t coming and talking to an old man, and what
interests me about her is that she keeps so fluid. I mean that she never
sticks where she was. I don't want you to either. You came in the days
of Ruskin and Pater and of great men politically, but I don't want you
to stick there. There's no merit in being right at one time in one's
life if one sticks to that rightness after it has lost its significance.
You know, a stopped clock is right twice every twenty-four hours, but
it's a rightness without value. Keep fluid, Ishmael. It is the only
youth."

"Is that why you're reading 'Robert Elsmere'?" asked Ishmael, with a
smile.

"Exactly. I'm not going to change what feeds my soul daily for what is
offered me between these covers, but that's not the point. One can
always discriminate, but one should always give oneself things to
discriminate between."

There was a short silence, which the Parson broke. "I too have had a
letter," he said, and there was something in his voice which made
Ishmael aware of a portent beyond the ordinary. "From Archelaus ..."
added Boase.

"From Archelaus?" echoed Ishmael. The name came upon him like the name
of one dead, it seemed to him that when they spoke of Killigrew they
touched more upon the living than when they mentioned Archelaus. "Why
does he write?" he added; and his voice sounded harsh and dry even to
his own ears, so that he felt a little shame at himself.

"He has met Nicky in Canada."

"I thought Archelaus had gone West in the States, if he were still alive
at all. I was beginning to think something must have happened to him. No
one has heard for so long. He took a funny idea into his head at one
time to write to Georgie, whom he had never seen--queer letters, telling
very little, full of sly remarks one couldn't get the rights of."
Ishmael paused, waiting for the Parson to produce the letter and show it
him, but Boase made no move. "It's funny Nicky never mentioned it," went
on Ishmael with an odd little note that was almost jealousy in his
voice....

"He says he did not tell Nicky who he was," said the Parson reluctantly.
"I think there is more good in that queer, distorted creature than you
think for, Ishmael. Seeing the boy seems to have roused him to old
feelings of home.... He writes oddly, but in a strain that is not
wholly base."

"I can't make out why he wants to write to you at all, Padre; he always
hated you, blamed you so ... for the marriage and all that."

"Ther