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Soon everyone had a drink in hand except for HPB who availed herself of the opportunity to ignite another of her cigars. Apparently the spiritual vapors would not object to competition from more noxious mists.

Mrs. Younghusband counted herself fortunate that her husband did not have the bad habit of tormenting his spouse with particulars of his military campaigns. As her guests began to gnaw at strategy and tactics, she recalled the newspaper stories that first trumpeted his success. Her man had proven wiser than General Macdonald and saw the future more clearly than Curzon. At the crucial moment, he managed the alliance between His Majesty's government and Tibet that succeeded in pushing back General Wang Chhuk when the Chinese finally overreached.

The armchair diplomats went berserk right on schedule. Shifting Prime Minister Balfour was more difficult than allaying fears in St. Petersburg. Finally, Whitehall and the czarist government were so united in opposition to Chinese suzerainty over Tibet that it changed the nature of the Great Game.

For the lady of the house, the conversation in her parlor brought the past alive without benefit of sйance. She surprised herself by wishing that conversation would provide the only journey into the past this evening.

Any such hope evaporated as she heard HPB intone, "Mystical ties of the blood must transcend national borders if we are to build a future worthy of the past."

They were in for the long haul tonight.

The Tibetan was not to be outdone: "Madame opened my eyes to the truth that Aryan Civilization began in Tibet long ago, the beginning of the fifth root race. We must move beyond the narrow bounds of national thinking. There are great dangers in the future."

As if to prove that his fingers were on the pulse of someone's greater destiny, a tremendous pounding thudded through the house at that precise moment. There was so much noise that HPB dropped her cigar on the Persian rug. With a speed worthy of the finest lancers, Mrs. Younghusband retrieved the cigar and gave it back to the medium before anyone had the opportunity to choke.

Loud footsteps in the hallway suggested a cause other than a psychic disturbance within the house. Tri Rimpoche was pretty sure who had just arrived and couldn't help but feel superior regarding the silent manner of his own entrance. There was nothing adept about a thunderburst of noise announcing unsubtle men with crude plans.

Even the inner door sounded louder as Weber brought the guests into the drawing room and toward the curtains which finally parted to reveal the final two guests of the evening.

The butler made his announcement: "Guido von List and Sven Hedin." The German and the Swede had arrived.

Both were large men dressed incongruously in ill-fitting tweeds as though a parody of English gentlemen. Both had oversized beards but the German's white whiskers seemed to explode from his head in a tangle worthy of a drunkard's vision of Father Christmas.

Now the introductions took on a more formal, even solemn, tone. Hedin, the famous Swiss archeologist and adventurer, was an old friend of the general. But the German was a new addition.

HPB stated bluntly, "I've always wanted to meet you, Hedin." She shook hands with him in a masculine fashion. "Your Tibetan expedition discovered much of value."

"But not your hidden valley of Secret Masters," he added. Everyone laughed but Mrs. Younghusband, who had no idea what they were talking about.

The German could have been telepathic the way he suddenly picked up on the conversation they'd been having before his arrival. Without preamble he threw out, "Hedin's work is vital in establishing Tibet as a cradle of the Aryan race."

Madame Blavatsky turned her gaze on the author of DieReligionderArio-GermaneninihrerEsoterikundExoterik, recently published in Vienna.

"I am also familiar with your work," she said. "You build your thesis on the Hindu theory of racial purity and reincarnation."

List clicked his heels and bowed. Somewhere there was the sound of good English tweeds tearing. The man was too large for the suit. "I acknowledge a debt both to Theosophy and Darwinism, dear lady."

Turning to his host, he added, "We Germans take Darwin straight! In Darwin's home country, you English wrestle with Christian piety over whether or not evolution is true. We take survival of the fittest as our starting point and follow the logic to its ruthless conclusion."

"Oh, I don't know," said Younghusband, smiling over his brandy as he took a dislike to the German. "We British have our ruthless side. You should read the novels of Mr. H. G. Wells for a fuller exploration of the subject. Or consider what one of my officers said when he ordered a force of retreating Tibetans shot in the back by repeating rifles."

The only Tibetan present felt a duty to interject. "This was right before the Dalai Lama and our genial host formed their new alliance."

"Yes, yes," said the German impatiently. "I'm familiar with your campaigns, General. What did your officer say?"

Younghusband finished his brandy. "That's a good bag."

"I don't understand the idiom," admitted List.

Tri Rimpoche interjected again. "British slang for killing game animals."

An awkward silence was just what Mrs. Younghusband needed. "Herr List, your comment about taking Darwin straight reminds me that you don't have a drink. May I correct that?"

To General Younghusband's horror, the boorish German was actually rude to his wife! "I'm not here to drink before engaging in a magical ritual," he snapped. "I'm surprised you allow your other guests to indulge."

"Do as thou wilt!" HPB snapped right back, restoring a sense of decorum. The author of Isis Unveiled and TheSecret Doctrine had her own manner of doing things.

"You know what stage magicians say?" she went on. "The more the audience drinks, the better the magic. Well, practitioners of the real thing don't worry over such trifles."

Mrs. Younghusband surprised everyone with, "If we are going to witness genuine magic, this might be a propitious occasion to take up serious drinking!"

Her husband came quickly to her side and held her hand. "You don't have to participate, dear."

With a nervous chuckle, his wife demonstrated how far removed she was from HPB's Invisible Brotherhood by committing an unforgivable faux pas. She actually admonished the gathering with, "Just so long as what we do is morally respectable."

Blavatsky guffawed so grotesquely that it seemed another manifestation. Sven Hedin cleared his throat and tried to explain as he would to a recalcitrant child, "Dear lady, morals are only a matter of geography."

"And cranial development," List added.

The Tibetan sighed. "This fine lady invites us into her home and we behave badly. She has even been serving the drinks herself!"

"We let the servants go for tonight," she thought to say. "We only kept on Weber."

"Is that wise?" asked the German.

The general recalled the narrow pass he and his men once negotiated to reach the flowery paradise of Tangu. He wished he was back there right now. The time had come to maneuver his loved one past needing to deal with these egomaniacs so that they might reach the paradise of the sйance.

"Our butler will stay for the evening," he said. "He is well suited to these sort of events. The man used to be in the service of Aleister Crowley."