It sounds
mad to you of course, but there have been times when I have had a wild
longing to go back to it all, to what some Gorgio writers call the pariah
world--the Ishmaelites."
More than once Ingolby's heart throbbed heavily against his breast as he
felt the passion of her nature, its extraordinary truthfulness, making it
clear to him by indirect phrases that even Jethro Fawe, whom she
despised, still had a hateful fascination for her. It was all at variance
to her present self, but it summoned her through the long avenues of
ancestry, predisposition; through the secret communion of those who,
being dead, yet speak.
"It's a great story told in a great way," he said, when she had finished.
"It's the most honest thing I ever heard, but it's not the most truthful
thing I ever heard. I don't think we can tell the exact truth about
ourselves. We try to be honest; we are savagely in earnest about it, and
so we exaggerate the bad things we do, and we often show distrust of the
good things we do. That's not a fair picture. I believe you've told me
the truth as you see it and feel it, but I don't think it's the real
truth. In my mind I sometimes see an oriel window in the college where I
spent three years. I used to work and think for hours in that oriel
window, and in the fights I've been having lately I've looked back and
thought I wanted it again; wanted to be there in the peace of it all,
with the books, and the lectures, and the drone of history, and the
drudgery of examinations; but if I did go back to it, three days'd sicken
me, and if you went back to the Gipsy life three days'd sicken you.
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