“It never struck me until to-day that anything might occur by which my life could be permanently disturbed.  Something to-day has whispered to me that such an existence could not be permanent.  I am sure that it cannot be.  The issue must be either to an infinite happiness or to a still more infinite misery.  I cannot tell which.”  His clear, evenly modulated voice trembled a little.  We were in sight of the lights from the hotel.

“I shall not dine with you to-night, Griggs.  I will have something in my own rooms.  Come in as soon as you have done—­that is if you are free.  There is no reason why you should not see Ram Lal the adept, since we think alike about his religion, or school, or philosophy—­find a name for it while you are dining.”  And we separated for a time.

It had been a long and exciting day to me.  I felt no more inclined than he did for the din and racket and lights of the public dining-room.  So I followed his example and had something in my own apartment.  Then I settled myself to a hookah, resolved not to take advantage of Isaacs’ invitation until near the time when he expected Ram Lal.  I felt the need of an hour’s solitude to collect my thoughts and to think over the events of the last twenty-four hours.  I recognised that I was fast becoming very intimate with Isaacs, and I wanted to think about him and excogitate the problem of his life; but when I tried to revolve the situation logically, and deliver to myself a verdict, I found myself carried off at a tangent by the wonderful pictures that passed before my eyes.  I could not detach the events from the individual.  His face was ever before me, whether I thought of Miss Westonhaugh, or of the wretched old maharajah, or of Ram Lal the Buddhist.  Isaacs was the central figure in every picture, always in the front, always calm and beautiful, always controlling the events around him.  Then I entered on a series of trite reflections to soothe my baffled reason, as a man will who is used to understanding what goes on before him and suddenly finds himself at a loss.  Of course, I said to myself, it is no wonder he controls things, or appears to.  The circumstances in which I find this three days’ acquaintance are emphatically those of his own making.  He has always been a successful man, and he would not raise spirits that he could not keep well in hand.  He knows perfectly well what he is about in making love to that beautiful creature, and is no doubt at this moment laughing in his sleeve at my simplicity in believing that he was really asking my advice.  Pshaw! as if any advice could influence a man like that!  Absurd.