n that Cloom would belong, though no man knew it, to his son
and his grandson after him, but it no longer seemed to Ishmael to matter
whether Archelaus "won" or not. There was at last no striving, no
unacknowledged but hidden combat, no feeling of lingering unfairness.

Ishmael knew how, with all his elusiveness, Nicky had been very
malleable, immensely open to impressions, to what was held before him,
and he knew how different Nicky would have been if Archelaus had had the
moulding of him. Just as even at this hour he was reverting to all he
had learnt--more from watching and imbibing it than any other way--from
Boase, so Nicky had absorbed from him what made him what he was. And
yet, so till the end did the deep inherited instinct of the man who
lives by land hold him, Ishmael took pleasure in the thought that, after
all, Nicky was of Ruan blood.... So much of earth held by him as
everything else began to slip away.

Then towards evening thought fell away too, leaving him only with what
he had called to Jimmy a "nice tiredness." So do children feel after a
day's play, so do old, old men feel after a life's work....

He was dimly but certainly aware that Nicky was beside his pillow, his
hand upon him, that other figures were beyond, of Nicky's bent head, but
in his drowsy mind it was confused with the head of the plaster Christ
that had leaned forward from the wall behind and was drooping low over
him. The hair fell softly over his eyes like the falling of a shadow,
and under it he could see the Divine eyes, that had beamed at him now
and again throughout his life, but never as brightly as in boyhood,
smiling into his. He smiled back, and then, with a queer little apology
in his mind, he turned his eyes away to take a last look at the soft
dusk through the window.

Later, when Nicky had closed the sightless eyes, the young moon swam up
upon her back. She who had just gone through her full round scarred
maturity and died of old age was now virgin once again, with that
renascent virginity some of the greatest courtesans have known, a
remoteness of spirit, a chill freshness that is in itself eternal youth.

EPILOGUE

Jimmy Ruan went through the farmyard and climbed upon the gate that led
into the field. He saw the big straw stacks that had been built up only
four days ago at the time of the threshing; he saw the black and sodden
patch upon the turf where the steamy water had dripped ceaselessly, the
ruts whe