"Why not?" was the question I repeated to myself over and over again in
the half minute's pause after Isaacs finished speaking.
"You are right," he said slowly, his half-closed eyes fixed on his feet.
"Yes, you are right. Why not? Indeed, indeed, why not?"
It must have been pure guess-work, this reading of my thoughts. When he
was last speaking his manner was all indifference, scorn of my ideas,
and defiance of every western mode of reasoning. And now, apparently by
pure intuition, he gave a direct answer to the direct question I had
mentally asked, and, what is more, his answer came with a quiet,
far-away tone of conviction that had not a shade of unbelief in it. It
was delivered as monotonously and naturally as a Christian says "Credo
in unum Deum," as if it were not worth disputing; or as the devout
Mussulman says "La Illah illallah," not stooping to consider the
existence of any one bold enough to deny the dogma. No argument, not
hours of patient reasoning, or weeks of well directed persuasion, could
have wrought the change in the man's tone that came over it at the mere
mention of the woman he loved. I had no share in his conversion. My
arguments had been the excuse by which he had converted himself. Was he
converted? was it real?
"Yes--I think I am," he replied in the same mechanical monotonous
accent.
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