“No, I don’t. As the times go, they are a necessary evil, and there are fine fellows among them—splendid fellows, one ought to be grateful to them for their self-sacrifice; but for my own part I’m unspeakably thankful to have escaped. Think of spending all one’s life preparing for, playing at, a need which may never arise—which one hopes may never arise. I couldn’t endure it. Give me active service the whole time—the more active the better.”
“Service in what capacity? As a—”
“Oh, I have no profession. I am just an ordinary business man—buying and selling, and watching the markets, like the rest.”
“Humph!” Vanna pursed her lips with a militant air. “I think a very good case might be made for the soldier versus the merchant. He works, or waits, for the good of his country. There is precious little to be made out of it from a personal point of view. A merchant’s aim is entirely selfish. He is absorbed in piling up his own fortune.”
Mr Gloucester laughed.
“Oh, you are too down on the poor merchants, Miss Strangeways. They have their own share in helping on the country, and it’s not every man who can get a fortune to pile. I can’t, for one. The faculty of gaining money is as inherent as the writing of poetry. Some fellows like myself can never attain to it.” He held out his right hand, pointing smilingly at the hollow palm. “Look at that. Palmists would tell you that with that hand I shall never ‘hold money.’ The day may come when I should be thankful to exchange my fortune for the soldier’s shilling a day.”
Vanna did not reply. She was looking at that hollowed palm with puckered, thoughtful glance. “Palmist!” she repeated slowly, “fortune-telling! It’s not often one hears a man quoting such an authority; but you have lived in the East. I suppose that unconsciously alters the point of view. India is the land of—what should one call it?—superstition, mysticism, the occult. It is a subject which fascinates me intensely. I know very little about it; I’m not at all sure that it is good to know more; but—it beckons. Tell me, have you seen anything, had any extraordinary experiences? Are the stories true, for instance, that one hears of these native jugglers?”
“Snake-charming, you mean, the boy in the basket, the mango trick? Oh, yes. I’ve seen them often, on the deck of a ship, as well as on the open plain. People say it is hypnotism, that the fellow doesn’t really do it, only makes you think he does; but that’s rubbish. It’s sleight-of-hand, uncommonly clever, of course, but pure and simple conjuring. The mango is chosen because he can get dried-up specimens, several specimens, of different sizes, to which he attaches false roots, and it is a plant which will quickly expand beneath the water with which he deluges the ground. All that sort of tricks can be explained, but there are other things more mysterious: the transmission of news from station to station, so that it is known in the bazaars before the post can bring the letters, the power of reading others’ minds, of seeing into the future.”
“But you don’t believe, you can’t seriously believe that that is possible?”
Robert Gloucester bent forward, his elbows crossed on his knees, his brown, extraordinarily clear eyes fixed on her face.