"Is not that a strange attitude of mind for an Eastern?"
"I am afraid I do not follow you."
"Well, I have always been led to believe that people from the East are very philosophical and great seekers after truth."
"Ah, but years teach wisdom, signorina, and that wisdom says, 'Never seek the truth.'"
"Why?"
"Because truth is never worth the knowing."
He spoke quite naturally, and did not seem to be aware that he was making a cynical statement. Neither did he lift his eyes to her. He walked slowly, keeping his eyes on the ground.
Olive felt a strange fascination in his presence; moreover, she could not feel that she was speaking to a stranger. She had a feeling that she had seen him before, heard him speak before. And yet everything about him was strange. His voice was not familiar to her, and it had a peculiar fluid tone which sounded un-English, and yet she fancied that she had heard it somewhere. As she listened, she found herself recalling the past, and thinking of the days before the dark shadow fell upon her life. Without knowing why, she found herself thinking of Leicester. The stranger's cynicism reminded her of the night when she first met him. She remembered how Leicester had dominated the gathering at her father's house, and that she had found herself admiring him, even while she had disagreed with everything he had said. The same thing was happening now. Herbert Briarfield, of whom she had thought a great deal during the last few days, seemed to have sunk in the background. He was one who did not matter, while the man who was a stranger had blotted him out. Perhaps this was because she found herself putting a double meaning on everything he said. Of course this might be because, owing to his Eastern associations, he would regard things differently from the way an Englishman would regard them; but she had spoken to men from the Orient before, and they had not impressed her in the same way. Still, she felt a kind of pleasure in matching her wits with his, even although she felt she might not come off best in the encounter.
"But would not your attitude of mind be fatal if it were universal, signore?" she asked.
"Pardon me, I think it is universal."