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wanted to go. His natural dignity had reasserted itself and he was anxious to leave a scene where it had suffered such a setback. Lee seemed to sense this for she suddenly turned to him. “I’m sorry if I was rude.”
    Gopi was no longer as impressed by apologies as he once had been. Living with Raymond, he realized that these people said sorry very quickly, perhaps even took some pleasure in it so that there was no need to forgive them every time. He ignored Lee and told Raymond, “Come on.”
    Lee explained, “I come to these places and I get terribly engrossed.” She glanced rather nervously at Raymond: she was afraid he might be skeptical and put her down as just an intense girl. Of course she was intense, but that wasn’t all, she liked to think.
    â€œI love tombs of saints best,” she said. “There was one in Madhya Pradesh—it was some saint who was also a poet, I’ve forgotten the name. It was a very out-of-the-way place, up a rock; terribly difficult to get to, it took me days. But it was worth it. The tomb wasn’t much—the roof had fallen in—but there was such a holy atmosphere. I sat there for hours. Oh, I felt good. Not a soul came and it was completely silent except there was a stream somewhere near and of course lots and lots of birds. . . . Whose is that?” she asked, pointing at the small tomb facing them. It was decorated with a few broken blue tiles which glinted in the sun and the names of God were engraved into the stone. There was a wasp’s nest hanging inside one arch.
    â€œThere’s nothing at all in my book,” Raymond said. “I find it frustrating but Gopi doesn’t believe in guidebooks anyway.”
    â€œI think you’re so right!” Lee said. “Who wants guidebooks? Either a place has good emanations or it doesn’t. If you don’t have feeling for that, then what’s the use of knowing facts? They just blunt you. Don’t you think so?” she said, turning round fully to Gopi.
    Gopi responded. He liked her manner—her openness toward himself—and he liked what she was saying. She seemed a very different type of person from what he thought Westerners usually were; she certainly seemed very different from Raymond. He pointed at Raymond. “I’ve told him so often but he doesn’t understand. I think he’s too materialistic.”
    â€œAre you?” Lee asked Raymond earnestly.
    â€œIf Gopi says so.” Raymond was glad to see Gopi relax and get over his hurt feelings; and he always found it amusing to be called materialistic by him.
    Lee studied Raymond and said, “Really you look quite sensitive.”
    â€œHe is not at all a sensitive person,” Gopi assured her. “He doesn’t believe anything except what he sees before his eyes. When I took him to Kutb and told him about the ghost of Adham Khan, he didn’t believe.”
    â€œI never said that,” Raymond protested. He had scrupulously refrained from making any comment, hoping to get by; but now he realized that he hadn’t.
    â€œYou did not say but you thought. You thought it’s all nonsense and Gopi is very stupid to believe in these things. But I think you’re stupid.” He said to Lee, “He doesn’t believe in astrology.”
    â€œSo many things come true.”
    â€œEveryone knows it. I can tell you from my own personal experience . . .”
    He was now sitting next to Lee on the grave. He had very good feelings toward her. He felt he was making a new friend and he loved new friends. A sensation of peace and human affection came over him. He was very different from the boy who had come to pick her up just a short while ago.
    Lee
    I had a long talk with Miss Charlotte. She’s been in India for thirty years and loved every moment of it. She hasn’t alwaysbeen in Delhi but has moved all around the country, in Calcutta and Kanpur and Hyderabad