she studied painting at an art school, and had announced her intention to her alarmed but admiring parents of “living her own life.”  There was a horrid rumour that she had once been dared to smoke and had done so.  Her aggressively “arty” dress was only the temporary expression of her fluid and receptive mind feeling and trying for itself.  Her frankness was disconcerting at first, yet somehow very delightful too....  It made him feel young also; it was as though she were perpetually telling him things that took him into a conspiracy with her.

Judy had made him feel old; all the time he was aware of things in her life of which he was ignorant, and though he had never been intimate enough with her to mind this, yet it did not tend towards intimacy now.  There was always the knowledge of Blanche and Phoebe between him and any friendliness with Judith, knowledge of so much he had resolutely put behind him.  But with this careless girl, so untouched and confident, it was as though it were possible to be the self he felt that he now was without any drag from that old Ishmael.  He knew vaguely that she was engaged, and this seemed to make intercourse lighter and more jolly.  Every relationship is new, because to no two people is anyone quite the same, but there was in the first tentative approaches of his acquaintance with Georgie Barlow a novelty that struck him pleasantly.  He was shy of her only because he was still so ignorant, but he felt no barriers, rather an overlapping of something they both had in common, which is the surest herald sometimes of friendship, sometimes of other things.

Killigrew arrived with a copy of “Richard Feverel” under one arm and the first edition of Fitzgerald’s “Omar Khayyam” under the other.  He exuded life and enjoyment, and Ishmael wondered what indigestion, mental or physical could have had him in its grip when he felt that the power of ecstasy was slipping.  Certainly he seemed to bubble with it now, though it remained to be seen whether what chiefly evoked it were the impersonal things of life or not.  It was impossible to feel any shyness with him, and even Ishmael soon was talking and feeling curiously unscathed when Killigrew unabashedly referred to old times, painful and otherwise.  “It is only Joe ...”  Ishmael reflected, which was the fatal leniency that had pursued Killigrew through life.

Georgie left the two men to spend the evening together and went back to Paradise Cottage, but before she fell asleep that night she heard a low murmur of voices outside.  She jumped out of bed and ran to the window.  It was a night of bright moonlight, and under the shadow of the tamarisk hedge she could see Killigrew’s darker figure, with its unmistakably raking poise.  Another shadow had just parted from it and was coming to the door—­the figure of Judith.  She had been out when Georgie entered—­out for a walk, Mrs. Penticost had said.  Georgie skipped back to bed full of excitement.  She had guessed before that Judy cared about Killigrew, and now, judging by that parting, they were engaged and everything was to be all right.  How thrilling!...  She smiled and dimpled as she met Judy’s eye next morning, inviting the announcement.