“You, who dwelt in a Mahatma country, ought to know,” I said.
“I do,” he answered. “Mahatmas may not be as common as rabbits, but
they exist, and what’s more, they can do a great many remarkable
things.”
“But,” I said, “nothing to the purpose?”
“On the contrary,” he answered, “they achieve much good in a quiet way.
The secrets of Nature are in their grasp. It argues something in their
favour that they have not turned the world upside down years ago. Their
self-control is the most remarkable thing about them.”
“You astound me, Robinson,” I replied. “Is it possible that you harbour
friendly opinions towards esoteric Buddhism and kindred fantastic
conceits of vain men?”
“Nothing fantastic or vain about it,” he answered. “I am an esoteric
Buddhist myself.”
I nearly fell off the omnibus from sheer surprise. Robinson had all
the outward appearance of a churchwarden or sidesman. You might have
wagered money that he wore a frock-coat on Sundays, and got the people
nicely seated in some place of modern worship, and handed round a plate
or a bag at the appointed time. And yet he turned out to be an esoteric
Buddhist.
“You never told me this,” I said.
“Why should I?” he asked, very reasonably. “Wise men don’t blaze abroad
their opinions for nothing. I don’t know what you are for that matter,
and I don’t want to.”
Nevertheless, I told him, and he said that I might as well pursue that
idea as any other. Then he resumed his newspaper.
Time passed, and I forgot the matter, and was contented to feel that
Robinson had high morals and even refined instincts for such a large
man. I came to know him well and went home with him to tea and made the
acquaintance of his sister. He told me privately that she was a saintly
woman who had seen sorrow and just missed matrimony by a hair’s breadth.
“But,” he said, “I am anxious to see her married. She is only hovering
on forty now and will make a good man happy yet.”
For my part I doubted it. Miss Robinson was a painfully plain person,
and so abundantly proportioned in every direction physically, that I
was conscious of cutting a figure almost ludicrous when sitting beside
her. Personally, though Robinson always declared that she “hovered
near forty,” my opinion rather inclined me to suspect that she was
fluttering past forty-five and that rapidly. She wanted a husband and
hope was not dead. I saw nothing saintly in her myself. She struck
me as being a trifle vulgar. I could not imagine a man was living in
London or the suburbs who would have married her in cold blood.
After I had visited at their little house near Regent’s Park on two or
three occasions, Robinson came to smoke a pipe with me at my bachelor
diggings. During that evening our friendship advanced by leaps and
bounds. We were both communicative and emptied a bottle of whisky and
called each other by our Christian names for the first time, and gave
each other a great deal of sound advice. By the way, can an esoteric
Buddhist have a Christian name?
“You should marry,” said Robinson.
It wanted only fifteen minutes of midnight when he said it. I laughed.
“Bless you, John,” I said, “such good things are not for me. Why, I’m
nearer fifty than you’d guess, and a confirmed bachelor, sir!”
“What’s your opinion of Primrose?” he asked abruptly.
Primrose was his sister. I think I never heard of a woman with a more
unsuitable name. It made me uncomfortable to observe how Robinson thus
coupled the suggestion of my taking a wife with this question as to my
opinion of his sister.
“You are fortunate to have such a sister,” I said.
You cannot tell the truth to a comparative stranger about his sister,
unless the truth is polite.
“I’m glad you think so,” answered Robinson. “I happen to know she
entertains a very genuine admiration for you. She marvelled only
yesterday at tea that no woman had ever won you. She said you must have
made a good many hearts ache in your time.”
As a matter of fact I was refused, unconditionally, by a stock-jobber’s
second daughter when I was thirty-two, and that is the only glimmer of
romance which ever crossed my path. But I did not tell Robinson this. I
merely said that his sister was a kind soul.
“Can you picture her a wife?” asked Robinson.
“Very easily,” I answered, which was untrue.
“Can you picture her _your_ wife?” asked Robinson.
The bad taste of such a question appears upon the surface of it.
“No,” I said, and then added like a fool, “Miss Robinson will aspire to
a younger cavalier, and one worthier of her than I. She’d never look at
an old fossil like Thomas Tarver.”
“Yes, she would,” said Robinson, winking. “Faint heart never won fair
lady, you know. Go in and win, my son!”
I attributed it to the whisky, for Robinson was usually refined up to
a certain point. To fling his own sister down another man’s throat in
this way struck me as being not nice.
I fought to change the conversation, and ultimately succeeded.
Presently he went home, and on the following day asked me if I would
meet him that evening with his sister at the Zoological Gardens. We
often went thither in summer-time to drink a cup of tea and gaze upon
the various wonders of animal creation gathered there.
“The Lion House at six-thirty,” said Robinson, and I replied that I
would not fail him.
How little I foresaw my evening’s amusement! How far from the
wildest nightmare flights of my imagination was the nature of that
entertainment which the man John Robinson arranged for me at the
Zoological Society’s Gardens.