every single human being with whom he is brought into contact a soul whom he can love and serve.  Of course it is but an elementary pleasure to enjoy pleasing those whom we regard with some passion of affection, wife or child or friend, because, after all, one gains something oneself by that.  But the purest morality of all discerns the infinitely lovable quality which is in the depth of every human soul, and lavishes its tenderness and its grace upon it, with a compassion that grows and increases, the more unthankful and clumsy and brutish is the soul which it sets out to serve.”

“But,” I said, “beautiful as that thought is—­and I see and recognise its beauty—­it does limit the individual responsibility very greatly.  Surely a prudential morality, the morality which is just because it fears reprisal, and is kind because it anticipates kindness, is better than none at all?  The morality of which you speak can only belong to the noblest human creatures.”

“Only to the noblest,” he said; “and I must repeat what I said before, that the prudential morality is useless, because it begins at the wrong end, and is set upon self throughout.  I must say deliberately that the soul which loves unreasonably and unwisely, which even yields itself to the passion of others for the pleasure it gives rather than for the pleasure it receives—­the thriftless, lavish, good-natured, affectionate people, who are said to make such a mess of their lives—­are far higher in the scale of hope than the cautiously respectable, the prudently kind, the selfishly pure.  There must be no mistake about this.  One must somehow or other give one’s heart away, and it is better to do it in error and disaster than to treasure it for oneself.  Of course there are many lives on earth—­and an increasing number as the world develops—­which are generous and noble and unselfish, without any sacrifice of purity or self-respect.  But the essence of morality is giving, and not receiving, or even practising; the point is free choice, and not compulsion; and if one cannot give because one loves, one must give until one loves.”

XXVI

But all my speculations were cut short by a strange event which happened about this time.  One day, without any warning, the thought of Cynthia darted urgently and irresistibly into my mind.  Her image came between me and all my tasks; I saw her in innumerable positions and guises, but always with her eyes bent on me in a pitiful entreaty.  After endeavouring to resist the thought for a little as some kind of fantasy, I became suddenly convinced that she was in need of me, and in urgent need.  I asked for an interview with our Master, and told him the story; he heard me gravely, and then said that I might go in search of her; but I was not sure that he was wholly pleased, and he bent his eyes upon me with a very inquiring look.  I hesitated whether or not to call Amroth to my aid, but decided that I had better