"Markus? Who is Markus?" asked Van Lieverlee, with some impatience, as if completely mystified.
"I do not know who he is," replied Johannes, in a baffled manner. "I hoped that you might know because you are so clever, and have seen so much."
Then he related what had happened to him after he had fallen in with the dark figure, on the way to the city where mankind was—with its sorrows.
Van Lieverlee listened, staring into space at first, with a rather incredulous and impatient countenance, now and then giving Johannes a scrutinizing look. At last he smiled.
Then, slowly and decisively, he said, "It is very clear who he is."
"Who is he?" asked Johannes in breathless expectancy.
"Well, a Mahatma, of course—a member of the sacred brotherhood from Thibet. We will surely introduce him, also, to the Pleiades. He will feel quite at home there."
That sounded very pleasing and reassuring. Was the great enigma about to be solved now, and every trouble smoothed away?
"But," said Johannes, hesitating, "Markus feels really at home only when he is among poor and neglected people—Kermis-folk, and working men. He looks like a laborer, too—almost like a tramp—he is so very poor. I never look at him without wanting to cry. He is very different from you—utterly unlike!"
"That is nothing. That does not signify," said Van Lieverlee, with an impatient toss of his head. "He dissembles."