And an awful
consequence lurked as a possibility if she attempted to force her Guru
not to immune himself in solitude and quiet, which was that conceivably
he might choose to go back to the pit whence he was digged, namely the
house of poor Daisy Quantock. The thought was intolerable, for with him
in her house, she had seen herself as dispenser of Eastern Mysteries,
and Mistress of Omism to Riseholme. In fact the Guru was her August
stunt; it would never do to lose him before the end of July, and rage
to see all Riseholme making pilgrimages to Daisy. There was a
thin-lipped firmness, too, about him at this moment: she felt that
under provocation he might easily defy or desert her. She felt she had
to yield, and so decided to do so in the most complete manner.
"Ah, yes," she said. "I know how true that is. Dear Guru, go up to
Hamlet: no one will disturb you there. But if the message comes through
before Lady Ambermere goes away, promise me you will come back."
He went back to the house, where the front door was already open to
admit Lady Ambermere, who was telling "her people" when to come back
for her, and fled with the heels of his slippers tapping on the oak
stairs up to Hamlet. Softly he shut out the dark spirits from Madras,
and made himself even more secure by turning the key in his door. It
would never do to appear as a high caste Brahmin from Benares before
anyone who knew India with such fatal intimacy, for he might not
entirely correspond with her preconceived notions of such a person.
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