in daylight, were now dark as the sky at night. And he was strangely tongue-tied. He found nothing to say until after a pause that verged on awkwardness. Then he floundered badly. "I am prepared to vouch for any explanation so long as it brings you here, Miss Vanrenen," he said. Cynthia wanted to laugh. It was sufficiently ridiculous to be compelled, as it were, to treat a paid servant as an equal, but it savored of madness to find him verging on the perilous borderland of a flirtation. "Do you wish, then, to consult me on any matter?" she asked, with American directness. "I was standing here and thinking of you," he said. "Perhaps that accounts for your appearance. Since you have visited India you may have heard that the higher Buddhists, when they are anxious that another person shall act according to their desire, remain motionless in front of that person's residence and concentrate ardent thought on their fixed intent.... Sitting in _dhurma_ on a man, they call it. I suppose the same principle applies to a woman." "It follows that you are a higher Buddhist, and that you willed I should come out. Your theory of sitting on the door-mat, is it? wobbles a bit in practice, because I really ran downstairs to tell Mrs. Devar something I had forgotten previously. Not finding her, I decided on a stroll. Instead of crossing the road I walked up to the left a couple of blocks. Then I noticed the pier, and meant to have a look at it before returning to the hotel. Anyhow, you wanted me, Mr. Fitzroy, and here I am. What can I do for you?" Her tone of light raillery, supplemented by that truly daring adaptation of the method of gaining a cause favored by the esoteric philosophy of the East, went far to restore Medenham's wandering faculties. "I wanted to ask you a few questions, Miss Vanrenen," he explained. "Pray do, as they say in Boston." But he was not quite himself yet. He noticed that the lights were extinguished in the corner of the second floor. "Is that your room?" he asked, pointing to it. "Yes."
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