5
 
 ADAM 
 AND CAROLINE 
 
 Being the Sequel to Adam of Dubhn 
 by 
 
 CONAL O'RIORDAN 
 
 Aaw'd 6e 6 fiaoifev( iytvvriat rbv ZoAoyudiva en TIJS TOV Oitpiov 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 
 
 1922
 
 COPYRIGHT, IQ22, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACK AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
 RAHWAY, N. J
 
 TO 
 FRANCIS R. PRYOR 
 
 MY FRIEND AND ASSOCIATE IN 
 A GREAT ENTERPRISE 
 
 206O578
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. ADAM LISTENS TO THE BELLS . . >. . 3 
 
 II. BUYING A BICYCLE . .. . ... >. . 9 
 
 III. ADAM LEARNS TO BICYCLE . . . ... . l6 
 
 IV. THE NAKED TRUTH ....;... 23 
 
 V. PIETY 3O 
 
 VI. FATHER IGNATIUS STEELE 37 
 
 VII. THE MARCHESA STARTLES FATHER STEELE . 45 
 
 VIII. ADAM LOOKS BACKWARDS 53 
 
 IX. THE MARCHESA IN THE FIRELIGHT . . . 6l 
 
 X. GOING TO SCHOOL .69 
 
 XI. CLONGOWES WOOD COLLEGE .... 79 
 
 XII. ADAM IS BIDDEN TO KEEP THE FAITH . . 86 
 
 xiii. FATHER CLARE'S SURPRISING OBSERVATION . 95 
 
 XIV. ADAM IS ADVISED NOT TO DISCUSS HIS MOTHER IO4 
 
 XV. HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 112 
 
 XVI. MR. MACARTHY LIES IN BED . . . .121 
 
 XVII. MORE OF SIR DAVID BYRON-QUINN . . I 3 I 
 
 XVIII. OF A CHRISTMAS PRESENT 140 
 
 XIX. THE WITCHING HOUR ....... 149 
 
 XX. OF DEATH AND BURIAL ...... l6l 
 
 XXI. ADAM IS ADVISED TO READ THE BIBLE . .170 
 
 XXII. FATHER STEELE*S VICTORY 179
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XXIII. OF FLIGHT AND A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS . 1 88 
 
 XXIV. THE MIRACLE OF THE TRAMS . . . 199 
 
 XXV. JOSEPHINE PUTS HER HAIR UP . . . 2O7 
 
 XXVI. APPROACHING THE RUBICON .... 2l6 
 
 XXVII. VISITORS FOR MRS. MACFADDEN . . . 223 
 
 xxvui. LOVERS' MEETING ...... 229 
 
 XXIX. THE BRINK OF THE RUBICON .... 238 
 
 XXX. THE POWERS OF DARKNESS .... 250 
 
 XXXI. ON THE EVE 256 
 
 XXXII. THE PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON . . . 264 
 
 XXXIII. ON THE FURTHER SHORE .... 277 
 
 XXXIV. MR. MACARTHY ON CAROLINE . . . 290 
 
 XXXV. GROWING UP 295 
 
 XXXVI. OF A TOMBSTONE 307 
 
 xxxvii. MRS. LEAPER-CARAHAR'S AT HOME . . 313 
 
 XXXVIII. MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY . . . 324 
 
 XXXIX. VIEWS DIFFER AND FOG RISES . . . 343 
 
 XL. THE WATERS THAT DROWNED FAN TWEEDY 357
 
 ADAM AND CAROLINE
 
 CHAPTER I 
 ADAM LISTENS TO THE BELLS 
 
 ON the early morning of his thirteenth birthday, a boy was 
 wakened from his dreams of the night by the bells of St. 
 George's Church, Dublin, ringing four; and as he lazily 
 noticed dawn breaking across the church spire, conjured up 
 dreams of the day to come, full of the importance of one 
 entering upon his teens. From under his pillow he drew a 
 document constituting legal evidence that he had been born 
 in Dublin as the sun was entering Taurus in one of the last 
 years of the last century, and baptized at the Pro-Cathedral, 
 that being his parish church, ere the month was out. His 
 father's name was given as Malachy Macfadden and his 
 own as Adam Byron O'Toole Dudley Wyndham Innocent; 
 a long, strong, and proud name for one so unpretentiously 
 begotten. His sponsors were a Miss or Mrs. Emily Robin- 
 son, since, even as Mr. Malachy Macfadden himself, de- 
 ceased, and Mr. Byron O'Toole, who, still very much alive, 
 had been appointed by the widow his legal guardian, to- 
 gether with Stephen Macarthy, Esquire, of Mountjoy 
 Square, and Turlough O'Meagher Leas-ridere, of Capua 
 Terrace, Sandycove. . . . What mainly interested him in 
 his Baptismal Certificate (procured for the purposes of the 
 Intermediate Examination when at the Jesuit College in the 
 house called by Luke Gardiner, first Lord Mountjoy of the 
 last creation, who had built it for his own use in the reign 
 of George III., Belvedere) was the statement of his age. 
 Yesterday he was a child . . . but to-day he was a man, 
 going to be a man quite shortly. . . . Great things begin 
 to happen to you once you enter your teens. . . . What 
 
 3
 
 4 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 was the long word that Mr. Macarthy said Herr Behre mis- 
 pronounced . . . ? Adolescence ... in German Jugend. 
 . . . Adam was beginning to learn German. ... It was 
 not as interesting as French, or at least it was not as easy, 
 but somehow he liked German : perhaps that was because 
 he liked Herr Behre. . . . Herr Behre was a kind man, 
 though he had queer notions about pictures, and he was not 
 so wise as Mr. Macarthy. . . . Mr. Macarthy said adoles- 
 cence meant more than the German word Jugend. . . . 
 The meaning of words was very queer. . . . Mr. Macarthy 
 said that the meaning of a word was conveyed by the tone 
 of voice in which it was said . . . and yet Mr. Macarthy 
 had thousands of books, to which he seemed to pay more 
 attention than to the voices of his friends. Mr. Macarthy 
 was a queer old fellow. He did not like him as much as he 
 had liked Father Innocent Feeley; Father Innocent had 
 been to him from the beginning all that was good upon 
 earth, that could be good in Heaven, he would never love 
 anyone as he had loved Father Innocent, but he liked Mr. 
 Macarthy pretty well, he liked him and Herr Behre and Mr. 
 Turlough O'Meagher better than anyone else in the world 
 now. For Father Innocent was dead too, lying at Glasnevin, 
 not so far from Mr. Macfadden and Miss or Mrs. Robin- 
 son, and perhaps Caroline Brady. . . . 
 
 Perhaps Caroline Brady . . . odd that he did not know 
 if Caroline Brady were dead or alive . . . ! Caroline Brady, 
 if she were alive, how old would she be to-day? How long 
 was it since they met . . . and parted . . . ? Four years 
 was it ... or five ... or maybe six . . . ? He could not 
 reckon the years backward yet. . . . Mr Macarthy was 
 just beginning to teach him the meaning of Time. . . . 
 "Take care of Time," Mr. Macarthy had said, and "Eternity 
 will take care of itself." It was this thought that made him 
 interested in his precise age. He had lived thirteen years. 
 He was still a boy. But when he had lived as long again
 
 ADAM LISTENS TO THE BELLS 5 
 
 . . . that is to say, a quarter of the way through the twen- 
 tieth century, he would be twenty-six, the age at which Na- 
 poleon became famous as the conqueror of Italy ... as 
 long again, say, and he would be thirty-nine, middle-aged, 
 nearly as old, perhaps, as Mr. Macarthy himself. . . . And 
 yet thirteen years from that, half way through the century 
 he would be fifty-two, the age at which Shakespeare died 
 ... on his fifty-second birthday, it was said. It was a 
 queer notion to die on your birthday . . . perhaps thirty- 
 nine years from now he, too, might be dying, like Shake- 
 speare, on his fifty-second birthday. Anyhow, thirty-nine 
 years was a good long time, almost forty years, three times 
 as long as he had been living already, and it seemed to 
 him as if he had been always alive . . . and yet he remem- 
 bered the papers he used to sell with news in them that was 
 stale before he was born . . . the news of the death of Sir 
 David Byron-Quinn, for example, killed in the Soudan, 
 near a quarter of a century before Adam was born. And 
 Sir David was the . . . 
 
 It was a queer thing, surely, that Herr Behre, known to 
 Miss Gannon, their common landlady, as "That French- 
 man" (which was ridiculous ; for so far as he was anything, 
 he was a German) should think that Adam resembled that 
 grand, if rather naughty, baronet and adventurer, Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn, while Adam himself found him uncannily 
 like his godfather, Mr. O'Toole. When Mr. O'Toole was 
 particularly pleased with the way the world treated him 
 (which was seldom) he looked at you with eyes that were 
 almost the same as Lady Daphne Page gave Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn in her portrait of him at the National Gallery. 
 He knew that portrait well ; for he often went to the gallery 
 now to look at it. Also he went there to look at what was 
 called a bird's-eye view of Dublin, painted by a man called 
 Mahoney, from the spire of St. George's Church, the very 
 spire he saw through his window, in 1850 . . . that was half
 
 6 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 a century before Adam was born. Yet he thought Dublin 
 looked much the same then as now. Immediately in the 
 foreground of the picture, you could see the line of houses, 
 the backs of them, from Findlater's Church up Gardiner's 
 Row and Great Denmark Street (with the new school 
 building he had suffered so much in not yet there, thank 
 God!) to Mountjoy Square, with the windows of the room 
 that were now Mr. Macarthy's but then belonged to some 
 great man, a Lord Chancellor, was it? ... The Lord 
 Chancellor was the head of the Law. He knew now from 
 Mr. Macarthy that the Law was not necessarily always 
 wrong . . . though, perhaps, more often wrong than right. 
 Mr. Macarthy's own father had been a great lawyer, though 
 not a Lord Chancellor, nor a lord nor a chancellor of any 
 kind. Was he what they called a judge? No, he thought 
 he had not been a judge. To be a judge you had to pre- 
 tend to be half an Englishman . . . and that was humbug. 
 And Mr. Macarthy's father hated humbug. So did Mr. 
 Macarthy. Adam was a little afraid of Mr. Macarthy : he 
 hated humbug so very bitterly. It would never do to tell 
 the smallest lie to Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 He had never told a lie to Father Innocent : but he won- 
 dered if he might not be tempted some day to tell one to Mr. 
 Macarthy . . . queer feelings come over you when you are 
 thirteen . . . and Mr. Macarthy asked questions Father 
 Innocent never asked . . . not that Mr. Macarthy was what 
 you could call inquisitive. Mr. Macarthy was a gentleman, 
 and gentlemen are not inquisitive. To be inquisitive, Mr. 
 Macarthy said, was to ask questions you had no right to 
 ask. Adam felt he asked no question he was not right to 
 ask . . . but sometimes they were hard questions for a boy 
 going on thirteen to answer truly. . . . 
 
