"She, who learned our secrets, will take care that none shall play that trick on her," the Mahatma went on confidently. "These women will use the audience hall she lent to us. Their plan is to control the new movement in India, and their strength consists in secrecy. They will take all precautions."
"Do you mean to tell me," I demanded, "that as you sit here now you are impotent? Can't you work any of your tricks?"
"Those are not tricks, my friend, they are sciences. Can your Western scientists perform to order without their right environment and preparations?"
"Then you can't break that door down, or turn loose any magnetic force?"
"You speak like a superstitious fool," he retorted calmly. "The answer is no."
"That," said I, "is all that I was driving at. Do you see this?" And I held my right fist sufficiently close to his nose to call urgent attention to it. "Tell me just what transpired between you and King from the time when you disappeared out there in the courtyard until you came in here alone!"
"No beating in the world could make me say a word," he answered calmly. "You would only feel horribly ashamed."
I believed him, and sat still, he looking at me in a sort of way in which a connoisseur studies a picture with his eyelids a little lowered.
"Nevertheless," he went on presently, "I observe that I have misjudged you in some respects. You are a man of violent temper, which is cave-man foolishness; yet you have prevailing judgment, which is the beginning of civilization. There is no reason why I should not tell you what you desire to know, even though it will do you no good."
"I listen," I answered, trying to achieve that air of humility with which chelas listen to their gurus.