Chris stood there, in that shadowless light of dawn, unable even to realise what the dream was. And then, suddenly, a great desire to be alone, and yet to find companionship--a shrinking from the routine around him, and a longing to find shelter in the hidden heart of things--came to him as the worshippers, answering the call of the bell, began to crowd about the temple. So--the Swâmi having kept his promise of asking no more of him for the time--he passed out of the court into the bazaar beyond. But here the world was already chaffering over the needs of the body, and Chris, who was only conscious of his soul, stood bewildered in it, uncertain which way to go. Nothing seemed to claim him, not even his work; for it was Sunday morning.
And after that act of communion, the hope of companionship anywhere seemed, strangely enough, further from him than ever. So he stood idly watching the worshippers pass in and out of the arched entry to the temple court, leaving the world and coming back to it with businesslike faces, until he saw Râm Nâth approaching him, and the sight made him pull himself together swiftly.
'The very man I want!' said Râm Nâth in English, with such an elaborate lack of surprise at Chris's costume that the latter felt instantly that it was known, and had been discussed in Shark Lane. 'If you will wait a moment, I will walk--er--back with you.' The hesitancy showed that something else was known also, and Chris felt a faint resentment come to lessen his forlornness as he waited while Râm Nâth disappeared towards the temple and reappeared again wiping his hands daintily with a hemstitched pocket-handkerchief.
'We of the world,' he explained as he tucked his arm English fashion into Chris Davenant's, 'have to keep in touch with the priests. You disagree, I know; but I hold you wrong. We are driven to acquiesce in much we think untrue in order to keep our hold on the masses. What other hold have we but their ignorance, if they deny our wisdom?'
The forlornness deepened again round poor Chris. Here was the Swâmi's argument upside down.
'What was it you wanted to see me about?' he asked resignedly, feeling that he could not go on with that subject.
'About this afternoon,' began Râm Nâth, and Chris stared blankly.
What! was it possible! his companion continued; had he forgotten that the afternoon was to see the realisation of their long-cherished project of founding an Anglo-Vernacular College? It came back to Chris then, and he hastened to deny what had really been the case; whereupon Râm Nâth went on, mollified. At the last moment, it seemed, some one had remembered that Lady Arbuthnot--who had kindly consented to lay the stone--ought to be presented with a bouquet; and Hâfiz Ahmad had claimed the honour for his wife, thereby raising so much jealousy in Shark Lane that he, Râm Nâth, thought the only solution of the difficulty was to intrust the giving to Mrs. Chris, as wife of the Vice-President of the Managing Committee (Chris heard himself so described with a sense of absolute bewilderment); only, of course, it might not, perhaps, be convenient now.
Chris came back to sudden perception of the other's meaning.
'She will be very glad,' he said quickly; 'I will tell her when I go home.'