 St. George's bells rang six ... and an Angelus bell was 
 ringing too. . . . Adam sidled to the floor, stretched his 
 arms, and yawned . . . one of the questions Mr. Macarthy
 
 ADAM LISTENS TO THE BELLS 7 
 
 had asked him was what he thought about when he lay in 
 bed, wideawake, yet not up and doing. 
 
 To-day he was thirteen, he would no longer lie in bed 
 when once awake; he would be up and doing . . . then he 
 would be less afraid of the temptation to tell a lie in answer 
 to one of Mr. Macarthy's questions. 
 
 There was also a jollier thought that called him out of 
 bed : there was the thought of his birthday present ... to 
 signalize his entry upon his teens, Mr. Macarthy and Herr 
 Behre and Mr. Turlough O'Meagher had subscribed to- 
 gether to buy him a bicycle. 
 
 The first present Mr. Macarthy had provided him with 
 was a large hip-bath, and, now that it was put before her as 
 an economic proposition, Miss Gannon was willing to find 
 for him as much hot water as he could use; so that ordi- 
 narily there was no self-denial called for by his ablutions. 
 But he could not expect a bath full of hot water so early 
 in the morning. . . . Eight o'clock was the hour for his 
 bath water, and hard enough it was to get him to take it 
 then. But this morning everything was different ... he 
 was thirteen years old, going to be a man. A man he would 
 be at once. . . . He emptied his jug into the bath, slipped 
 out of his night shirt, splashed two handfuls over the long 
 hair on his head, then stepped boldly in and sat down in it 
 . . . rather wished he hadn't, but persevered. 
 
 Ten minutes past six found him wrapped in the bath 
 towel, scrubbing himself into a glowing heat, and feeling 
 infinitely great and good. At half past six he was fully 
 dressed . . . still virtuous, he sat down to do a little Latin 
 before breakfast ... by a quarter to seven the Latin Gram- 
 mar had given way to the Latin Dictionary. ... By seven 
 he was reading Keats, starting Endymion for the hundreth 
 time ... it is impossible to say at what moment he re- 
 linquished this; but, when Miss Gannon brought him his 
 breakfast, she found the table littered with books and he
 
 8 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 himself comfortably drowsing between two bicycle cata- 
 logues. 
 
 "There, there," said she, "I thought, on your birthday, 
 you might at least be trying to turn over a new leaf." 
 
 "I have," said Adam. "I've been at work for hours." 
 
 "Ah, go on !" said Miss Gannon, but she did not speak so 
 crossly now as she was wont to do when Adam first came 
 under her charge. She was merely disturbed to think 
 where on earth she was to store Adam's bicycle, that the 
 barrister of great antiquity, though still junior in standing, 
 who resided on her first floor, might not break either it or 
 himself by falling over it when intoxicated. 
 
 Since Adam had become Mr. Macarthy's ward, and even 
 before his thirteenth birthday, St. George's Place, from 
 Miss Gannon herself to St. Kevin the cat, had revolved 
 round Adam Macfadden.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 BUYING A BICYCLE 
 
 AT nine o'clock Adam left the house to seek his guardian, 
 his chief guardian, Stephen Macarthy. Normally it was 
 six minutes' walk from his house to Mr. Macarthy's, but 
 this morning he would have done it in four and three 
 quarters had he not encountered Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde 
 mounting his own bicycle at the corner of Gardiner Street, 
 and Adam stopped to see that very large man mount nimbly 
 as a boy upon his proportionally large machine, and speed 
 off down Gardiner's Place like a traveling pillar of the 
 Church. He did not go, however, without throwing Adam 
 a cheery "Good day," in the voice of one interested in him 
 individually, apart from his general benevolence towards 
 the world. 
 
 Adam always felt that Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde was a man 
 he would like to know, ever since the day he had given him 
 sixpence and a caution not to sell him old newspapers out- 
 side the Gresham Hotel. To-day he remembered how he 
 had been wont to pray for the conversion of the good Doc- 
 tor from the tenets associated with Geneva, or rather Find- 
 later's Church, to those associated with Father Innocent. 
 He smiled at that recollection now; smiled, too, to remem- 
 ber how Father Innocent had cautioned him not to touch 
 his cap to him in any way that implied recognition of his 
 sacerdotal pretensions : he had had difficulty in distinguish- 
 ing between the kindly gentleman and the perverse Pres- 
 byter : he was cheered to reflect that anyhow he had never 
 offended that early friend. . . . He noticed that Mr. Mac- 
 arthy always took off his hat to Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde . . . 
 
 9
 
 io ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 it occurred to him for the first time that Mr. Macarthy 
 did not take off his hat to priests with whom he had no 
 personal acquaintance. . . . Also it struck him that he did 
 not know a priest who rode a bicycle. . . . Dr. Hillingdon- 
 Ryde was a grand man, and yet he rode a bicycle . . . there 
 could be nothing ignoble about riding a bicycle ... it was 
 pleasant to ride a bicycle. . . . Why did none of the Jesuits 
 ride bicycles? . . . was it a question of dogma? 
 
 When he had entered the house in Mountjoy Square and 
 was standing in the sitting-room of the upper part belonging 
 to Mr. Macarthy, looking down over the Square itself with 
 glimpses of the Dublin hills over the roofs of the south side, 
 he asked his guardian, "Is there any reason why priests 
 should not ride bicycles?" 
 
 And Mr. Macarthy's answer was typical of him : "If a 
 priest does not ride a bicycle there must be some reason for 
 it ... however bad." Mr. Macarthy left it at that. 
 
 "I can't understand anyone not riding a bicycle," said 
 Adam. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled grimly. "Perhaps you will under- 
 stand more about it in a few days ... or perhaps you may 
 not," said Mr. Macarthy. Somehow Adam did not care for 
 him so much as usual this morning. There was an irony 
 in his tone from which Father Innocent had been entirely 
 free. And Father Innocent was still to remain for some 
 years from his death Adam's standard of right and wrong. 
 
 Presently Mr. Macarthy and Adam left the house to 
 purchase the bicycle. Adam had expected to be led by the 
 more ceremonial route to the shop in Nassau Street, on the 
 south side, where the famous transaction was to take place. 
 That is to say, he thought he would be taken from the 
 house on the north side of Mountjoy Square by Gardiner's 
 Place and Denmark Street, turning to the left by Find- 
 later's Church, down the east side of Rutland Square (com- 
 monly called Cavendish Row, though Cavendish Row was
 
 BUYING A BICYCLE 11 
 
 but the few houses at the end) into Sackville or O'Connell 
 Street, with the Gresham Hotel so redolent of memories, 
 particularly the savor ascending the area from the kitchen, 
 over O'Connell Bridge, along Westmoreland Street, round 
 the front entrance to Trinity College and the Provost's 
 House, and by the south wall of the college to their destina- 
 tion. Since waking that morning his fancy had made the pil- 
 grimage twenty times. It was disappointing that Mr. Mac- 
 arthy chose to bring him the dull and smelly way by the 
 west side of the square and down Lower Gardiner Street. 
 As they passed the eastern end of Pleasant Street, Mr. Mac- 
 arthy asked, "Have you seen your mother lately?" Adam 
 said he had not. "Nor Mr. O'Toole?" asked Mr. Mac- 
 arthy. Adam said he had seen neither of them since he had 
 come into Mr. Macarthy's charge some weeks before. And 
 Mr. Macarthy let the subject drop as they passed on into 
 Beresford Place. 
 
 On the steps of Liberty Hall stood a shortish, thickset 
 man with a heavy mustache, talking to a taller man with 
 a high complexion and a beard, who limped as he moved. 
 Mr. Macarthy waved to them and they gravely returned his 
 salute. It surprised Adam that his guardian should be on 
 cordial terms with these men ; for he knew that his father, 
 the pious and orthodox Malachy Macfadden, had found 
 common ground with Mr. O'Toole and Father Tudor in 
 denouncing all persons connected with Liberty Hall, as 
 anarchists. He was inclined to question his guardian on 
 the subject but was too preoccupied by the thought of 
 his bicycle to trouble himself to frame the question. Besides 
 his mind was dulled and a little disgruntled by their follow- 
 ing this tedious route, though in fact it was the shorter one. 
 
 Over Butt Bridge they went, a train booming along beside 
 them on their left, obscuring the very sky, and on into 
 Brunswick Street, perhaps the ugliest street in Christen- 
 dom; and then up Westland Row and round by Lincoln
 
 12 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Place to the shop. And even in the shop disillusion awaited 
 Adam ; for they had not the bicycle that Adam wanted. It 
 was there in their catalogue right enough, but it was not in 
 the shop. Nor apparently was it in Ireland. It might pos- 
 sibly be in the factory of the firm for which the shopman 
 was agent : but that was hundreds of miles away at Coven- 
 try : and even of its being there the shopman did not seem 
 quite confident. "There is a great demand for that num- 
 ber," said he, "there is a great run on it, it is very good 
 value and I think they make very few of them." 
 
 "A decoy," said Mr. Macarthy drily. 
 
 The shopman waved a deprecating hand. "I wouldn't 
 call it that," said he. "But there it is." 
 
 "There it isn't," Mr. Macarthy corrected him. He looked 
 at Adam's crestfallen countenance, then turned to the shop- 
 man again. "If we order it is there any hope of our 
 getting it?" 
 
 "Oh yes, yes," said the shopman, "if you care to pay for 
 it now we would promise delivery . . ." 
 
 "When?" asked Mr. Macarthy. The shopman consulted 
 a book. "We might be able to manage it next spring," said 
 he. Adam was conscious of a desire to assassinate the 
 shopman. 
 
 "Thank you," said Mr. Macarthy. He looked at Adam 
 and read his thoughts. "I do not feel certain of living for 
 ever," said he, "even though buoyed up by the hope of buy- 
 ing one of your bicycles. Have you anything in stock that 
 you think would be suitable for our young friend?" The 
 shopman was quite confident that he had; and in the end, 
 despite Mr. Macarthy's misgivings, Adam did in fact find 
 himself in possession of a bicycle which he declared to be 
 entirely suitable. He knew in his heart that it was too big, 
 too high-geared, too long-cranked and too heavy. . . . Mr. 
 Macarthy suggested all these objections, but Adam insisted 
 that it was just what he wanted, so Mr. Macarthy bought
 
 BUYING A BICYCLE 13 
 
 and paid for it, nine guineas. Adam was startled when he 
 heard the price. "One hundred and eighty-nine shillings," 
 he said to himself, and clenched his teeth: there was no 
 going back on it now : whether he liked it or not, that bicycle 
 must be all right. 
 
 After all that was not a really happy birthday. The 
 thought of the bicycle and the many ways in which he 
 knew it was going to prove unsuitable haunted Adam: the 
 price of it haunted him. "One hundred and eighty-nine 
 shillings," he murmured to himself, as he walked with Mr. 
 Macarthy along Nassau Street to Grafton Street. But there 
 were strange happy moments in it. There was, for instance, 
 the fine thrill of meeting at the corner of Dawson Street the 
 Marchesa della Venasalvatica and Babs Burns. 
 
 They were a curious contrast, the Marchesa and Babs 
 Burns : Adam thought it odd they should be walking to- 
 gether. The Marchesa perhaps looked less of a rag-bag 
 than he had thought her on the night of his presentation to 
 her at the Six Muses Club, when she had enlisted him in 
 her company of young Druids; then she had been in a sort 
 of frowsy full dress emphasizing her untidiness. To-day 
 she looked like an elderly Diana who had come a mucker in 
 sloppy country. Adam's notion of the hunting field was as 
 literary as his notion of mythology; but that is how he 
 would have described the too-famous mistress of Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn. Beside her draggled and faded beauty Babs 
 Burns shone like the first bright flame of a new-lit fire . . . 
 so far as Adam dared to look at her she was a radiant 
 dragon-fly all green and gold. She had one arm interlaced 
 with the Marchesa's and, bringing the other to meet it, she 
 pulled her up short in front of Mr. Macarthy. Adam found 
 himself suddenly fierily resenting something ... he did not 
 know exactly what. . . . But he certainly did resent some- 
 thing as Babs Burns looked into the eyes of Mr. Macarthy. 
 . . . Resentment faded as he found himself walking beside
 
 i 4 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Miss Burns, squiring her up Grafton Street. Mr. Macarthy 
 walked in front with the Marchesa on his arm ... he was 
 bringing them to lunch at Mitchell's. "Don't you think," 
 said Miss Burns in Adam's ear, "don't you think the Mar- 
 chesa's simply wonderful?" 
 
 Adam readily replied that she was. "I do indeed," said 
 he. He would have said anything that Miss Burns wished 
 him to say. But he wondered in what particular Miss Burns 
 herself expected him to find the Marchesa wonderful. 
 
 She went on : "I think she's simply sweet. Don't you ?" 
 And Adam again declared he thought her simply sweet. 
 
 Then he tried to originate a proposition. "Getting on a 
 bit, isn't she?" he said. 
 
 "Ninety if she's a day," said Miss Burns, and the conver- 
 sation flagged while Adam tried to reckon whether this cal- 
 culation could possibly be correct. He was still doubtful 
 of it when they reached Mitchell's. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy led them upstairs, and in the least unquiet 
 part of that thriving restaurant they lunched. 
 
 "It is Adam's birthday," said Mr. Macarthy, to explain 
 his order of a bottle of port. Adam helped them to drink 
 his own health, but he noticed that it was to the Marchesa 
 that their host looked to do the main work of emptying the 
 bottle. To himself as well as Adam he poured scarce 
 half-a-glass, murmuring that they were pledged to Tem- 
 perance. 
 
 Still all of them drank enough to make them talkative, 
 and they were a merry party, particularly Babs. Adam 
 thought her even more brilliant than her mother, though 
 again he felt that strange resentment when she seized the 
 opportunity of the Marchesa's bending to pick up her nap- 
 kin, to take Mr. Macarthy's glass and empty it. ... He re- 
 membered (one of his earliest remembrances) seeing his 
 mother take Mr. Byron OToole's tumbler of porter and
 
 BUYING A BICYCLE 15 
 
 empty it. "You see," Miss Burns said to him, "I make 
 Mr. Macarthy keep his pledges." 
 
 True, Miss Burns was as little like his mother as Mr. 
 Macarthy was like his godfather . . . still he did not like 
 to see it ... and was still pondering why when he vaguely 
 realized that luncheon was over and that Mr. Macarthy was 
 telling him it was time to be going home . . . 
 
 He was relieved to find that he had full command of his 
 limbs, though the situation of the stairs seemed to have 
 changed, and a very extraordinary thing happened as he 
 passed out into the street. . . . He turned expecting to see 
 Miss Burns and he saw . . . Caroline Brady . . . then he 
 felt Mr. Macarthy supporting him. "Has the wine upset 
 you?" he asked. 
 
 "N no," said Adam ... he could not see Caroline 
 Brady any longer, but neither could he see Barbara Burns 
 nor the Marchesa. Mr. Macarthy put him on a car to bring 
 him home, and by the time they had crossed O'Conneli 
 Bridge he was puzzling his brains again about the bicycle 
 and had ceased to wonder whether he had seen Caroline 
 Brady's ghost. 
 
 The night was falling when the bicycle was delivered at 
 St. George's Place. He took it out at once behind the 
 church, made an effort to mount, fell off it and hurt himself 
 so badly that he retired to the house in tears. 
 
 It had been a bitterly disappointing day, but he dreamt 
 that night he was making quite a successful bicycle tour 
 nowhere in particular with Barbara Burns.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 ADAM LEARNS TO BICYCLE 
 
 ON the second day of Adam's fourteenth year he rose as 
 early as on the first, bathed only a little less enthusiastically, 
 hustled into his clothes, and, having eaten a biscuit, de- 
 scended to the hall. The staircase told him that he was still 
 aching from his fall the night before : he had already been 
 conscious of the bruises, drying himself after his bath. 
 Still, he was determined to pursue, in the silent loneliness 
 of the young day, his study of the art of bicycling. 
 
 Closing the door softly behind him, he tried to spring 
 into the saddle in St. George's Place, but did not succeed in 
 doing so ; so, as there was a milkman who might be watch- 
 ing him, he pretended to find there was something about the 
 mechanism of the machine which rendered it unridable. 
 He pushed it round the corner into Temple Street, where 
 he tried to mount it from the step. He might have reached 
 the saddle this time had not an unnoticed youth delivering 
 newspapers advised him to pay a penny more and get 
 inside. This so offended him that he thought it well to 
 turn yet another corner before repeating the attempt. In 
 Gardiner's Place he did reach the saddle, when the appear- 
 ance of a policeman (he had not yet learned to love police- 
 men) upset both him and his bicycle completely. This 
 policeman, very young and very tall, picked him up in one 
 hand and the bicycle in the other and tried to put them 
 together again. But Adam thanked him and said he would 
 walk. The policeman said, "Sure, you'll never learn the 
 filosopeed if you don't get up on it"; to which Adam re- 
 plied, rather priggishly, that he was not trying to learn the 
 
 16
 
 ADAM LEARNS TO BICYCLE 17 
 
 filosopeed. The policeman good-naturedly explained: 
 "That's what they call a 'bike' where I come from." Adam 
 tactfully asked where he came from, and managed to be- 
 guile the willing guardian of the law into a conversation 
 which carried them through Gardiner's Place as far as the 
 west gate of Mountjoy Square, where he bade his com- 
 panion good-by and let himself in with a key. The con- 
 stable nodded sagely. "Sure, I admire the science of ye," 
 said he ; "ye'll be falling a dale aisier on the grass plot than 
 on the ground." 
 
 But Adam had no intention of going on the grass plot. 
 Apart from any other consideration, it was in too heavy a 
 condition at that time of the year for him to ride his bicycle 
 on. His bright idea was to mount the bicycle by the aid of 
 the several seats standing at regular intervals round the. 
 center plot. He counted on going from one to the other as 
 it were from port to port. It seemed an excellent idea until 
 he tried it, and indeed it remained an excellent idea when, 
 two hours later, he went home, having mounted at the first 
 seat many scores of times, albeit without attaining on any 
 voyage even the half-way to the second. He returned home 
 a sad and bruised and almost despairing, but a hungry and 
 a healthy, little boy. 
 
 This program was continued into the month of May 
 without his ever quite reaching the second seat, except when 
 he started with the second seat and tried with no better 
 success to reach the third. When Mr. Macarthy or Mr. 
 Behre asked him how he enjoyed bicycling, he said, "Very 
 much indeed." And so, considered as an amusement, in 
 the abstract he did enjoy it : but he sometimes wished, as he 
 limped downstairs in the early morning, that some kind 
 burglar had purloined the machine in the night. He hugged 
 and kissed St. Kevin when he found that that inquiring 
 animal had punctured the back tyre with his claws. That 
 secured him one morning's respite.
 
 i8 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 But the next morning he went with fresh courage to the 
 assault ; and that morning, perhaps favored by the wind, he 
 reached the second seat. Though unable to repeat his 
 achievement, he returned to breakfast with the conviction 
 that he could now report progress. It was disappointing 
 that the next morning he did not reach even the half-way 
 mark between the seats. One reason, perhaps, for this 
 was that he was conscious of a young gentleman making 
 faces at him from a second floor window on the east side 
 of the square. The morning after that he was horrified to 
 hear the east gate slammed and to see the young gentleman 
 himself appear. He was quite a big fellow: not actually 
 tall, but very thickset, with a square face and a dogged, 
 cunningly brutal expression in his brown eyes. Adam 
 guessed his age at twenty, or not far less ; he was smoking 
 a cigarette, and the fingers of his right hand were very 
 stained from tobacco. 
 
 He came straight over to Adam with a sauntering, easy, 
 intimidating gait. "You're a bloody muff," said he. Adam 
 said nothing. "You ought to be ashamed of being such a 
 bloody muff," said he. Adam said nothing. "I'll show you 
 how to ride that bicycle," said he, and, taking it roughly 
 from him, mounted. He rode round the center plot, his 
 legs much bandied to allow for the smallness of the machine. 
 Adam's heart was in his mouth lest he should decamp with 
 it, but he returned to the point from which he started. 
 "Now, get up," said he, "and I'll show you how to ride it." 
 As Adam hesitated, he repeated in a terrifying tone, "Get 
 up, you bloody muff, when you're told." Adam obeyed. 
 His instructor seized the handle bar in his left hand and the 
 pillar stalk with his right, and started running. He ran 
 fast, very fast, and Adam felt he was but a feather in his 
 grip. Then, with a mighty push, he let go, and Adam felt 
 himself flying through space into the midst of a thorn bush. 
 When he picked the bicycle out, he found both tyres punc-
 
 ADAM LEARNS TO BICYCLE 19 
 
 tured and the handle-bar bent. His instructor sat on a seat 
 smiling and rolling himself a cigarette. "That's all right," 
 he said ; "you really did ride that time, about fifteen feet.-" 
 
 And it was a fact that Adam had, for the first time, really 
 ridden a bicycle. When the machine was mended, he man- 
 aged to ride, with three mishaps, all the way home from 
 Mount joy Square to St. George's Place. Within a week 
 he rode to the Park to see a review. And arrived only 
 some hours too late. Out of evil had come good : he was 
 a bicyclist. 
 
 It is true that Adam never really felt quite at home on 
 that particular bicycle; but he could as a rule get into the 
 .saddle so long as no one was looking on, and he could not, 
 perhaps, dismount as the word is understood by experts, but 
 quit that saddle at the journey's end without materially in- 
 juring himself or the bicycle. His lack of facility in dis- 
 mounting was a positive advantage in one way; for he never 
 thought of dismounting at a hill until the gradient became 
 so steep that the bicycle virtually capsized under him. He 
 even came to like riding that bicycle, though he could not 
 work up any passionate attachment to its personality. 
 
 It was a June day when he was inspired to pass the city 
 boundary on the south side and cycle through Ball's Bridge 
 to Kingstown, and on to Sandycove. He had not intended 
 to stop there, but as he passed Glasthule Church he found 
 himself nodding to the green-grocer who, how many years 
 before? . . . had sold him the sprig of mistletoe which he 
 had failed to hold over the head of Josephine O'Meagher. 
 He chuckled to recall that he had not failed to kiss her, he 
 was still chuckling when he caught his tyre in a tram line and 
 slithered ignominiously to earth, with the bicycle dancing 
 on him. 
 
 "You might show us how you do that," said the voice of 
 Columba O'Meagher as he helped him to arise. "Perhaps 
 you wouldn't mind doing it again," said Patrick O'Meagher ;
 
 20 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "I didn't rightly see it." Adam pretended to be amused, 
 but he was not. Nevertheless, he condescended to accom- 
 pany them to Capua Terrace, where Patrick oiled the bicycle 
 and blew up the tyres, while Mrs. O'Meagher entertained 
 him with tea and buns. He would have preferred bread 
 and butter, and he thought she ought to have remembered 
 that he preferred bread and butter, but there it was : she 
 gave him buns. He ate them with a sense of injury, reflect- 
 ing that if Josephine had been there she would have remem- 
 bered that he preferred bread and butter. ... A tear welled 
 in his eye to think of Josephine away preparing to be a nun 
 and he there eating buns. 
 
 Presently he left them to return home. He started off 
 gaily, answering, when Mrs. O'Meagher asked him if it 
 were not a long way, that he would be home in a jiffy : and, 
 in fact, he was home pretty soon ; for at Sandycove Station 
 he dismounted or was dismounted by the bicycle and so back 
 to Westland Row by train. There, assisted by the down- 
 ward gradient, he swept from the platform to the roadway 
 with a rush, and sustained a concussion with one of Mr. 
 Murphy's trams, which decided him to walk the rest of the 
 way home. But when he had climbed the hill from Lower 
 Gardiner Street into Mountjoy Square, he somehow 
 achieved the saddle once again and remained in it until he 
 collided with Attracta outside the domicile they shared. 
 
 Her apron torn, but suffering, apparently, no internal in- 
 jury, Attracta said that bicycles were dangerous things, as 
 you never knew where they would have you, and asked him 
 where he had been. "Somewhere between Kingstown and 
 Bray," said Adam carelessly. 
 
 "And did yez ride all the way ?" Attracta gaped. 
 
 "What do you think?" cried Adam, and Attracta, of 
 course, thought he did. She thought even more; for she 
 told Miss Gannon and Mr. Gannon and Mr. Murphy that
 
 ADAM LEARNS TO BICYCLE 21 
 
 Master Adam had ridden his bicycle she didn't know how 
 far into Wicklow. 
 
 Herr Behre also heard rumors of this remarkable exploit, 
 and mentioned it to Mr. Macarthy, who looked puzzled. 
 "There's nothing out of the way in the distance," he said ; 
 "Supposing he went to Bray and back, that would be well 
 under thirty miles of fairly easy road. I did it myself at 
 his age on a solid tyred Premier ; but, somehow, I don't see 
 Adam doing it, and I'm anxious about his doing it on a 
 machine which I think is too heavy for him, though he 
 won't admit it." 
 
 "I have never bicycled," said Herr Behre, "but I think 
 the boy does not walk so springily since he had that bicycle." 
 Their eyes met. 
 
 "By God," said Mr. Macarthy, and his face fell. He lost 
 no opportunity in cross-examining Adam as to the famous 
 ride. And Adam had no difficulty in telling him the 
 truth. 
 
 "I only rode to Sandycove and came back by train," he 
 blurted ; "it's the truth, I'm no good on a bicycle at all ; I'd 
 never get up on it if I wasn't thinking of the money I let 
 you spend on it." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy laid his hand on his shoulder. "Come," 
 he said, "if I make a fool of myself that's not altogether 
 your fault, even though you did encourage me in my folly. 
 I suspected the bicycle didn't really suit you, and I ought 
 to have been with you when you were learning to ride it." 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "Fond as I am of you, Adam, 
 I can't attend to everything at once." 
 
 Then Adam's head bowed over sideways on his guar- 
 dian's hand and a tear trickled down his cheek. "It's all 
 I'm a silly, vain Billy," he whispered. Mr. Macarthy 
 laughed softly. "Better that than a Robin-a-Bobin a big 
 belly Ben," said he.
 
 22 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 In his repentance Adam would have relinquished bicy- 
 cling altogether, but Mr. Macarthy would not hear of this ; 
 and so, a fortnight later, Adam was in possession of another 
 bicycle, less spick and span than the first ; for it was second- 
 hand: but it had the merit of being of a suitable size and 
 weight. Then the real joy of cycling commenced. And it 
 proved to be almost as real a joy as the cycling in his 
 dreams, except that he never really came to like getting on 
 or getting off, or mounting any but the gentlest gradient. 
 
 But it did open a new world to him. It did make him 
 think that it was worth while to leave his bed ere inquisitive 
 milkmen had commenced their rounds, and there were only 
 dusty Dublin sparrows to watch him mount under the sha- 
 dow of St. George's Church, and trundle off over the Drum- 
 condra tram lines up Eccles Street, past the Mater Miseri- 
 cordiae Hospital, where not so many years ago Father 
 Innocent and a never-to-be-forgotten Sister of Mercy had 
 saved his life from the Slough of Despond in which cruel 
 fools had sought to smother it, and on, following the tram 
 lines, over the canal bridge at Phibsborough, and again by 
 the brewery near Glasnevin, the road the funerals go to the 
 cemetery, past the cemetery itself, lifting his cap (at the risk 
 of falling of) to the memory of Father Innocent, most be- 
 loved of all friends and teachers, to Miss or Mrs. Robinson, 
 still prayed for as one who had been good to a little child, 
 and even to Malachy Macfadden, said to have been his 
 father. He placed his cap back upon his head, and then 
 lifted it again, this time saluting Caroline Brady, who might 
 or might not be lying there. . . . Had he not really seen her 
 in Grafton Street? 
 
 And so he would make a circuit by Finglas and the 
 Botanic Garden, and home to breakfast with a hearty ap- 
 petite.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE NAKED TRUTH 
 
 IN after years it seemed to Adam that he had known no 
 happier summer than this when his bicycle carried him first 
 from the muggy streets in which his infancy had been 
 passed into the high air of the country that lay around 
 Dublin. As a child he had not even lifted his eyes to note 
 the fairy rim of mountains that looked down upon the city. 
 
 If he saw them at all, he thought them clouds, and was 
 surprised when Mr. Macarthy told him that the line which 
 broke upon the sky above the houses at the other side of 
 Mountjoy Square were the hills that overhung Bray. It 
 has been said that he would rather ride his bicycle on level 
 ground than seek to climb a hill with it, and so, commonly, 
 he took the easy roads lying inland on the line of the rail- 
 ways and canals to west and north, not those leading to the 
 higher ground that lay seaward to the south and east. 
 
 But one day there came into his head a recollection of the 
 book called Canon Schmidt's Tales which Sister had lent 
 him at the hospital to read. He had not cared much for the 
 book, but he had cared very much for Sister, and he recalled 
 that this book had been given her as a prize for something, 
 he could not remember what, at the Loretto Convent at 
 Rathfarnham ... he was seized with a desire to look with 
 his eyes upon that educational establishment where Sister 
 had been rewarded in some distant period for her, by him 
 forgotten, achievement. So, it being a fine Sunday when 
 Mr. Macarthy was not expecting him, he mounted his bicycle 
 and proceeded in the direction of Rathfarnham. So far he 
 had not studied maps, and was uncertain of the way, so he
 
 24 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 followed the tram which professed to go there. He picked 
 up this tram by the statue of the pious and immortal King 
 William III., once the butt of patriotic humorists, but, since 
 the end of the nineteenth century, revered as a Boer general 
 who had conquered Britain. 
 
 The route pursued by this tram was little known to him, 
 and for the first mile or two scarcely more agreeable than 
 the neighborhood in which he had first tasted the bitter cup 
 of life. That cup was growing sweet to him now, but his 
 present road recalled to him its earlier flavor. Dame Street 
 was all right, but South Great George's Street was worse 
 than the worst part of North Great George's Street, and 
 worse than that again was Aungier Street, though he re- 
 membered vaguely that Tommy Moore was born there, and 
 Clanbrassil Street was worse again. But, the canal bridges 
 passed, there was a slight improvement, and past Harold's 
 Cross a marked one. Beyond the terminus of the Rath- 
 mines tram he had the first feeling that he was getting near 
 the country, over a bridge crossing a stream the air became 
 fresher, and Rathfarnham village was a village and not a 
 mere thatched slum. Here, too, he noticed that there were 
 no more Metropolitan Police to destroy the peace, that duty 
 being now entrusted to the Royal Irish Constabulary. Ask- 
 ing of one of them the way to the convent, he was given, in 
 a surly northern accent, a wrong direction, and presently 
 lost himself, having taken the first instead of the second 
 turning to the right. He crossed another bridge, a very 
 agreeable bridge over an agreeable stream, and came on to 
 a mysteriously constructed village, the main street of which 
 led nowhere : but, by circumventing it, as Mr. Byron O'Toole 
 was fond of saying, and riding boldly forward, he was 
 presently conscious of an increasingly difficult resistance to 
 his efforts, and perceived that he was actually riding up the 
 lower slopes of the Dublin Mountains. 
 
 He persevered for a mile or two and then descended and
 
 THE NAKED TRUTH 25 
 
 walked. A feeling of exhilaration seized him when he saw 
 that a building on his right was called Air Park. He sur- 
 mised that he must already be high above the normal habi- 
 tations of men. And in fact, though he was not very high, 
 he was higher than he had ever been before: perhaps five 
 hundred feet. Presently he was six hundred feet: and he 
 was over a thousand feet before he turned into a field some- 
 where near Killakee, where the Hell Fire Club met in the 
 days which his aristocratic friend Lord Queenstown, wearer 
 of the archaeological bracchae, regretted and Herr Behre 
 thought well done with. Adam had never heard of the 
 Hell Fire Club, and had he heard of it would have disap- 
 proved ; for it was still a little on his conscience that he had 
 even so much as drunk his own health in port. Mr. Mac- 
 arthy had encouraged him to do this, and so it was not a 
 dishonorable thing to do, but he felt it was a sort of sin to 
 do anything which Father Innocent had even hinted was 
 wrong. Nevertheless, he was conscious that he did many 
 things of which Father Innocent had disapproved, and since 
 Father Innocent was dead, he had confessed these sins to 
 no one, he was not yet even absolved by the Church for his 
 hatred of Father Tudor. 
 
 But it was not of Sin, not of past Sin, that Adam thought 
 as he climbed the mountain and lifted his bicycle over the 
 stile in the meadow by Killakee, and lay down and stretched 
 himself under a thorn-tree above a stream that ran musically 
 through the woods to join the Dodder down below, and 
 meander into the Liffey at Ringsend, and swim out thence, 
 with the Bristol boat maybe upon its bosom, into the great 
 world. From underneath that thorn-tree, lying lazily there, 
 he could see the whole of Dublin valley, with the Hill of 
 Howth that he had once taken for a sea monster, resting 
 on the water like a wolf-hound keeping watch ; and, beyond 
 that, Lambay Island, and away in the distance the Moun- 
 tains of Mourne. ... It was a beautiful sight, and, won-
 
 26 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 derful to relate, Adam, though he had never seen anything 
 of the kind before, was conscious of its beauty, conscious 
 too, vaguely, of a sort of pride that, though begotten in a 
 filthy slum, he too was dust of the dust he saw molded to 
 such beauty. His heart swelled within him ; he felt strange 
 feelings, he wanted to kiss the earth . . . then he jumped 
 up frightened, instinctively made the sign of the cross, and 
 fled from that meadow. Outside, he tried to mount his 
 bicycle, meaning to ride farther up the hill, but the gradient 
 was too steep, and he fell off, grazing his ankle; the pain 
 recalled him to the realities of life. 
 
 He was of a mind to go home, but as he stood irresolute 
 the wind blew, it blew away the thought of home, and he 
 walked on up the hill, pushing the bicycle in front of him. 
 He was very hot, sweating all down his back, still he pushed 
 on up the hill, past what motorists call a corkscrew bend, 
 and now he was beyond all visible houses and out on the 
 boggy moorland, threaded by the military road which leads 
 away through the Dublin and Wicklow Highlands, he knew 
 not whither. He thought he would like to lie down on one 
 of these comfortable looking tussocks on the moorland. He 
 had no idea what such terrain was like, and was astonished 
 to find himself slopping into water; but the air filled him as 
 champagne might, and he pushed on with the bicycle, slid- 
 ing and slipping from tussock to tussock, wet up to the 
 knees, and the bicycle somewhat damaged, but thoroughly 
 enjoying himself, perhaps sub-consciously pretending that 
 he was Livingstone in the heart of Africa. Mr. Macarthy 
 had commended Livingstone to him as one of the very few 
 heroes whose heroism would bear examination. 
 
 It was very hot now in the sun, but a delicious wind blew 
 in that high place, a bold invigorating wind, a rousing wind 
 that might have swept across all the great countries of the 
 world and filled the lungs of all the great men, particularly 
 the great young men, the youths, the boys since the first
 
 THE NAKED TRUTH 27 
 
 Adam was a boy in Eden. Adam thought vaguely of the 
 first Adam as a boy in Eden ; he wondered when that first 
 Adam came to notice that there was as yet no Eve. In that 
 high wind blowing across houseless and unoccupied moun- 
 tain-side Adam was aware of the absence of Eve. It 
 seemed to him that if he wandered on far enough he would 
 meet her blowing towards him in that high wind. He 
 knew not whence she was to come or whom she should re- 
 semble, he did not even visualize her as a Caroline Brady or 
 a Josephine O'Meagher . . . absurd, he could not visualize 
 Josephine O'Meagher as Eve : Eve would be a naked beauty, 
 naked with the beauty of an Italian nude, a composite and 
 ecclectic Italian nude from the National Gallery. 
 
 He could not conceive of Josephine in lesser clothing than 
 in a dressing gown, with her hair down, as he had once 
 kissed her (the only time he had really kissed her) going to 
 her bath at Capua Terrace, Sandycove. . . . Capua Terrace, 
 Sandycove, a suburban residence the garden of which in no 
 way resembled the Garden of Eden . . . the Garden of 
 Eden was a broad expanse such as the moorlands by Killa- 
 kee as they looked with the sun on them in summer, with 
 the west wind blowing, but with the addition of jeweled 
 and fantastic flowers and marvelous wild beasts (tame wild 
 beasts and quite harmless, neither male nor female) . . . 
 what was the difference between male and female . . . ? 
 He had been told often enough, but it seemed a paltry, con- 
 temptible, dirty little difference, an absurd little difference 
 associated with the Garden of Eden and the thought of 
 angels with flaming swords ... he had heard Herr Behre 
 say that the Garden of Eden was verdammter Unsinn, and 
 that meant, he was not quite sure what it meant, but he 
 knew from the way that it was said that Father Innocent 
 might have been hurt to hear Herr Behre say it. He gath- 
 ered that Herr Behre did not believe in a Garden of Eden 
 conforming to the requirements of the Penny Catechism.
 
 28 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 He was a long way from the road now : so far that even a 
 big motor on it became just an automatic toy; people walk- 
 ing there were only visible by reason of their motion, but he 
 himself, lost amidst the green and yellow tussocks, could not 
 be seen by them. A little ahead of him the sunlight was 
 reflected on a pond, a white cloud bathed in it, he felt like 
 bathing in it too. Suddenly, he was naked, dancing in it 
 joyously . . . queer things happen to you once you enter 
 your teens. He had been dancing in it quite a long time, 
 thinking queer thoughts as old as the ancient world, when 
 his startled ear caught a sound, a sound very far off, but a 
 familiar sound . . . the laugh of Miss Barbara Burns. 
 Panic stricken, he dropped full length in the pond, to hide 
 his body in the fenny water. 
 
 And he saw pass in the distance three girls, or at least 
 three females, of whom the foremost, all green and gold, 
 was Barbara, and after her came another girl almost as 
 pretty ; and a little behind, much nearer Adam, came another 
 familiar figure, no, not familiar, but recognizable: a tall 
 girl, no, not a girl, but girlish the lean lady he had seen 
 dining with Barbara Burns at the Six Muses Club, the first 
 time he had seen Barbara Burns. 
 
 Babs and the other girl were laughing and leaping from 
 tussock to tussock, they took no heed of him; but the lank 
 girl, who was not a girl, kept moving farther and farther 
 from the others and nearer to him. Instinct told him that 
 she had caught sight of the bicycle; she said nothing, but 
 came nearer and nearer, not directly but sideways, like an 
 elongated crab. From time to time she paused and looked 
 round with an air of indifference, allowing always a greater 
 interval to occur between her and the others as they sported 
 on. . . . Adam lay very still ; he was very frightened of this 
 lady, he wished he had not plunged into the pond ... he 
 wished he had not taken off his clothes ... he wished he 
 had not left that prudent military road that runs through
 
 THE NAKED TRUTH 29 
 
 the Dublin Hills to the Lord knows where . . . the lady 
 was close to him now, she was looking down on him without 
 allowing him to be quite sure whether she saw him or not. 
 She was not altogether a bad-looking woman, she was not 
 old, she might, perhaps have been justified in describing 
 herself as a girl and dressing in a girlish way . . . but to 
 Adam she conjured up a terrifying recollection, particularly 
 terrifying in that wild and uncanny place to a youngster 
 who a little while before had given himself to Pagan, if not 
 positively naughty, fancies, the recollection of the Lay of 
 St. Nicholas in the Ingoldsby Legends. It seemed to him 
 that this lady resembled that other lady who, on being ex- 
 orcised by St. Nicholas (that saint having caught her in the 
 act of seducing his abbot) suffered a painful and shocking 
 change ; this lady seemed to have reached the stage, as 
 Adam looked at her, when her beautiful eyes should turn 
 to coals of fire, her exquisite nose grow a horrible snout, 
 and her bosom go in and her tail come out. Physically, 
 she seemed in this astonishing act of transformation ; hap- 
 pily Adam made the sign of the cross, and she stared no 
 more but passed on. 
 
 Yet Barbara Burns's laugh had long died away in the 
 distance before Adam dared to emerge from his pool and 
 dry himself, sadly and painfully, in his pocket handkerchief. 
 So far as he was concerned, for quite a long time after that 
 Pan was dead . . . still there is no getting over the fact 
 that wonderful things happen to you when you enter your 
 teens . . . you may like it or you may not. As he bicycled 
 home, in one long rush down the hill from Killakee to Rath- 
 farnham, Adam said to himself that he must try not to like 
 it ... he also- reflected that he had seen nothing of the 
 Loretto Convent at Rathfarnham ... he also wondered 
 whether if it had been Barbara Burns . . . 
 
 Had Father Innocent been alive he would have gone to 
 confession then and there- . . . Father Innocent was dead.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 PIETY 
 
 AFTER his encounter with Pan upon the Dublin Mountains 
 Adam arrived at St. George's Place somewhat weary, some- 
 what stale, neither hot nor cold, and with a sore throat. 
 Nevertheless, he thought he was hungry, and hungry or not 
 supped injudiciously (Miss Gannon being out and Attracta 
 irresponsible) on sausage, buttered toast and tea, into which 
 Attracta forgot to count the number of spoons she put. 
 That night for the first time in his life he made the acquaint- 
 ance of the demon Asthma, who presented such an alarming 
 appearance that he took him for Lucifer, and promised the 
 Virgin Mary at once to mend his ways. In the morning he 
 did not rise to take his bath, but arrived at Mr. Macarthy's 
 late and his toilet perceptibly ill made. He was a little 
 frightened as his guardian fixed his eyes upon him. 
 
 "What's the matter with you?" he asked. Adam de- 
 clared there was nothing the matter with him, but Mr. Mac- 
 arthy brought him to the light and bade him to put out his 
 tongue, and Adam's modest ears were shocked to hear him 
 say, "Bowels out of order." He was not sure whether this 
 was a question or not and was glad to hold his peace ; for he 
 did not regard this as a subject proper for gentlemen to 
 discuss. Mr. Macarthy went on : "You're wheezing. Have 
 you a cough ? . . . Try to cough." Adam failed to do this, 
 and the anxious look faded from Mr. Macarthy's face. 
 "It's only bowels out of order," he said. "What have you 
 been eating?" 
 
 Adam told him what he had been eating ; and from that 
 the conversation drifted or possibly was steered by Mr. 
 
 30
 
 PIETY 31 
 
 Macarthy into a channel running on the whole events of the 
 day. During this conversation Mr. Macarthy stood for the 
 most part with his back to Adam, who thought that at times 
 his shoulders rose and fell for some reason not to be under- 
 stood by him. For Adam took that Sunday's adventures 
 seriously. It was all very well for Mr. Macarthy to blame 
 that part of him which he did not like to mention, but how 
 did he know it was not the devil? It occurred to him as 
 they were talking that Mr. Macarthy had never warned 
 him, as all his other friends had done, to keep clear of the 
 Gates of Hell. Even Herr Behre, though said to be an 
 atheist, had confessed that he would not like to go to Hell, 
 in dread of meeting Father Tudor. . . . And yet Mr. Mac- 
 arthy was a religious man. Every Sunday he brought 
 Adam to mass at Gardiner Street, and not to short mass as 
 Father Innocent had thought sufficient, but to twelve o'clock 
 mass, where you had not only a lot of music to listen to 
 . . . music of a kind he did not understand . . . but in- 
 variably a sermon which as often as not he found yet more 
 incomprehensible. 
 
 Sometimes, of course, he liked the music and sometimes 
 even he liked the sermon . . . particularly when it was not 
 about going to Hell. And on the whole the sermons at the 
 Jesuit Church held forth only a moderate promise of Hell. 
 They did not make you feel as if you had got to go there 
 whether you liked it or not, they allowed you to think that 
 .there were several games you could play without necessarily 
 being damned. He rather gathered that you could bathe 
 in the gentlemen's division at the Tara Street baths and die 
 the same night without absolution and yet be punished with 
 no worse than a few years in purgatory. But he did not 
 think you could immerse yourself in a pool on the Dublin 
 Mountains in the same frame of mind as he did yesterday 
 without being guilty of Hell fire. . . . Happy thought, he 
 asked Mr. Macarthy whether he believed in Hell fire.
 
 32 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Mr. Macarthy answered promptly, as he was wont to 
 answer most of Adam's questions, that if there was a hell 
 it seemed reasonable to believe that there would be fire in 
 it. This answer did not wholly satisfy Adam, but he had 
 difficulty in finding terms in which to express his dissatisfac- 
 tion. Mr. Macarthy turned round and volunteered the ad- 
 vice that if he were Adam he would not worry himself 
 thinking about the details in the arrangement of that estab- 
 lishment. "The thing," said he, "is not so much to worry 
 about what happens to us when we are dead . . . you will 
 find that that will arrange itself . . . but to strive to be 
 worthy to remain alive." 
 
 Adam asked if he were worthy to remain alive, and Mr. 
 Macarthy answered that, so far, he was aware of no evi- 
 dence to the contrary. "As an earnest of my desire to keep 
 you alive," he said, "here are some Liver Pills, take one of 
 them going to bed to-night and remind me to-morrow to look 
 at your tongue." 
 
 Next morning when Mr. Macarthy looked at Adam's 
 tongue he declared him to be better, and morally and phys- 
 ically Adam felt that he was so. For some time after this 
 his soul was divided between the merits of Liver Pills and 
 those of religion. He found that the solace he had derived 
 from taking the Liver Pills strangely reminded him of the 
 comfort he had derived from confessing his sins to Father 
 Innocent. He recognized that it was absurd, and he laughed 
 at its absurdity; but there it was, a plain fact. He asked 
 Mr. Macarthy if he supposed that the soul resided in the 
 liver; Mr. Macarthy gravely replied that he did not think 
 the word liver occurred in the works of St. Thomas 
 Aquinas, but that possibly such an 'idea might have com- 
 mended itself to Averroes. Of the latter scholiast Adam 
 had never heard, and Mr. Macarthy's answer only made 
 him think that it was a queer world. He told himself once 
 again that it was the excessive queerness of the world that
 
 PIETY 33 
 
 had betrayed Father Innocent into that unnatural appetite 
 for rosary beads which cut short his sweet life. 
 
 He found himself paying more and more attention to the 
 sermons at Gardiner Street, striving more eagerly to under- 
 stand what the preacher meant. Sometimes he asked Mr. 
 Macarthy if he understood what they meant, and sometimes 
 Mr. Macarthy answered that he did not. More than once 
 Mr. Macarthy shared Adam's doubt as to whether they 
 meant anything. But there was one priest who seemed to 
 Adam always to mean something, and he was glad that Mr. 
 Macarthy also thought that there was something at least 
 lying in his mind when he spoke. He was a young priest, 
 and in a youthful way reproduced certain of the character- 
 istics of Father Elphinstone, who had been spiritual director 
 at Belvedere, and seemed to Adam the kindliest creature in 
 that academy. 
 
 The characteristics he reproduced were those in which 
 Father Elphinstone resembled Father Innocent. But, as 
 Father Elphinstone -was more intellectual than Father In- 
 nocent (as Adam from the first recognized) so this young 
 priest appeared to Adam and the world at large more intel- 
 lectual than Father Elphinstone. He even used a termin- 
 ology so much over Adam's head, particularly in modern 
 economics, that it required frequent reference to the dic- 
 tionary for its elucidation. But although Father Ignatius 
 Steele held the language popularized by the Fabian Society, 
 his message was essentially the Sermon on the Mount. As 
 few of his congregation read the Bible, they were mostly 
 unaware of this, and many gentlemen there frowned at 
 what they believed to be heterodox teaching. The men of 
 standing who had the patience to listen to Father Steele's 
 homilies declared that he was a Socialist. And all the 
 while Father Steele, as ingenuous at heart as Father Inno- 
 cent himself, believed himself to be vindicating Rome in 
 the teeth of Liberty Hall. Father Steele was a well-mean-
 
 34 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 ing man : Adam was sure of that, and Mr. Macarthy ex- 
 pressed no doubt of it. Ladies loved Father Steele, but, 
 so far as the writer of this book is aware, there is no shadow 
 of evidence that Father Steele loved ladies except inasmuch 
 as he loved all things that he did not believe to be hostile to 
 Jesus, as represented on earth by that society to which his 
 saintly namesake gave Jesus' name. 
 
 For some time after that Liver Pill had purged his con- 
 science Adam all but forgot that months were flying past 
 since he had gone to confession ... he had hoped that Mr. 
 Macarthy would say something to him about it, but Mr. 
 Macarthy never did: except that he brought him to mass, 
 and would tolerate no excuse for his being late for mass, 
 Mr. Macarthy never touched on any religious subject not 
 broached by Adam himself. . . . He wondered if Mr. 
 Macarthy were religious in the sense that Father Innocent 
 understood religion ... in what sense did Father Innocent 
 understand religion? . . . Did he understand it at all? ... 
 If he understood it, why did he try to eat his rosary beads? 
 Adam asked Mr. Macarthy if he knew why Father Innocent 
 ate his rosary beads. Mr. Macarthy smiled, "Surely," said 
 he, "you ought to know that better than I." 
 
 Adam shook his head. "I don't know at all," said he. 
 "Sure, I'd never eat my rosary beads." 
 
 "Are you so sure ?" Mr. Macarthy asked. 
 
 "Sure as sure can be," said Adam. 
 
 "But can one ever be sure?" Mr. Macarthy insisted. 
 
 Adam warmed to the subject. "Look here," said he, 
 "Sure, you'd never eat your rosary beads, would you?" 
 
 "If I had any," said Mr. Macarthy, "Lord only knows 
 what I might do with them." 
 
 Adam felt as if he were treading on the tail of a comet, 
 just failing to catch it. "D'ye think God knew that Father 
 Innocent was going to eat his rosary beads?" Mr. Mac- 
 arthy's answer came slowly and gently. "I think," said he,
 
 PIETY 35 
 
 "that Father Innocent thought God would understand him 
 whatever he did ... I beg your pardon; to be precise, he 
 probably thought that God's mother would explain to him." 
 
 "Lady Bland," said Adam, pursuing a line the divergence 
 of which escaped him, "Lady Bland said that the Blessed 
 Virgin was a common woman, as common as my mother." 
 He waited for Mr. Macarthy to dispute this thesis, but Mr. 
 Macarthy only said, with the ghost of a yawn, "I wonder 
 what the Blessed Virgin would say about Lady Bland." 
 
 Adam was electrified. It brought him so much nearer 
 the Heavenly Host to think of a conversation with the 
 Blessed Virgin on the subject of Lady Bland. He almost 
 felt as if he would willingly die then and there from the 
 sheer interest of hearing what the Heavenly Lady would 
 say of the terrestrial one. . . . But if he died now in a 
 state of, he suspected, something uncommonly like mortal 
 sin, it would not be to the Mother of God he would have 
 the privilege of addressing his remarks, but to ... He 
 asked Mr. Macarthy if he knew the name of the devil's 
 mother. . . . "Try Hecate," said Mr. Macarthy drowsily, 
 "or any old thing." 
 
 Adam suspected that his guardian was not in a mood for 
 further theological argument. . . . To Adam, even now, 
 theology and demonology were indistinguishable faculties. 
 He felt that Mr. Macarthy was rather frivolous in his 
 attitude. . . . Father Innocent would have told him the 
 name of the devil's mother ... if he happened to know it. 
 ... He felt that Father Innocent would have tried to white- 
 wash that lady, but why need she be whitewashed . . . the 
 devil was a fallen star ... his mother had brought him up 
 to be an angel, and what had gone wrong was not her fault 
 . . . the catechism said that the devil's lot of angels were 
 cast out of Heaven because through pride, he remembered 
 the very words, because through pride they rebelled against 
 God . . . silly asses not to know when they were well off
 
 36 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 ... if he had been born an angel he wouldn't have been a 
 bit proud about it, but only very grateful to be enjoying 
 himself in Heaven instead of selling papers outside the 
 Gresham Hotel, or, worse still, being slapped by Father 
 Tudor for making a slip in his Holy Catechism at Belvedere 
 . . . still, he didn't want to be in Heaven now that he had 
 a bicycle . . . but he did want to keep out of hell, and he 
 had an uneasy feeling that that bicycle of his might one day 
 whisk down with him to the deep abyss which even Father 
 Innocent had thought it possible for him to tumble over. 
 
 He asked Mr. Macarthy if Mr. Macarthy ever went to 
 confession. Mr. Macarthy answered, "Not often" . . . 
 he asked Mr. Macarthy if he did not believe in going to con- 
 fession, and Mr. Macarthy answered that he saw much 
 good in it ... he asked Mr. Macarthy whether he thought 
 that he, Adam, ought to go to confession, and Mr. Macarthy 
 answered that he supposed he did go to confession. Where- 
 upon Adam, somewhat awe stricken, blurted out the fact 
 that he had not made his Easter duty. 
 
 "Speaking as a Catholic," Mr. Macarthy said, "that's 
 pretty serious, you know. Technically, you are excom- 
 municate, and, apart from any other consideration, I think 
 it insulting to the memory of Father Innocent that you 
 should so soon have forgotten his teaching. ... I am not 
 your spiritual director, and do not presume to probe into 
 your soul, but if I were you I should go to confession." 
 
 Adam said in a hushed tone, "I can't bear Marlborough 
 Street since Father Innocent died." 
 
 "Why not try Gardiner Street?" Mr. Macarthy sug- 
 gested. "Don't you think, for instance, that Father Steele 
 might be as much use to you in a confession box as in the 
 pulpit? He seems to me a decent chap." 
 
 And so Father Ignatius took Father Innocent's place.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 FATHER IGNATIUS STEELE 
 
 NEARLY half of Adam's little life was gone since he made 
 his first confession to Father Innocent; for six unbroken 
 years, upon the first Saturday of every month, and some- 
 times on other Saturdays as well, he had taken his turn, or 
 more often led the kneeling queue, outside the little priest's 
 dusky confessional in the Pro-Cathedral. Never had he 
 confessed himself to anyone but Father Innocent, and it was 
 with a beating heart that now, too late to make his Easter 
 Duty, and, therefore, if for no other reason, in dread of 
 damnation, he went forth to face his new spiritual adviser, 
 Father Ignatius Steele, in his den. 
 
 Needless to say, it was a Saturday afternoon when Adam 
 sought audience of Father Steele : a July afternoon, that 
 seemed to anticipate autumn, but was yet unusually hot and 
 dry for Dublin, that moist city. Dust, hot as the sands that 
 engulfed the mortal remains of Sir David Byron-Quinn, 
 swept up and down Gardiner Street with nervous wind, 
 uncertain which way to blow. Adam was glad to get under 
 the shade of the portico, "tetrostyle of the Ionic order," 
 Mr. Macarthy had called it, meaning that the four pillars 
 with their entablature were of a fashion invented before the 
 Catholic religion, or anything you could call a religion, in 
 the Isles of Greece. Adam heard himself saying something 
 aloud, not very loud, but loud enough for his own ears to 
 hear and be shocked as he helped himself to holy water. 
 
 The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, 
 Where burning Sappho loved and sang . . . 
 37
 
 38 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Adam wondered why he should think of Sappho, and wond- 
 ered why Sappho burned, and tried to remember whether 
 Sappho was a male or female poet . . . but all he could 
 remember about Sappho was that he or she left fragments, 
 and his mind's eye conjured up a sort of politely epicene 
 writer deliberately composing a shattered mosaic of verse. 
 In consequence of this, he forgot to make the sign of the 
 cross, and passed on into the Church, arguing with himself 
 whether, since the front of the building was Hellenic in 
 style, the holy water font might not be, perhaps, a Grecian 
 urn. He genuflected before the High Altar, deciding that 
 it was not the sort of Grecian urn described by Mr. Keats ; 
 but by the time he had reached the Ignatian chapel, where 
 young Father Steele was appropriately housed, he had at- 
 tuned his mind to the more Catholic art on the walls, and 
 walking the streets of the Renaissance, or rather the counter- 
 Reformation, with Loyola and his great disciple who gave 
 the Church his name, St. Francis Xavier. Even ere he 
 knelt down in front of Father Steele's box, he was already 
 muttering to himself, albeit mechanically, an act of con- 
 trition. "Oh, my God ! I am heartily sorry for having 
 offended Thee, and I detest my sins above every other evil, 
 because they displease Thee, my God, who for Thy infinite 
 goodness art so deserving of all my love ; and I firmly re- 
 solve, by Thy holy grace, nevermore to offend Thee, and to 
 amend my life." 
 
 By dint of repeating this act of contrition several times, 
 he convinced himself that he really was uncommonly sorry 
 for something, and proceeded to examine his conscience to 
 discover what. At first glance he failed to place his finger 
 upon the once too welcome guest whom he was about to 
 call in the aid of the Church, as represented by Father 
 Steele, to expel. . . . Ha, he had it: he was sorry for 
 having missed his Easter Duty, sorry for having so long 
 failed to confess his sins. . . . That was a sin in itself, to
 
 FATHER IGNATIUS STEELE 39 
 
 fail to confess your sins ... he could have been excom- 
 municated for failing to confess his sins. . . . Now for the 
 sins he had failed to confess. . . . He scratched his head 
 . . . the sins he had failed to confess. He was alarmed to 
 notice that there was only one person now between him and 
 the box, fortunately an old lady, who might not be very 
 sinful, but experience told him that she would be long 
 winded. Old ladies who confessed to young priests had 
 very long winded consciences : you could hear them mut- 
 tering away for hours, until the poor priest had to hoosh 
 them out like so many geese. . . . Geese! he once had a 
 goose of his own . . . that was a grand sin to confess. . . . 
 Gluttony and Deceit, he remembered it well. . . . He 
 couldn't think of anything like that to-day (there was that 
 old lady going in). The worst of being so long away from 
 confession was that you forgot all about your sins. . . . 
 That made you look like a fool before the priest. . . . If it 
 was Father Innocent, he would help him to think of a thing 
 or two, but he couldn't count on any help from Father 
 Steele . . . 
 
