Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/233

caught on to the gossip in the course of a murder investigation that had nothing whatsoever to do with the pilgrimage of Yu Ching's soul—"that Chink's got religion—wot he calls religion. I don't know if a yaller Billy Sunday's come down to Pell and Mott, but I do know as that there Yu Ching's hittin' the trail to salvation—as them Chinks hit it—sittin' all day like a bump on a log, just smilin', and never sayin' a damn word. Meditatin' they calls it. Gee! He gives me the creeps, he does—"

At first, Marie Na Liu had laughed.

"Say—wottya mean, sweetness?" she had asked. "Leave me? Goin t' leave—me?" Then her voice had risen a hectic octave. "Is there another skoit? For if there is—say—"

"No, Plum Blossom. There is no other woman—never will be. Woman is an illusion—"

"Wottya handin me?"

"The flesh is an illusion. There is just my soul—the Buddha has spoken to me in the night—"

"You've been eatin' Welsh rabbit again—down to the Dutchman s! You know it never agrees with yer!"

"No, no!"

He had smiled, gently and patiently. Gently and patiently, he had tried to explain to her, had tried to make her understand.

"But—sweetness—listen t' me! Yer can't leave me—oh, yer can't. …"

She had argued, cajoled, threatened. But nothing she could say had made any impression on him. It had seemed to her, suddenly, as if she had never really known this man; this man with whom she had lived in the close physical and mental intimacy of married life in a little, box-like flat. She had felt—looking at him,