from India -- an alloy of copper and brass and gold, forged in the shape of a heart, beneath which was a tiny picture of Baba, made visible by a powerful magnifying glass.

"I think Meredith would like you to have this, Malcolm," said Milo, just before boarding the train -- and I couldn't very well refuse it.

Whether or not the transfer of the ring had anything to do with this, I do not know, but up to the time I received it, Baba had apparently been working only outwardly, through the flux of circumstance, to draw us closer to him. From then on he began to work inwardly as well.

Jean began to feel his presence in the course of her meditations. She wrote to Meredith, tracing the chain of events which had apparently been linking us more and more closely together, and expressing her hope that we might some day visit the retreat in England.

I was not yet sure that I wanted to go -- nor was I quite ready to subscribe to the master-disciple relationship. But one day, shortly after Milo had left, I said to Jean, jokingly, "Well, I suppose I might as well get into the rhythm of the master-disciple relationship. Let's pretend that you are a master, and that I am one of your disciples. Every morning, when I first see you, and every evening, before we retire, I will take the dust of your feet, and all during the day I will obey you implicitly, whatever you may command."

"Don't be absurd!" Jean replied.

But by that time I was intrigued with the idea, and, to initiate the process, I immediately prostrated myself at her feet, touching them with the crown of my head. Jean was amused.

She was still more amused when, in the course of the day, I responded with unusual alacrity to her every suggestion. By evening she thought it was a grand idea. Never before had she found me so completely amenable.

I thought it was a grand idea, too — but for a different reason. I had begun to find myself suddenly pervaded with bliss — suffused with a warm glow of ecstasy which seemed to penetrate me more and more deeply, and which, moreover, remained in the midst of all my activities. What I had begun as a prank, Baba was turning into a sacrament.

Due to arrive on the 7th of August for a short visit were Bishop Arundale, of the Liberal Catholic Church, then the leading candidate for President of the Theosophical Society, which he later became, and his charming wife, Rukmini.

On the night before their arrival I, who usually slip into repose as easily as a boy would plunge into a pool, tossed sleeplessly for hours on my bed. Finally, Jean, disturbed by my restlessness, arose from her bed, took her bedding, and went across the hall to a temporarily vacant room to spend the rest of the night. I arose also, and, going over to a window which faced the East, knelt before it, looking out at the dawn which was already beginning to spread through the sky. I found myself repeating, over and over again, the lines of a poem which had recently come to me.