"Why, certainly, certainly!" Mr. Early could not help thinking that a
guest who spent most of his time alone in an empty room would prove no
great tax upon his entertainer.
"I thank you," said Ram Juna, rising and making a salaam of curious
dignity and courtesy. "You bid me lecture. You bid me write and instruct
in the sacred truths. That will I do when I come again; and my
consolation shall be the unblemished hours when I sit alone in the
little room which faces the sun. You comprehend me? You understand?"
And Mr. Early, who never, if he could help it, spent a half-hour in
either solitude or idleness, answered again: "Why, certainly, certainly."
"In some months, then, I may return, noble friend. And now I will bid
you farewell until the dawn."
The Swami, with marvelous lightness of foot in spite of his huge body,
made off for his own domain. If Mr. Early, who now sat and yawned alone
by the dying fire, could have peeped in on the excellent Ram Juna, he
would have been much gratified by the evident satisfaction with which
the Oriental surveyed the quarters which were one day to be his. The
Swami strode at once across the bedroom, across the little passage that
opened into the garden, into the unused room beyond. Here with a swift
thrust he turned on the electric light, then moved from window to
window, opened them, examined the heavy wooden shutters which he closed
and unclosed, craning his bull-neck through the opened sashes. Around
and under each piece of furniture he peered, nodding and smiling his
approbation of everything. As he came out, he paused for some moments to
examine the lock on the door.
"Quite inadequate, quite inadequate," he muttered with a frown. "We must
do better than that."
He stood and thought a moment, then put out the light, stepped to the
garden door and disappeared into the night.
With so light a tread did he come back that Mr. Early, should he have
been listening, could have heard no warning footstep to tell him that
his guest was returning.
Back in his own bedroom, Ram Juna peeped into the luxurious bath-room
with placid delight.
"So much water, so easily hot," he said. "It is admirable. All is
admirable." He sank in a heap, cross-legged, in the middle of the floor,
with large hands folded over his stomach, and large eyes narrowed, while
a kindly smile spread over his face, and his head nodded at rhythmic
intervals, for all the world like a benevolent Buddha. The ruby glowed
and sparkled like a living thing in the light and movement; and thus he
sat for some hours.