"I have lived in your devotion and it has been a holy thing, my son. You love well. She has become more than an earth-woman to you. She has become the way to God. It is the true _yoga_—this love of yours, when it is lifted from the lust of the flesh. Where there is love like yours, there is no lust. Without these trials you could not have known so soon the love you will bring in good time to her breast. The ways of easily-wedded pairs sink into commonness soon—the dull and dreamless death. It is those who are kept apart, who overcome great obstacles, who learn the greatest thing of all—to wait—who touch the upper reaches of splendour in the love of man and woman, and thus prepare themselves for the greater union and the higher questing which is the love of God together." Romney bowed his head over the aged hand. Even in this hour, Rajananda had made him forget himself once more. "You—" he said haltingly, "you, who have never known a woman—how can you touch the arcanum of romance?" "The seer must know the hearts of men. Knowledge of love is the knowledge of God. Love is the Wheel of Life; love is the Holy Breath that turns the Wheel. The seer is far from ready for his work in the world, who has forgotten from his breast the love of man and the love of woman. And then, my son, we are almost at the end of the night of the world. The builders are coming in to take the places of those who have torn down with war and every other madness of self. These builders must be born of men and women—the new race—but of men and women who have learned what great love means.... "So you have come to the desert for a greater message, my son, than that which you carry to the waiting ones in Peking—" "I hear your words. They always come to me again and again afterward. Do not think that I miss what you say when I bring the thought down to the personal thing that tortures me. Tell me: am I to see Anna Erivan soon?" The last sentence was hoarsely uttered. "My son, is there doubt in your heart in regard to Rajananda?" "No." "Do you believe in my love for you, as master to disciple?" "I do not understand it. I do not feel worthy to be your disciple, but I have every reason to believe in it." "Will you do as I ask—a hard thing?" Romney felt himself smothering close to the ground. He arose to his feet. There was red before his eyes, a breaking tension in his throat. The strongest thing about him—the control of his temper—was stretched to the snapping point. He paced a moment, with clenched hands, before speaking: "You mean to ask me to go back to the Big Three without Anna Erivan—?" "Yes." "I cannot.... I cannot!" "Come to me, and take your father’s hand." Romney sat down in silence. Something flooded over him that broke down all his resistance. He wanted to weep like a young boy who was pressed too hard. Instead, he laughed—his old trick when hard driven.