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.

"There was once a little people," he be