Boase held out a thin hand to him, laying down the book he had been reading, after slipping a marker in the place. Ishmael saw it was a new book from the library. "Robert Elsmere" was the name upon its cover.
"What good thing has happened?" asked Boase, watching Ishmael's face.
"Padre, you are too clever; if you had lived a few centuries earlier you would certainly have been burned alive! Nicky is coming home."
"That is splendid news! He has been away quite long enough to be good."
"For him?"
"No, for you. You are getting stodgy, Ishmael."
Ishmael laughed, but felt rather annoyed all the same.
"What is one to do? I am growing old."
"Nonsense! Have the decency to remember that compared with me you are a young man. Wait till you are close on eighty and then see how you feel about it."
Ishmael had a quick feeling that after all he was young compared with this frail, burning whiteness, yet it seemed to him that he could never be as old as that, that then indeed life could not be worth living. Aloud he said mechanically: