"He ought to know," I exclaimed, and Caroline had the audacity to laugh.
"Go on, Mrs. Edgerton," cried the Van Tromps with one voice.
"Yamama tells us that our Western world is not only self-satisfied, but ignorant. We are contented with half-truths. Science makes a discovery, as it imagines, and, behold! it is something that the East has known for ages."
"But how about the famine in India?" asked Edgerton, argumentatively. "If they know so much, these Eastern wise men, why don't they make grain grow in a dry season? They are great frauds, eh, Reggie?"
"I don't agree with you, Edgerton," I heard my voice in answer. "You fail to get their point of view."
"Betrayed again, Edgerton," laughed the poet.
"What's their point of view?" grumbled Edgerton, casting a glance of surprise at Caroline.
"If you believed in reincarnation," exclaimed my wife, in my somewhat overbearing manner, "you would look upon death as merely a stepping-stone to a higher existence. A famine, don't you see, helps a large number of souls up the spiral."
"Mr. Stevens has become a theosophist," cried Mrs. Edgerton, in exaggerated amazement.
"How perfectly lovely," commented Miss Van Tromp, somewhat irrelevantly. I saw Jones pouring wine at the poet's corner, and I thought that his hand trembled. I'm sure that my voice was unsteady as I remarked: