“And then,” continued Judith, pursuing her own line of thought, “something in me seems to say that that wide view, that merging of individuality, has the right idea at the root of it.  It’s an old strain of Puritanism in me, I suppose, that tells me anything is good which implies a loosening of individualism.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Boase energetically.  “The root of all things good and great is personality.  The success of any movement depends on the individuality of the leader, just as the whole of creation depends, whether it knows it or not, on the personality of Christ.  ‘Be individual’ is a counsel of perfection—­that is the only drawback to it.  If the great mass of people were only nearer perfection the rein could be given to individualism; as it is it’s a dangerous horse to drive—­it so often runs away with its driver.  Conceive now of the immense advantage it would be if, instead of a criminal being tried by the clumsy machinery of the law, the judge were to investigate the case quietly and thoroughly himself, get to know the man, his belongings and environment, and then deal with him as he saw fit.  The thing’s not workable; the judge might have an attack of indigestion that would jaundice his view, or be in a rosy glow of sentimentality after port.  But if the judge could be depended on for sympathy and intuitiveness, half the crime in the world would be stamped out.  It’s the same everywhere.  If priests could be allowed to discriminate between divorced persons they thought it fit and desirable to remarry and those they did not, much sin might be avoided.  But it wouldn’t work, simply because the individual can’t yet be trusted, and so it is quite right that the law should be as it is.  But that doesn’t prevent rank individualism from being the counsel of perfection—­in which, curiously enough, Joe would agree with me more than Ishmael, who fights against the individual in life to an extraordinary extent.  I wish something would happen to make him succumb to it again.  I don’t want him to grow inhuman....”

“I wish it were possible to grow inhuman,” said Judy.

“If you knew,” said Boase slowly, “that besides doing—­as I must tell you—­a right action by leaving off all connection with Joe Killigrew, you could also cease at once to feel anything for him, would you then leave him?”

“Ah! not yet ...” said Judith.  “I must have a little longer.  Wait till I’m older—­till I can’t make him want me....”

As she went home, comforted more than she could have thought possible by the mere telling of what had accompanied her so long, she knew that she had not been wholly disingenuous.  That Killigrew would cease to want her for at least a good while to come she did not believe, and it was not that dread which had sent her shaking for the first time to the help from which she had hitherto held proudly aloof.  As a matter of fact she kept up the illusion of youth better with Killigrew than with the rest of the world, and she