"That's it exactly! Rubbish galore! Couldn't express it better. Somebody described all that stuff as transcendental flim-flam." And he smiled his most winning smile—a smile of sympathy, of fine intelligence and a lively interest in the conversation.
But Miss Clement stiffened a little, and frowned. "Do you feel that way?"
"Possibly you don't know Rub-a Shah Lagore," said Miss Fidelia, more gently.
"Know him? Oh, yes," said Cyrus. "I know him. That is, I think I met him. Was it in Cambridge?"
"I doubt it," said Miss Clement, "as he died about fifteen hundred."
"Fifteen hundred!" Cyrus smiled, nodded and tried to appear at ease. "Still I may have met him in a previous incarnation."
Then, apropos of incarnations, Miss Clement discoursed on the Oriental mind, on matters psychic, philosophic, mystic and occult. And as she talked, and drifted hither and thither on a sea of words, Cyrus floated off in his own direction, and was recalling once again the look in Ruth's eyes—that mingling of anger and contempt when Miss Clement again suddenly brought him back to the village street.
"Don't you think so yourself?"
Cyrus pulled himself together. "Er—well—perhaps I don't quite understand you."
"Do you know of any richer period in human thought? Any greater age?"