Much that Ratnadatta had said over dinner had left no doubt in Mary's mind that initiation into the Brotherhood of the Ram would be a very different business from the purely spiritual promotion with which the leading Theosophists encouraged their most earnest adherents, and all she had seen in the past hour had confirmed her belief that an assurance that she was willing to submit herself to some form of sexual baptism would be demanded of her before she could get much further. From the beginning she had recognized that if Teddy had been murdered by Satanists, and she was to succeed in penetrating their circle, that would almost certainly be the price she would have to pay; but it had then been only a possibility for future consideration. Now she was called on to decide whether she really would go to such lengths.

She was not in love with, or pledged to, anyone; and to give herself to a man she had only just met would be no new experience. To some extent she was still affected by the mild aphrodisiac that Ratnadatta had given her in her drinks, and the image of the very tall man, with his splendid torso, rippling muscles and fair wavy hair, came into her mind, making her feel that, as a purely physical act, service to the temple might well prove enjoyable. At worst she would find it no more repugnant than one or two particularly unpleasant nights which she could recall having had to spend with half-drunken men during her black year in Dublin, and it would be over much sooner.

Nevertheless, there were limits beyond which she was not prepared to go. She had never even spoken to a coloured man until she had met Ratnadatta, and had all a normal white woman's prejudice against physical contact with them. What if one of the negroes or orientals who had been at the meeting was selected as the stranger to whom she had to offer up her symbolic virginity, or - worse - Ratnadatta himself. At the thought of his hot little hands upon her and his foul breath in her face, her stomach nearly turned over.

A shade impatiently, he asked: 'Well, haf you made up your mind? Since you are not a virgin and haf had several lovers why do you hesitate? You haf nothing to be frightened off. Come plees; tell me your decision.'

Suddenly she saw a possible way to safeguard herself from the sort of ordeal she felt that she could not possibly face, and answered shrewdly, 'While we were at dinner you told me that the sole creed of the Brotherhood was "Do what thou wilt shall be the Whole of the Law". That does not square with the possibility that I might find the first man who wanted me repugnant, and so intensely dislike the idea of having to give myself to him.'