, “one can find little to admire in this very extraordinary piece of work.”