The great room was cool, even on a glowing summer day. Its heavy walls
shut out the heat and its narrow windows gave but a creeping light which
lost itself in the vaulted spaces above. It was archaic in a modern
fashion, too archaic to be quite convincing when combined with
present-day ornaments and luxuries, too splendid to belong to any one
except Mr. Early, and yet, withal, a satisfying place, dim and fragrant
on this July afternoon. The pale summery gowns of the women and the
sprinkling of dark coats of the few men present modified its
gorgeousness.
To-day Mr. Early surely had reason to congratulate himself on his
amplitude of space, for if ever a big background was needed, it was when
the public had come in its hundreds to look upon the huge Hindu who
stood beside the host, dwarfing him as well as the throng in front.
Swami Ram Juna overtopped them all in inches, as in serenity.
Mr. Early, whose physique was of the Napoleonic order, just as much body
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.