comely, but she was so spring-like and golden. She was immensely important to George. She was something he could love unreservedly, even if it was only with the mawkish love of adolescence. But far more than that temporary service she gave him the capacity to love women, saved him from the latent homosexuality which lurks in so many Englishmen, and makes them forever dissatisfied with their women. She revealed to him—all unconsciously—the subtle inexhaustible joys of the tender companionate woman’s body. Even then he felt the delicious contrast between his male nervous muscled hands and her tender budding breasts, opening flowers to be held so delicately and affectionately. And from her too he learned that the most satisfactory loves are those which do not last too long, those which are never made thorny with hate, and drift gently into the past, leaving behind only a fragrance—not a sting—of regret. His memories of Priscilla were few, but all roses.... * * * * * You see, they cannot really kill the spark if it is there, not with all their bullyings and codes and prejudices and thorough manliness. For, of course, they are not manly at all, they are merely puppets, the products of the system—if it may be dignified by that word. The truly manly ones are those who have the spark, and refuse to let it be extinguished; those who know that the true values are the vital values, not the £. s. d. and falling-into-a-good-post and the kicked-backside-of-the-Empire values. George had already found a sort of ally in poor Mr. Slush, and an exquisite child-passion in Priscilla. But he needed men, too, and was lucky enough to find them. How can one estimate what he owed to Dudley Pollak and to Donald and Tom Conington? * * * * *