Ommony side-stepped the question by asking another:
“Why do you call her San-fun-ho?”
“It is her name. It was I who gave it to her. She accepted it, when she was old enough to understand its meaning. Do you know Chinese? The word means ‘Possessor of the three qualities,’ but its inner meanings are many: righteousness, virtuous action, purity, benevolence, moral conduct, ingenuousness, knowledge, endurance, music—and all the qualities that lie behind those terms.”
“You think she has all of them?” Ommony asked. His voice held a hint of sarcasm. He intended that it should.
“My son, we all have them,” said the Lama. “But she is the first ordinary mortal I have known, who could express them.”
Ommony pricked his ears at the word “ordinary.”
“You know—you have seen the Masters?” he demanded.
The Lama blinked, but otherwise ignored the question, exactly as every one Ommony had asked, who was likely to know, always had avoided it. There is a legend about mysterious “Mahatmas,”[[43]] whom all the East believes in, but whom none from the West has ever met (and talked much about afterward).
“No man ever had such a chela,” said the Lama, changing the subject and betraying the first hint of personal emotion Ommony had ever noticed in him.
“Are you one of the Masters?” Ommony demanded, sitting bolt-upright, studying the old man’s face.