“I don’t know how he can have been; she’s only seen him with us.  But I don’t know what you’d do about it if he had; you can’t lick him; he’s twice your size and weight.”

“Would you never fight unless you were sure of winning?” demanded Killigrew scornfully.  Ishmael thought a minute.

“I think it is that I never fight until I’m sure of winning,” he said at last; “if I found I wasn’t strong enough I wouldn’t go in and be beaten; I’d train hard till I was and then fight.”

“But that might take ages and you’d forget what you wanted to fight the chap about.”

“I don’t think I’d forget, if I’d wanted to fight him.  I might, though, I suppose....”

“You’re all wrong, you know,” opined Killigrew; “’tisn’t the winning that really matters ... sounds silly, but I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Sounds like something the Parson would say—­my Parson,” said Ishmael on one of his flashes of intuition; and then they both laughed, for Killigrew was one of those rare creatures, a born pagan—­or rather heathen, which is not quite the same thing.  The pagan has beliefs of his own; the true heathen denies the need for any, through sheer lack of interest.

“D’you think girls are so very different from us ...?” went on Killigrew after a moment’s silence.  “The sort of things they really want to do and think about?”

“Girls are quite different,” said Ishmael firmly; “they talk awful rot; I’ve heard my sister and Phoebe—­that’s a girl at home.”

“Yes, so does my sister—­at least, she talks sort of clever stuff that’s as bad.  But how about Hilaria?” asked her admirer.

“Well, she’s more sensible than most, because she wants to do things as though she weren’t a girl, but I don’t see how she’s going to keep it up.  She’ll fall in love and then it’ll all be over.”

“You don’t think much of girls, do you?”

“Oh, well ... they’re all right, I suppose.  I want to do things, and girls want to feel things.  Oh, yes, Bunny, they’re awfully different.”

“From you, perhaps ...  I dunno ...  I say, d’you really want the old bishop to lay his paws on your head?”

“Yes,” replied Ishmael, briefly.

“Well, so does Hilaria.  She read me some stuff out of a book—­ripping fine stuff it was—­by a chap called Mallory.  All about knights that were searching for a cup they thought had the blood of God in it or something of the sort.  But she seemed to believe it.”

“I believe it, too.  Not that they lived like that book, but that there is the Blood ...  Oh, what’s the good of trying to explain to you?  It’s like you when you’re painting and you try and make me see a lot of colours I can’t.”

“Hullo ... there she comes,” cried Killigrew, with a sudden quickening of voice and aspect; “I say, it must be ghastly trying to walk in one of those things.  Girls must be different or they wouldn’t put up with them.  I’ll go and help her.  Come on, we’ll have to sit down below now.”