life, the rare flower of fastidiousness, he will come back, with
innocence aglow beneath the weathered countenance. It is the sons of
strong women who have that fineness which makes them choice, even in
their affairs of an hour. A beautiful spirit of race guardianship is
behind this fastidiousness.... Miraculously, it seems to appear many
times in the sons of women who have failed to find their own
knight-errants. Missing happiness, they have taken disillusionment from
common man; yet so truly have they held to their dreams, that _ever_
their sons must go on searching for the true bread of life.



FIFTH CHAPTER


A FLOCK OF FLYING SWANS

One day (it was before he knew David Cairns) Bedient picked up the
_Bhagavad Gita_ from a book-stand in Shanghai. It was limp, little,
strong, and looked meaty. As he raised his eyes wonderingly from a
certain sentence, he encountered the glance of the fat old German
dealer.

"Will this little book stand reading more than once, sir?" Bedient
asked.

"Ja--but vat a little-boy question! Ven you haf read sefen times the
year for sefen years--you a man vill haf become."

Bedient had been through the Song of the Divine One many times before