Jewel Weed

								

as was necessary to incase a mighty soul, had, in spite of his few
inches, an air of distinction which demanded and received attention. Ram
Juna, on the other hand, betrayed no expectation of adulation. Rather
was he utterly oblivious of it. Over the heads of those to whom he had
been speaking his far-seeing eyes gazed into that nothingness which is
popularly supposed to be full of spiritual significance. He was
oblivious of the earth.
Here, then, before the group of guests, in fine contrast, like a
tropical bird caught among thrushes, stood this big bronze creature,
magnificently gowned in a long flame-colored garment touched upon its
borders with strange embroideries and girdled about its ample waist
with a wide sash of dull oriental red. The polished face was set off by
a turban of snowy white, in whose center blazed, like a bloodshot eye, a
single enormous ruby. Everything about Ram Juna was superlative--his
size, his raiment, his rapt gaze, his doctrine.
But after all, though the Hindu occupied the position of honor in the
social stage, Norris found it hard to keep his attention fixed on that
bird of paradise, who, at best, was sure to be but a temporary interest
in these western states of America, where facts, not theories, loom
large. The new young man's eyes wandered to the audience, made up of
people like himself. The unknown catches us for an instant, but our own
kind are perennially absorbing. Since he and Dick were perched on a deep
window-sill, which brought them at right angles to the row of chairs, he
began to study the faces on this side and that.
A little in front of them a woman of thirty or more, exquisitely dressed
in summer white, pretty and complacent, leaned back in her chair.
Happening to catch Percival's eye he looked inquiry.
"Mrs. Appleton," whispered that young man, and lifted his eyebrows as
if to express astonished admiration, then made a wry face. Norris smiled
his understanding and glanced back at the self-satisfied prosperity
beneath her filmy hat. Then, suddenly, at the far end of the room,
another face caught him--a profile of a girl's head, outlined against a
high bench-back, her dreamy eyes fixed on the speaker. It was a
cameo-like face, not animated, but delicate and finely lined. Norris
knew her in a flash. This was the girl whose photograph had stood on
Dick's mantel at college and of whom Dick had sometimes spoken in those
rare intimate hours when he talked of his mother or of his purposes in
life. Ellery forgot the rest of the room and watched her until a sudden
forward lunge of Mrs. Appleton's hat shut her off, and brought him back
to consciousness of the place and the supposed interests of the day. He
turned back with a sigh to Ram Juna, telling himself with some amusement
that other minds than his own were wandering far afield, and that the
attitude of polite interest came as much from the conviction that
Esoteric Buddhism was "the thing," as from any real absorption.