ether to the shrinking that takes place in rooms after
childhood is passed, Ishmael could not have told. Three walls were still
lined with dusty golden-brown books that he had been wont to describe as
smelling of bad milk pudding, and the shabby green tablecloth was
littered with sermon paper and more books just as it had been for his
lessons. He almost expected to see Vassie's golden head, no more alien
from him than his own boyish dark one, bending over it as he looked.

Boase held out a thin hand to him, laying down the book he had been
reading, after slipping a marker in the place. Ishmael saw it was a new
book from the library. "Robert Elsmere" was the name upon its cover.

"What good thing has happened?" asked Boase, watching Ishmael's face.

"Padre, you are too clever; if you had lived a few centuries earlier you
would certainly have been burned alive! Nicky is coming home."

"That is splendid news! He has been away quite long enough to be good."

"For him?"

"No, for you. You are getting stodgy, Ishmael."

Ishmael laughed, but felt rather annoyed all the same.

"What is one to do? I am growing old."

"Nonsense! Have the decency to remember that compared with me you are a
young man. Wait till you are close on eighty and then see how you feel
about it."

Ishmael had a quick feeling that after all he was young compared with
this frail, burning whiteness, yet it seemed to him that he could never
be as old as that, that then indeed life could not be worth living.
Aloud he said mechanically:

"You? You are always young."

"Age does not matter when you are really old; it is only the getting old
that matters," said Boase; "it is like death. No one minds being dead;
it's the dying that appals. But seriously, my dear boy, what really
matters is to have the quality of youth. Don't lose that."

"I'm not sure I ever had it," said Ishmael slowly, sitting down by the
long chair.

"Perhaps not. You were acutely young, which is not quite the same thing.
Our friend Killigrew had the quality of youth. One can say of him that
he died young. I think your Nicky has that quality too. That's why he'll
be so good for you."

"What about the girls? Aren't they enough to save my soul alive?"

"Oh, well, girls are never quite the same thing. A father loves his
daughters if anything more than his sons, but it's as a father and not
as a fellow human. You know, I've seen a good deal of Judith this
summer; she's always good a