s ago, and that now means nothing."

"What does mean anything to you now?"

"I'm not quite sure I can tell you yet," said Judy slowly; "and I don't
think it would be any good to you--there'd be too much against it. What
does mean anything to you, personally?"

"I don't know.... I only know that for real youth again, for perfect
ease of body, I would give everything short of my immortal soul."

"Ah! then you still feel the soul's the most important?"

"Part of me does--the part of me that responds to the truth, which is
going on all the time, with us if we like, without us if not, but which
is surely there. It's because I know it's there, even though my longings
are out of key with it, that I still say that about the soul."

They went up into the house, and that night Georgie, whether because
some feminine jealousy that he talked so much with Judy was stinging at
her, or whether because even without that spur she would have felt some
old stirring of warmth, was sweeter to him than for long past. As he
held her against him he was aware that it was not so much passion he
felt as that deeper, sweeter something Judy had spoken of, and for the
first time he felt free to savour it instead of half-resenting it as a
loss of glamour.

This was a satisfying companionship he had of Georgie, a sweet thing
without which life would have been emptier, even if it settled no
problems and left untouched the lonely spaces which no human foot can
range in their entirety, though in youth some one step may make them
tremble throughout their shining floors.... It was good, though it was
not the whole of life, and as he took it he gave thanks for the varied
relationships in the world which added so to its richness, even if they
could only impinge upon its outer edges.

CHAPTER V

THE PARSON'S PHILOSOPHY

That summer the Parson began to show signs of breaking up. Judith had
been struck by the change in him when she came down, a change less plain
to those who were seeing him often, but startlingly distinct to her who
had not seen him for so long. She took up her friendship, that had begun
on that evening when he had found her in the church, in the place where
it had left off, and this was somewhat to the credit of both, since it
transpired that during the past year Judy had been received into the
Roman Catholic Church. Judith was quiet about her religion as she had
been about her love. She had not accepted it in any spirit of t