ld have the same opinion?"

"We live in a country where nothing should astonish us, as I remember
saying to you a fortnight ago, when we first met," I answered. "That the
Brahmin possesses some knowledge of _yog-vidya_ is more clearly shown by
his speech about Ram Lal than by that ridiculous trick with my
water-carrier."

"You are not easily astonished, Griggs. But I agree with you as to that.
I am still at a loss to understand why I should not have come or let the
others come. I was startled at the Brahmin."

"I saw you were; you were as white as a sheet, and yet you turned up
your nose at Ram Lal when he told you not to come."

"The Brahmin said something more than Ram Lal. He said I should not have
brought the white-haired lady into the tiger's jaws. I saw that the
first warning had been on her account, and I suppose the impression of
possible danger for her frightened me."

"It would not have frightened you three weeks ago about any woman," I
said. "It appears to me that your ideas in certain quarters have
undergone some little change. You are as different from the Isaacs I
knew at first as Philip drunk was different from Philip sober. Such is
human nature--scoffing at women the one day, and risking life and soul
for their whims the next."

"I hate your reflections about the human kind, Griggs, and I do not like
your way of looking at women. You hate women so!"

"No. You like my descriptions of the 'ideal creatures I rave about' much
better, it seems. Upon my soul, friend, if you want a criterion of
yourself, take this conversation. A fortnight ago to-day--or to-morrow,
will it be?--I was lecturing you about the way to regard women; begging
you to consider that they had souls and were capable of loving, as well
as of being loved. And here you are accusing me of hating the whole sex,
and without the slightest provocation on my part, either. Here is Birnam
wood coming to Dunsinane with a vengeance!"

"Oh, I don't deny it. I don't pretend to argue about it. I have changed
a good deal in the last month." He pensively crossed one leg over the
other as he lay back on the long chair and pulled at his slipper. "I
suppose I have--changed a good deal."

"No wonder. I presume your views of immortality, the future state of the
fair sex, and the application of transcendental analysis to matrimony,
all changed about the same time?"

"Don't be unreasonable," he answered. "It all dates from that evening
when I had that