s nothing in the world but
a fusion of sex," said Killigrew swiftly. "It gives to the man intuition
and to the woman creativeness--it adds a sixth sense, feminising the
man and giving the woman what is generally a masculine attribute. But
that's not what the Padre means. He's using the word in its accepted
derogatory sense."

"I don't think he is quite, either," said Judy. "I think what you mean
is more the deadly literary sense, isn't it, Padre?--the thing some
people are cursed with, the voice that gets up and lies down with them,
that keeps up a running commentary on whatever they do. The creative
people can suffer from that."

"You mean the thing I always had as a youngster," said Killigrew. "If I
went fishing I used to hear something like this: 'The boy slipped to the
bank with the swift sureness of a young animal, and sat with long brown
legs in the water while his skilful fingers fixed the bait on the
hook.'"

"That's the sort of thing," said Judith. "It's deadly dangerous."

"Don't you think I've grown out of it, then?" asked Killigrew quickly,
but with a laugh. Judy did not reply, but turned to Ishmael.

"Don't you know at all what I mean?" she asked. "You must have had
moments like that--every child has. Some people let it grow into a
habit--that's what's fatal."

Ishmael thought it over. "Yes," he admitted. "I can remember whole
tracks of thought like that in my childhood, but I think I recognised
the danger and made myself alter."

"I'm sure you didn't suffer from it," declared Boase. "I knew you very
thoroughly, Ishmael, and you were reserved and inarticulate; you never
acted for effect." He felt startled, as though a sudden gap had yawned
in the dear past; it did not seem to him possible, or only as the
grotesque possibility of a nightmare, that the boy Ishmael should have
held tendencies, trends of thought, which he had not realised....

Later came a message from Nicky that he would like Miss Parminter to
come up and say good-night to him. They all laughed at the masculine
tactics adopted thus early, but Judith went upstairs.

Later, when the others were thinking of going, Ishmael went up for her.
She was kneeling by the bed, a dark figure in the dim room. Nicky was
asleep, one arm still flung round her shoulder: she held hers lightly
across him; her head was bowed upon the sheet. Ishmael hesitated a
moment, struck by something of abandon in her pose. Then he touched her
lightly on the shoulder