"There's nothing wrong, really wrong, is there?"

"Oh, no, only they think change of air will be good for her and more
rest. She's to go on a long visit to some relations in France. I don't
know what she'll think of the change, a girl like that. She's a splendid
creature."

"Have you met her?" asked Ishmael in surprise.

"Why, yes. Her father seemed to think she was a little hysterical and
asked me to see if she would talk to me...."

"More talking ..." thought Ishmael.

"I don't think her at all hysterical. It seemed to me more physical. In
fact, I suggested Mr. Carron. But I think there's nothing like a
thorough change. Her father'll miss her, I fear, though."

Ishmael had a sly chuckle as he thought of others who would do likewise,
and, catching a twinkle in the Parson's eye, it occurred to him for the
first time that day that perhaps all the subtlety of the race was not
confined to those of the age of himself and Killigrew. He grew a little
hot; then the Parson began to speak on another theme, and he thought no
more of Hilaria. He was to think of her less and less as the months
during which she never came back to St. Renny went by, and he did not
guess how he was to hear of her again.

"About your confirmation," the Parson was saying. "This affair will make
no difference. There is no real reason why it should be put off. Dr.
Tring quite agrees with me. You are in the same mind about it, eh?"

Ishmael, who was feeling more and more as though the past week had been
a grisly burden that was slipping off him like a bad dream, acquiesced
in a rush of eager thankfulness. The complications of life were
beginning to unfold in front of him, and both by training and heredity
he turned to the things that bore relation elsewhere but in this life
for a solution.

"I want to be decent ..." was all he said gruffly, but with a something
so youthful in manner and sentiment that Boase had a yearning over him
as in the days when he had been a little boy.

"Let me say one thing to you, Ishmael. I have said it before, but when
you were less able to understand. You will meet people--men--who will
tell you no man can keep altogether a rigid straightness in matters
that, as you know, I hold important. You will meet women who will
condone this view and tell you that they do not expect it, that men are
'different,' and that they would not even have it otherwise. Do not
believe them. It may be true of some men, though, if they we