He was as
isolated as he could get in England, but that was not enough.
He sat for a moment silent, the fingers of his nervous hand
moving on his knee. When he glanced up, with a sudden jerk of
his head, he caught me looking at the little image of Buddha in
its glass box on the mantelpiece.
Was this longing for solitude the influence of this mysterious
religion?
Remote, lonely isolation was a cult of Buddha. The devotees of
that cult sought the waste places of the earth for their
meditations. To be out of the world, in its physical contact,
was a prime postulate in the practice of this creed.
"Ah, Robin," he cried, as though he were in a jovial mood and
careless of the subject, "do you have a hobby?"
I answered that I had not felt the need of one. The inquiry was
a surprise and I could think of nothing better to reply with.
"Then, my boy," he went on, "what will you do when you are old?
One must have something to occupy the mind."
He got up and turned the glass box a little on the mantelpiece.
"This is a very rare image," he said; "one does not find this
image anywhere in India. It came from Tibet.
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