Those at the back of the room were rising now to peer over the hats of
the more fortunate in front, but the hush remained unbroken. The dark
eyes of the Hindu were bent on the glass before him, and a mystical
smile played about his mouth.
In the bottom of the retort, in the bluish heap, began a movement, as
though something alive were striving to free itself from bonds and rise.
It heaved and struggled in the dusty mass, grew stronger, and instead of
a shapeless writhing there came an upshooting pyramid, which gradually
took upon itself form. A ghostly apparition of stem, of leaves, of a
dusky red rose, grew more and more distinct until it glowed from its
prison of glass, and Ram Juna smiled.
"The rose is dead!" he said for the third time.
A gasp of appreciation and awe passed through the room. The Swami
turned to Dick Percival.
"That which I know, I speak," he said simply.
Then with a sudden abrupt movement he shook the phial away from the
warmth and held it up.
"Now only the poor body of ashes is within," he went on. "The spirit is
truly fled, until it shall find itself another incarnation, and we say
that the flower is for ever dead. What then is this death with which we
play and which plays with us? But I weary you with my too long
discourse. Give me your pardon. I shall no more."
There rose the sound of moving skirts and loosening tongues. The spell
of oriental mysticism was broken and this became but one of many
entertaining things to be chattered about in moods that varied from
credulity to amusement. The ordinary reception atmosphere took
possession, and the tinkle of animated feminine voices filled the air.
On the outskirts of the throng, which pressed forward to greet the host
and to press the fingers of the seer, lingered the two young men, one of
whom had stirred the unstirable. Norris looked vaguely around as at
unknown faces, and Dick nodded in this or that direction in that offhand
manner which invites people to keep their distance rather than to seek
further intercourse, but the woman who was handsome and thirty refused
to be held at arm's length.
"How-do, Mr. Percival? Glad to see you back. You have the genius of
distinction, even in small things. How natural that the Swami should
single you out for notice and so announce your home-coming to the
world!"
"Is this the world?"
"Our little world," Mrs. Appleton laughed; and as she spoke she peered
curiously at Norris with the air of a naturalist who needs as many
specimens of young men as possible for her collection. Dick smiled,
whether with amusement or with cordiality it would be impossible to say.