Over next door, beyond the thick laurel hedge, on this same evening, Mr. Sebastian Early, now that the last of his guests had withdrawn the silken wonder of her reception skirts, was settling down to a quiet evening with his turbaned guest. Now Mr. Sebastian Early is far too intricate a person to be dismissed, as Mrs. Lenox disposed of him, with a phrase and a laugh. In early life, it is true, he had seemed a commonplace and insignificant young man. His first appearance before the public was as the inventor of a hook-and-eye, but his hook-and-eye had such unusual merits that it seemed, according to the engaging pictures and verses in the street-cars, to simplify most of the sterner problems of every-day life. As its lineaments began to stare at passers-by from thousands of huge bill-boards over the length and breadth of the land, dimes turned to dollars Perhaps it was that divine discontent, which William Morris celebrates, that makes men yearn for higher things. Department stores still rolled out their multitudinous cards of hooks-and-eyes, but the person of Sebastian Early passed unnoticed in the crowd. He yearned for fame, not for his product, but for himself, and the same ability that led him to serve the wants of the public in hooks now drove him to study its social demands. Like many another unfortunate, he began to perceive that dollars alone were not enough of a key to unlock the magic door. In this over-fed land, people with money are growing too common. Therefore to gold one must add power and distinction, if one would keep one’s head above the herd. This must one do and not leave the other undone. Sebastian determined to make himself interesting. These books naturally “took.” They invited no man to read, but they were interesting to look at and therefore particularly adapted to those occasions when one must make a small gift to a friend. Scarce a center-table From books Mr. Early passed on to furniture; and he begot strange shapes, wherein forgotten Gothic forms were commingled with forms that never man saw before; and these also took. So the circle widened, until glass pottery and rugs were gathered into the potpourri of Mr. Early’s genius. Finally he established his magazine, The Aspirant, for he began to feel the need of explaining things—chiefly himself—to his expanding circle. The Aspirant had covers of butcher’s paper; and the necessity for self-defense at last developed in Mr. Early that literary style which he had found it impossible to cultivate while he still had nothing to say. He grew a peculiar ability for self-glorification and for slugging the other man. Particularly caustic did his pen become in respect to those, whether painters, musicians, poets, novelists or reformers, who had endeared themselves to the great mass of the public. The Aspirant always called the public “the rabble,” and you can’t damn humanity To those penniless celebrities to whom purchase of Mr. Early’s commodities was over-expensive, there was another way out from under. They might visit Mr. Early’s hospitable home, and so contribute their mite to the halo of distinction that surrounded him. The great ones came to St. Etienne. They ate and drank and were exhibited to an admiring throng. They gave lectures, introduced from the platform by Mr. Sebastian Early; they went away and The Aspirant chronicled their satellite excellences. No such ex-guest need fear a blow in the face upon its pages. All these things came before the public—more and more before the public every year. They kept Mr. Early’s growing corps of assistants busy, inventing new furniture and new forms of invective. It is needless to say that the hook-and-eye was never included in the illustrious list of Still even his new enterprises paid. He was a good business man, and he shared with “the rabble” an appetite for cold cash. Nor did the crafty Arts exhaust either his abilities or his desires; for though he had no wish to pose before the world in the over-done rÔle of a millionaire, still he needed money and ever more and more money. To get it he kept his hand in many a business enterprise and his eye on many a speculation of which the gaping world did not dream. Even his right-hand editorial writer knew not of his left-handed dip into an electric light company here or a paving contract there, for his left hand had assistants too,—quiet, unobtrusive, even shy,—men who could lobby a bill “on the quiet,” or wreck an opposing company, even though they did not know the difference between Hafiz and chutney. And Mr. Early’s mind was of such a broad catholicity that it would be hard to tell which side of his career Thus it will be seen that this great man, who was a credit to the new art movement of our time, and of whom St. Etienne, a young western city, felt justly proud, was in his usual element when he introduced to the society, in which he was now a fixed star, a light from the Far East. And Swami Ram Juna seemed so sure that he himself was right and all the rest of the world was wrong, that Mr. Early felt him to be a kindred spirit. The impression deepened as he found himself alone with the Hindu. He had rather dreaded the strange demands and customs that might meet him; but the man of bronze and the snowy turban proved himself to be the best