“I don’t know what you mean by the next step.”

“I suppose the next step would be—­well, let us say what you’ve got to do to-day.  That’s about as much ground as any one can cover with a stride.  You see that, don’t you?  You’ve got to eat your dinner, and go to bed.  That’s all you’ve got to settle for the moment.”

Her lips relaxed in a pale smile.  “I’m afraid I must look a little farther ahead than that.”

“What for?  What good will it do?  You won’t see anything straight.  It’s no use trying to see daylight two hours before dawn.  People are foolish enough sometimes to make the attempt, but they only strain their eyesight.  For every step you’ve got to take there’ll be something to show you the line to follow.”

“What?” She asked the question chiefly for the sake of humoring him.  She was not susceptible to this kind of comfort, nor did she feel the need of it.

“W-well,” the old man answered, slowly, “it isn’t easy to tell you in any language you’d understand.”

“I can understand plain English, if that would do.”

“You can make it do, but it doesn’t do very well.  It’s really one of those things that require what the primitive Christians called an unknown tongue.  Since we haven’t got that as a means of communication—­” He broke off, stroking his long beard with a big handsome hand, but presently began again.

“Some people call it a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  Some people have described it by other figures of speech.  The description isn’t of importance—­it’s the Thing.”

She waited a minute, before saying in a tone that had some awe in it, as well as some impatience:  “Oh, but I’ve never seen anything like that.  I never expect to.”

“That’s a pity; because it’s there.”

“There?  Where?”

“Just where one would look for it—­if one looked at all.  When it moves,” he went on, his hand suiting the action to the word, on a level with his eyes, “when it moves, you follow it, and when it rests, you wait.  It’s possible—­I don’t know—­I merely throw out the suggestion—­no one can really know but yourself, because no one but yourself can see it—­but it’s possible that at this moment—­for you—­it’s standing still.”

“I don’t know what I gain either by its moving or its standing still, so long as I don’t see it.”

“No, neither do I,” he assented, promptly.

“Well, then?” she questioned.

“Shall I tell you a little story?” He smiled at her behind his stringy, sandy beard, while his kind old eyes blinked wistfully.

“If you like.  I shall be happy to hear it.”  She was not enthusiastic.  She was too deeply engrossed with pressing, practical questions to find his mysticism greatly to the point.

He took a turn around the drawing-room before beginning, stopping to caress the glaze of one of the K’ang-hsi vases on the mantelpiece, while he arranged his thoughts.