"Then he saw that we are to be overpowered?"
"Do you believe that you are to be overpowered?" Romney asked slowly.
"It is practically accomplished. Old China has already mastered us, but the vision cannot be covered long. The vision is in the world."
"Rajananda said that. He saw your work lost in the folds of the night that still lingers on the face of earth. That was almost his expression.... He bade me hurry to carry his blessing with the others to you—a message of peace and goodwill from the Holy Fathers of the Gobi. He said they were watching and waiting for the dawn, that they could not give you their approval in script, since it might find no living hands to accept it, no party to profit by it."
A servant had come to the call. Nifton Bend sent this one to find his own personal servant.... The former returned, saying that the General's boy had been sent on an errand into the street. Nifton Bend called for tea.
"... They saw a great deal from a distance—those three wise men," he added thoughtfully. "I should have been glad to go to them.... And you say they saw us as belonging only to the dream and not to the action?"
"Yes. That is what was said by Rajananda."
Nifton Bend's face was calm, something almost boyish in his smile.
"I should like to have my young men about me in this hour. I should like to tell them to watch for the working out of the great story which I shall not be allowed to see.... Story—I think of everything as a story—a man's relation to his work and to his woman.... Romney, she thinks much of you. She will be alone. I'd like to live. She makes every day a quivering ecstatic thing. I used to think that death was the best thing that could happen to a man, but death is different now. Let me talk a little English and laugh with you.... Yes, death is different. I would rather be in hell with her than in heaven without. But, of course, everything is ordered better than I could do it. I think I shall be asleep when she comes. I was never a good sleeper here. I shall sleep well for a little—until she comes and wakes me. For she will come. I'm tired. I'm bending to the ground.... I talk to you of this sacred thing—"
His head came very close to Romney, but his eyes were mild and boyish.... "I liked you because you had an Occidental heart—a place for a woman. If my young men were here they would sit and talk with me about China. I love them. They are passionate countrymen—but I have finished with China. Only the woman is left in my heart. And you—you are a white man who can understand—"