Romney recalled the creaking in the hall and the fancied step upon the iron balcony.
"You think they have not finished?"
"I am sure they want me," the Hunchback said, his burning eyes upturned to his countryman's face. "We will have a cup of tea together—not here. Come—"
For a moment Romney thought they had turned to the room of the yellow lamplight, but this was not the plan. They entered the apartment which Romney himself had used—the same silken hangings so absurdly peopled with pink embroidered storks and lavender fishes. The Hunchback rang for a servant.
"I see that you have not brought all that we hoped for from the Inner Temple."
"I think they saw something of this day from the distance of the Gobi," Romney answered. "They bade me hasten back, as if the time were most precious—as if they wanted their servants Minglapo and Ti Kung to get their blessing before last night—"
"Their servants—?"
"They spoke of you and the two who have passed with love and reverence," Romney said.
Quickly he told the story of his meeting with Rajananda, Chi Yuan and Tsing Hsia—how they were gathered together at the pool in Kuderfoi, and how they listened to his own story of the work and the dream.
"They were more inclined to take your view of methods than mine," Romney added. "They did not quibble about the death of individuals, nor the manner of defense planned by Young China in case of aggression by the Japanese. They said Japan is young-souled and, if allowed to master China, would bring into the world more of the horrors known as civilised, which are destroying themselves in Europe now. They saw that you were pure. It was not necessary for me to impress my own conviction of that. In fact, the three Holy Men united in the belief that nowhere in the world was there such a promise of national exemplarship for the new order of humanity as in this beginning under your hand. They saw very far and very deep. I wish you could go to the aged arms of Rajananda now. He seems pure power to me. He bathed his hands in the pool and spoke at last, saying that you have brought the dream into the world. I think at times he saw you alone—the others only helping. He saw ahead that the time would come when man would unite with his brother, race to race. But he said that it was not quite time—that nothing of your work would be lost, but that your work had to do with conception rather than with birth—"