But the slovenly clerk was approaching. Leilah closed the book, asked the price, paid for it, paid for the other purchase and went back to the inn where during the rest of the day she read the drama of the soul, the story of its emanation from the ineffable, of its surrender to desire, of its fall into matter, of its birth and rebirth in the mansions of life which are death, of the persistence there of its illusory joys, of the recurrences of its unenlightening trials, until, at last, some memory returning of what it had been when it was other than what it had become, it learns at last to conquer desire and accomplish its own release.
The drama, however old, was new to Leilah, and at first not very clear. But beneath it was a chain of causality, the demonstration that this life is the sum of many others, the harvest after the sowing, and, joined to the demonstration were corollaries and deductions which showed that sorrow, when rightly viewed, is not a cross but a gift, a boon granted to the privileged.
It was a little before she mastered the idea. When she had, the novelty of it impressed. At the back of the Vidyâ was a list of cognate works. She wired to San Francisco for them. Shortly they came, and in their companionship the rain of long, loveless days fell by.
Ultimately she sat on a high chair. An oaf asked her questions. Others testified. On the morrow a paper was brought her. It had on it a large seal, the picture of a big building, words that were engrossed, others in script.
She was free.
The knowledge brought no exultation. It was a hostage to joy, one of the many that she was to give.
Meanwhile she had written to Violet Silverstairs telling her that she had separated from Verplank, and asking might she join her. The answer, which was cabled, told her to come. That day she started.
The town house of the Earls of Silverstairs is in Belgrave Square. There are worse places. But to the American countess the discomforts of the residence were not to be endured. After one season she declined to put up with them. Pending an entire modernisation of the house, she and Silverstairs migrated to Paris, where they took an apartment, and a very charming one, in the rue François Premier.
In this apartment Leilah was made to feel that she was with friends, one of whom, however, could not get over the fact that she could not get at the facts in the matter.