'Oh . . . didn't I? Well, it doesn't matter. I was making the whole thing up. I mean about them all wearing masks but having no clothes on, and about an Arch-Priest they called the Great Ram performing miracles.'

'D'you mean that? Honestly?'

'Of course.' She forced a smile. 'I was just seeing how much I could get you to swallow.'

He smiled back. 'I boggled at the miracles, and the black-clad gent producing an imp was a bit too much; but you sold me the general set-up. Anyhow, praise be to God you were only fooling. What did Ratnadatta's game turn out to be after all, though?'

'It was as I thought - Yoga.' Mary quickly tried to recall the little she had heard about Yoga, and went on: 'It really was rather thrilling. One of them, wearing only a loin cloth, lay down on a bed of nails, and another walked on live coals without burning his feet. It can be of practical use, too, if one works at it hard enough. Ratnadatta swears to me that through having learnt to breathe in a certain way he can keep himself warm on the coldest day without wearing an overcoat. It is also the royal road to getting out of one's body; so I mean to take up practising the exercises.'

'Does that mean that you are going to this place again next Saturday?'

Mary still had no intention of doing so; but the temptation to re-arouse Barney's concern for her, even to a more limited extent, led her to reply, 'Yes, why not?'

His reaction was just what she had hoped for. 'And that, I suppose, commits you to having dinner again in a private room with this slimy Babu?'

Recalling all she had told him of Ratnadatta's arguments in support of the ancient worship of Satan as the Lord of this World, she suddenly saw the red light. That did not fit in with the new aspect she had given the Indian as an innocent practitioner of Yoga. To forestall Barney's possibly asking her to explain this obvious contradiction in the story she was now anxious that he should believe, she said:

'I was fooling about that, too. We dined downstairs in the restaurant, and next Saturday he is not even giving me dinner. I'm not to meet him at the Sloane Square Tube until half-past nine.'

'What about his blindfolding you, though? Did he, or was that just another taradiddle to get a rise out of me?'

Mary saw that she was cornered. As she had no idea in what part of London the temple was situated, she could not tell him its locality; on the other hand, to admit that she had been blindfolded was to imply that there really was something sinister about it. In desperation, her nerves still barely under control, she exclaimed: