Dicky now actually contemplated the look of unearthly calm in the eyes of the man before him. Was it fanaticism--this fearlessness which Gandhi put into practice? Was there a soul-calm back of the human nervous system, a central calm that a man could reach and abide in, that made anything negligible that men might do to the body? Was there something really that Miss Claes and Nagar and this man talked about--something that went on and on, that loved one’s enemies, that loved one’s love, no matter what this life effected to keep them apart? Was it worth going after, since every ordinary viewpoint seemed changed in those who had touched it?... Surely India was getting him going--he, Dicky Cobden, of the family of trowel makers! In amazement, he realized that he was responding to some stimulus like the finest wine--that if he didn’t get out of here soon, he would fall to telling his troubles like a man who has had too many drinks. Gandhi was speaking of his workers and devotees here in Ahmedabad; the manner of their life together: “So in our _Ashrama_,” he explained, “every child is taught to understand political institutions and to know how his country is vibrating with new emotions, with new aspirations, with new life.... As for men and women living and working together in the _Ashrama_, they must live the celibate life whether married or unmarried. Marriage brings a woman close together with a man, and they become friends in a special sense, never to be parted in this life or in the lives to come; but I do not think that into that place of life, our lusts should necessarily enter.” Dicky had scrambled to his feet from the floor. “I won’t take your time any more just now,” he mumbled haltingly. Mahatma-ji watched him with a look of gentlest understanding. Dicky backed out. He was in the street alone.... The young men had not restrained him in the slightest. They had seemed to understand that he must be alone. Even Nagar had only walked at his side a moment in the hall, to say that he would come to the _Entresden_ after dinner.... He was alone in the outskirts of the city with the miracle. Somewhere among Gandhi’s sentences about men and women, it had happened--somewhere in there, when he had spoken about--yes, that was it, “about friends in a special sense!...” A pariah dog yelped, running out of a doorway, almost banging into his knees. He was in a narrow street, and had to step upon a doorsill, while two men passed dragging at a cart. He saw their bare ribs and salt-whitened loin cloths. The sun was still high; the stillness and heat almost fetid in the byways. He passed a native market place by the river, and out of all the moving multicolored crowd, he remembered only one parasol of jade green, though he did not see the face beneath.