of table companions, suave, courteous and sympathetic. He seemed even to take a kindly interest in such matters of a day as Mr. Early’s incursions into the realms of art and literature. Through dinner they chatted almost gaily, and afterward, while Mr. Early smoked, the Swami joined him in the slow sipping of a liqueur. There is a frankness of those who have nothing to hide; there is a frankness which makes a mask for him who is, below the surface, “You ought to write a book,” he said with the air of one projecting a novel thought. “With your gift for expression, and your—ah—insight into realities, you couldn’t fail to make a success of it.” “It is my intention,” said the Hindu. Mr. Early looked a little taken aback, but brightened again with a new suggestion. “Why not do it here?” he asked. “Come, where could you find a more fitting place? You have your rooms in a wing of the house all to yourself. That gives you perfect solitude. I should be delighted to have you for my guest while you do your work; and when you finish, I know enough of the tricks of the trade to help you push it a bit.” “Of a certainty truth is self-vigorous, and needs no tricks to keep it living.” “Ah, yes,” the man of business answered cheerfully. “But one may boost it,—one may boost it, my dear fellow.” The Swami bent his great head and appeared “My friend, you are generous. You offer me a home, and I am fain to accept it, if I may put the offer in another form. For the present I must return to India. Too long already have I been away from the atmosphere which is to me life. I must see some of the brothers of my soul. I must saturate myself with repose and with the underlying—with Karma. Also, in this too-vigorous country, that is unattainable. But here, in this place, one who is filled with the message might give it forth to his brothers—or perhaps to the sisters, who appear the more anxious for it. Here the very energy of the air says ‘give’ rather than ‘grow’. If I might a year—six months hence—accept your hospitality?” He looked tentatively at Mr. Early. “My home is yours. Do what you like with it,” said Mr. Early benignly. He was thinking how well a picturesque cut of the Hindu’s head would look on the covers of The Aspirant, combined with a judicious puff within. The Swami smiled serenely. “I observe,” he went on in his delicate voice, “that the wing on the ground floor, in which you have given me room, has two apartments, divided by a little passage, and that the little passage gives not upon the public highway, but upon a garden, quiet and lovely, that faces the sun and is shut in by brick walls and hedges. The farther one of these rooms is bare and but slightly furnished, though my bedroom is sumptuous like that of a maha-rajah. Still the bare small room pleases me best. If I might have this room when I come again! If I might keep the bare room sacred to my meditations, all unentered save by myself! It means to me much that no alien mind, no soul of a common servant, should mar the serenity of the atmosphere in that spot where I sit alone with myself. I would have it dedicated to the greater Me. It would be the cap-sheaf—do you not so say in this land of great harvests?—thus to give shelter not only to my body, but to my soul, in this bare and quiet little room.” “Why, certainly, certainly!” Mr. Early could not help thinking that a guest who spent most of his time alone in an empty room would prove no great tax upon his entertainer. “I thank you,” said Ram Juna, rising and making a salaam of curious dignity and courtesy. “You bid me lecture. You bid me write and instruct in the sacred truths. That will I do when I come again; and my consolation shall be the unblemished hours when I sit alone in the little room which faces the sun. You comprehend me? You understand?” And Mr. Early, who never, if he could help it, spent a half-hour in either solitude or idleness, answered again: “Why, certainly, certainly.” “In some months, then, I may return, noble friend. And now I will bid you farewell until the dawn.” The Swami, with marvelous lightness of foot in spite of his huge body, made off for his own domain. If Mr. Early, who now sat and yawned alone by the dying fire, could have peeped in on the excellent Ram Juna, he would have been much gratified by the evident satisfaction with which the Oriental surveyed the quarters which were one day to be his. The Swami strode at once across the bedroom, across the little passage that opened into the garden, into the unused room beyond. Here with a swift thrust he turned on the “Quite inadequate, quite inadequate,” he muttered with a frown. “We must do better than that.” He stood and thought a moment, then put out the light, stepped to the garden door and disappeared into the night. With so light a tread did he come back that Mr. Early, should he have been listening, could have heard no warning footstep to tell him that his guest was returning. Back in his own bedroom, Ram Juna peeped into the luxurious bath-room with placid delight. “So much water, so easily hot,” he said. “It is admirable. All is admirable.” He sank in a heap, cross-legged, in the middle of the floor, with large hands folded over his stomach, and large eyes narrowed, while a kindly smile spread over his face, and his |