“Tsiang Samdup,” she said at last, “let the girls put your mat here in front of me.”
But the Lama would not move. He shook his head. And Samding spoke:
“The holy Lama knows where it is best to sit. He is not to be moved for convenience.”
The voice was no more astonishing than is anything else that sets a key-note. It was like the rhythm of a tuning-fork. It changed the key—the very atmosphere, asserting fundamental fact, to which everything else must adjust itself or be out of harmony. Vasantasena raised her eyebrows, but yielded and changed her position so as to face the Lama, signing to Ommony to squat down on a cushion beside Maitraya; which was disappointing, because it prevented him from watching the Lama’s face. He could see Samding’s profile beyond Maitraya’s only through the corner of his eye, but he marveled at that; it was as beautiful as a figure of the Buddha done in porcelain.
“If I am to let my piece of jade go,” Vasantasena asked at last, “what reward have I?”
“None,” said the Lama; and that was another fundamental statement, issuing in a voice like the gong that starts the engines. It left nothing whatever to argue about.
“Then why should I do it?” Vasantasena asked.
“Because you wish to do it, and the wish is wise,” the Lama answered, as if he were replying to the question of a little child.
“How do you know I wish to do it?”
“How do you know you are alive?” the Lama retorted.