And is life not like the play? The gods who watch the drama know that somebody must play the villain’s part, and somebody the pauper’s. They reward men for the acting. He who acts a poor part well receives for his reward a more important part when his turn shall come to be born again into the world.
He, therefore, who is wise plays pauper, king or villain with the gods in mind.
From the Book of the Sayings of Tsiang Samdup.
CHAPTER IX
“GUPTA RAO.”
Dawn came and no Dawa Tsering. Pale light through cobwebbed windows drove the dark into corners and consumed it, until the devil-mask on the wall over Ommony’s head grinned like a living thing and the street noises began, announcing that Delhi was awake. Diana stirred and sniffed, mistrusting her surroundings, but patient so long as Ommony was satisfied to be there. Benjamin shuffled away to the stairs. The daughter came, fussily, fatly hospitable, with chota hazri[[15]] on the brass Benares tray—fruit, tea, biscuits, and a smile that would have won the confidence of Pharaoh, Ruler of the Nile.
But Ommony’s heart had turned harder than Pharaoh’s ever did. He could hardly force himself to be civil. He drank the tea and ate the fruit because he needed it, unconscious now of any ritual of friendship in the act, answering polite inquiries with blunt monosyllables, his mind and memory working furiously, independently of any efforts at conversation. His face was a mask, and a dull one at that, with no smile on it. The iron in him had absolute charge.
He was not by any means the sort of man who flatters himself.
“You damned, deluded fool!” he muttered pitilessly, and Diana opened one eye wide, awaiting action.
He blamed himself, as mercilessly as he always had been merciful to others, for having acted as the Lama Tsiang Samdup’s foil for twenty years. Above all things he despised a smug fool, and he called himself just that. He should have suspected the Lama long ago. He should have seen through Benjamin. He had believed his trusteeship of the Tilgaun Mission was a clean and selfless contribution to the world’s need. Why hadn’t he resigned then from his government job long ago to devote his whole career to the trust he had undertaken? If he had done that, he knew no Lama could have hoodwinked him. No little girls would have been smuggled then into the unknown by way of Tilgaun.