“Judy, you’re kind and thoughtful and understanding—”
“Please,” Judy stopped her. “Peter calls me Angel, and the next thing, you’ll be doing it. I have a lot of faults. I lose my temper and expect too much of people and make hasty judgments, and sometimes I’m rude. I was annoyed with you for not telling the truth—”
“And well you should have been,” Helen Riker said. “For a girl who was once called Sita, I have fallen far short of the Hindu ideal of perfect womanhood. Perhaps I was fooled by Ravana, the evil one. I should have called, ‘Rama! Rama! Rama!’ more often.”
“Do you think he would have answered you?” asked Judy, still a little baffled by the mystic tale.
“Perhaps,” Helen replied, “but I waited too long. Life does not wait for indecision, Judy. As the demon said in the story, ‘It is too late!’ Each of his many heads, pierced by Rama’s arrows, cried it to heaven until there was only one left to speak and it spoke wisely, ‘Learn by my example. Do selfless deeds at once. Those that are selfish put them off till they cease to trouble thy mind.’ But, you see, I put off the deeds I should have done. I intended to visit Uncle Paul and give him back his precious Sita and tell him how Philip took it for me when we were both children and didn’t know its value. I dreaded going there and it was even worse than I imagined. I don’t ever want to go again.”
“Well, I do,” declared Judy, “more than ever now that you’ve told me. Peter!” she called. “Where was it you said we were going?”
CHAPTER XIX
More Revelations
Peter had been in the next room making plans with the children. Judy knew, even before she asked him, that they were going to explore the ruins of the Riker mansion. It did surprise her, though, when he said the magician was going with them.
“For goodness sake, why?” she wanted to know. “Does he think he can wave his wand over it and make it rise up out of the ashes?”