Ambrose stepped back into the bamboo thicket, and the shimmering, scented girl shrank in under his arm. There were voices, in English and Chinese—chiefly little exclamations and some laughter. Whoever it was passed on and the voices died out in the forest. “Quentin,” whispered Ambrose, “and some young women we don’t know.” They emerged on the white moonlit lawn, crossed the shadow of a great cedar, and entered the house. 27 One afternoon Lychnis, Ruby, Ambrose, Quentin and Fulke were on the island in company with Wang, Hsiao and Yuan. All were meditative, or sleepy, and they lay about on a little turfy place jutting out from the cliff a few feet above the water. They looked like a handful of orchids. Lychnis lay on her front with her head hanging over the Lake. She was gazing intently at the water, and her hair parted and fell down on either side of her face, leaving the slender neck bare, as if she had been laid on the plank of the guillotine. “How satisfying,” muttered Quentin, “to wring that neck!” Yuan regarded the neck, but no shade or thought of emotion appeared on his countenance; nor did his fingers tighten. “What a hateful thing to say!” said Ruby, who neither slept nor meditated, and only lay motionless. Old Wang, after studying her for some time, had been heard to murmur: “The room has been made empty for the Master, but he does not enter it.” Lychnis was fascinated by the water. She was thinking, if only she could wriggle out of her tunic and trousers, shoulders first, and slide over the cliff into the Lake and glide neatly among the stems of the water-lilies! To dip the chin first, and the mouth, tentatively, gingerly, in the cold element of a different universe; to bury the eyes, next, in its queer sights; to feel it slide over neck and back and legs; then suddenly to dart through it and surprise the inhabitants, like an unexpected meteor. “I simply must know what it’s like to be a water-creature.” A sentence had emerged from the depths of her water-feelings. “You can,” said Yuan, “by entering into subjective relationship with them.” She looked at him as one who balances an infinity of considerations. “No doubt. But how does one enter into subjective relationship with, say, a water-beetle?” “First,” began Yuan, “by forgetting self; then by emptying the mind....” But old Wang interrupted, as if to give the young man instruction on an important matter. “Those who know, say nothing,” he observed; “those who say, know nothing.” “But,” said Lychnis, “that makes conversation so difficult.” “Why converse?” Wang asked her, with a sardonic grin. “Speak only when compelled, and then reluctantly, and only in the words of the Sages.” “In the meantime,” said Yuan, who, in relation to his great-grandfather, was only at the beginning of wisdom, “let us take a walk under the water.”