Yet she was not wholly immune from it, for:
"Does Your Excellency really mean that?" she whispered.
A smile appeared upon his face, an alluring smile, but rather
that of a beautiful woman than of a man.
"As you of the West," he said, "have advanced step by step, ever
upward in the mechanical sciences, we of the East have advanced
also step by step in other and greater sciences."
"Certainly," she admitted, "you have spoken of such things
before."
"I speak of things which I know. From that hour when you entered
upon your first Kama, back in the dawn of time, until now, those
within the ever-moving cycle which bears you on through the ages
have been beside you, at times unseen by the world, at times
unseen by you, veiled by the mist which men call death, but which
is no more than a curtain behind which we sometimes step for a
while. In the East we have learned to raise that curtain; in the
West are triflers who make like claims, but whose knowledge of
the secret of the veil is--" And he snapped his fingers
contemptuously.
The strange personality of the man was having its effect. Phil
Abingdon's eyes were widely open, and she was hanging upon his
words. Underneath the soft effeminate exterior lay a masterful
spirit--a spirit which had known few obstacles. The world of
womanhood could have produced no more difficult subject than Phil
Abingdon. Yet she realized, and became conscious of a sense of
helplessness, that under certain conditions she would be as a
child in the hands of this Persian mystic, whose weird eyes
appeared to be watching not her body, nor even her mind, but her
soul, whose voice touched unfamiliar chords within her--chords
which had never responded to any other human voice.
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