 He wished he could think of a sin against economics. 
 . . . What was a sin against economics? . . . He had heard 
 Father Steele say in the pulpit that somebody down at 
 Liberty Hall had said something which was a sin against 
 the doctrine of economics. ... It was opposed to something 
 that had once been said by Adam ... he remembered it 
 had been said by Adam, because hearing his own name in 
 the pulpit had wakened him when he was dreaming about 
 Caroline Brady (or was it Barbara Burns? . . . that re- 
 minded him of a sin) Adam . . . Adam . . . Adam Smith, 
 a sin against economics was a sin against Adam Smith, he 
 gave it up. . . . But there was a sin anyhow : he had thought 
 of Caroline Brady or Barbara Burns (or was it Josephine 
 O'Meagher?) when he ought to have been listening to a 
 sermon. . . . What sort of a sin did you call that? He
 
 40 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 thought it must be taking the name of the Lord thy God in 
 vain. . . . But God wasn't Adam Smith, and he did hear 
 the name, only too late . . . anyhow, he would say he had 
 broken the second commandment; he repeated in a whisper, 
 "What is commanded by the second commandment? . . . 
 We are commanded by the second commandment to speak 
 with reverence of God and of His saints and ministers of 
 religion, its practices and ceremonies, and of all things 
 relating to divine service . . ." that was near enough: he 
 had broken the second commandment all right. (He ticked 
 off a second finger for this other item in the program 
 ... he could hear the slide by the old lady open and her 
 mumbling the Confiteor in a stage whisper, and pinched 
 himself to think of something more. He was beginning to 
 feel sorry now he had come to confession.) Happy thought : 
 he ran through the ten commandments. "I am the Lord 
 thy God: thou shalt not have strange gods before Me. 
 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. 
 Remember that thou keep the Sabbath day" . . . that was 
 the commandment, the third he had broken, not the second. 
 He snapped his fingers. What an ass Father Steele would 
 have thought him if he had said the second commandment 
 when he meant that he had broken the third . . . but if 
 Father Steele did not know what he had done he couldn't 
 guess which commandment he had really broken, and if he 
 was really sorry for breaking it, sure, it didn't matter what 
 the number of the commandment was . . . whatever com- 
 mandment he broke, Father Innocent had always given him 
 the same penance . . . but, then, Father Innocent seemed 
 in doubt whether he had ever broken any of the command- 
 ments . . . except once, when he had told him that he had 
 spoken disrespectfully of Mr. Byron O'Toole. . . . Father 
 Innocent seemed to think that was a sin against the fourth 
 commandment . . what was the fourth commandment?
 
 FATHER IGNATIUS STEELE 41 
 
 "Honor thy father and thy mother." . . . Mr. O'Toole was 
 not his father and his mother . . . there was that old lady 
 coming out of the box and he not nearly ready ; still, he was 
 in for it now . . . 
 
 All in a flutter, he rose and, shivering down his back, 
 stepped on tiptoe into the stuffy compartment, still warm 
 with the vapors of the old lady. Behind the closed shutter 
 he could hear Father Steele clucking what he judged to be 
 disapproval of the tale filling his ear from the emptying 
 conscience of the other penitent. He wondered what that 
 other penitent was like : as he had been kneeling with his 
 back to him, he had only caught a glimpse of him over his 
 shoulder. . . . His impression was that of an old man . . . 
 he shivered to think that he might be a dreadfully wicked 
 old man, a downright awful old man, telling all sorts of sins 
 to Father Steele. ... A vague hope sprung up within him 
 that the catalogue of the crimes of that old man might be so 
 exhaustive that Father Steele would not have time to listen 
 to any more that day . . . but there, he could hear by the 
 mumble of the priest's voice that he was giving that old 
 villain absolution after all. In a moment he would hear the 
 other side click and his slide open. . . . He nerved himself 
 to be ready to start off with the Confiteor the very instant 
 that his slide shot back. . . . How did the Confiteor begin? 
 ... "I believe in God the Father Almighty Creator of 
 Heaven and Earth . . ." No, how could he be so silly, that 
 was the Apostles' Creed . . . 
 
 The distant slide snapped. Trembling, he was conscious 
 of his slide rushing back, and he recoiled to the extreme 
 border of his cage, where the young priest could not for a 
 moment see him . . . 
 
 "Well?" came the questioning voice of Father Steele. 
 "Is there no one there ?" 
 
 And Adam whispered "Me."
 
 42 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 The priest's tone softened. "Well, my dear child, what 
 is it? Speak up." Then, as there was a further pause, he 
 prompted the young penitent. "I confess to Almighty 
 God" 
 
 Encouraged by the kindly voice, Adam eagerly took up 
 his cue. "I confess to Almighty God to Blessed Mary ever 
 Virgin to Blessed Michael the Archangel to Blessed John 
 the Baptist to Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and to all the 
 Saints and to you Father that I have sinned exceedingly in 
 thought word and deed through my fault through my fault 
 through my most grievous fault" ... all this he said dra- 
 matically, if without punctuation, but then his mind became 
 a blank. 
 
 Again Father Steele came to the rescue. "How long is 
 it since you have been to Confession?" As Adam still hesi- 
 tated, he added : "Am I right in thinking that you have not 
 been here to me before?" 
 
 "No, sir," said Adam, and suddenly began to cry. There 
 was something truly paternal in the priest's tone, but fatherly 
 in the sense of that spiritual paternity which was the only 
 one that could suggest to Adam that there was anything 
 amiable in attributing paternity to God. . . . Father Steele 
 spent a longer time over Adam's sins than over those of the 
 vaporous lady, or even the wicked old sinner he had just 
 dismissed with the Church's pardon; and when at length 
 the boy left the box and kneeled to say his first penance (by 
 a miracle, as it seemed to him, the same as Father Innocent 
 had given him but for the addition of St. Bernard's prayer 
 to the Blessed Virgin), he felt himself to be very nearly, if 
 not quite as much as ever, a little Catholic who loved his 
 Holy Faith. 
 
 He walked on air down the church and did not forget 
 to cross himself when he took the holy water. . . . The 
 weather had attuned itself to his repentance, nay more, the 
 wind had veered into a patriotic quarter and brought up
 
 FATHER IGNATIUS STEELE 43 
 
 clouds of rain to lay the dust and spray Adam's face sooth- 
 ingly as the holy water of the church had sprayed his soul. 
 
 That was a very happy afternoon, with a happiness that 
 outlived the night and nerved him to enjoy his cold bath in 
 the morning and go empty-bellied to Holy Communion at 
 Gardiner Street at seven o'clock. ... By a happy chance 
 that seemed to him more than chance that mass was said by 
 Father Tuite, who had been rector of Belvedere during his 
 short time at that school. There was something bitter-sweet 
 that this priest should place the sacred wafer in his mouth 
 ... to Adam Holy Communion was a holy thing ... so 
 holy that he had found it hard to think of it in connection 
 with any breathing man but Father Innocent. And when 
 the breath went out of Father Innocent who was so holy as 
 to be worthy to take his place ? . . . He almost fancied now 
 as the wafer melted in his mouth that he could see Saint 
 Innocent praying to the Blessed Virgin that Adam should 
 be led back to her and her Son by one as devoted to her 
 as he himself . . . and so Mary had sent him to Father 
 Ignatius . . . and Father Ignatius in confirmation as a sign 
 had been inspired to direct him to St. Bernard's prayer, 
 which as he knelt now before her image he repeated as a 
 joyful penance : "Remember, O most pious Virgin, that it 
 was never heard of in any age that those who implored and 
 had recourse to Thy powerful protection were ever aban- 
 doned by Thee . . . were ever abandoned by Thee . . . 
 were ever abandoned . . ." 
 
 A gun had gone off ... where was he? He had dropped 
 his Prayer Book, why . . . saying the prayer of St. Bernard 
 after mass he had fallen asleep, that was all. It was a very 
 early mass ... he had never gone to so early a mass as 
 that before. He walked home full of pride and airily waved 
 to Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde, who, as it was Sunday, was walk- 
 ing instead of bicycling down Gardiner's Place. 
 
 While waiting for breakfast he considered the ways and
 
 44 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 means by which he might realize the dream of his infancy 
 and convert Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde to Catholicism. He was 
 sure that, if only he could persuade Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde to 
 go to confession to Father Ignatius, all would be well.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE MARCHESA STARTLES FATHER STEELE 
 
 ADAM asked Mr. Macarthy whether it would be practicable 
 and proper for him to invite Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde to meet 
 Father Ignatius at a tea party to be given by Adam at the 
 College Restaurant. . . . The idea seemed to give Mr. Mac- 
 arthy much gratification ; for he smiled quite a lengthy smile 
 before delivering the opinion that he doubted if it were 
 practicable. "You see," said he, "they are both excep- 
 tionally busy men, and College Street is a long way to go." 
 
 "You think," said Adam, "it would be no use to ask 
 them ?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy answered very thoughtfully : "It is not for 
 me to hazard an opinion whether it would or would not be 
 of use. But supposing I wanted them to meet I am not 
 sure that I should ask them to drink tea with me at College 
 Street." 
 
 To this Adam returned : "Don't you want them to meet ?" 
 
 "Why should I want them to meet?" Mr. Macarthy asked. 
 
 "Don't you think," Adam said, "that it would be a good 
 thing for Dr. Ryde to have the privilege of meeting Father 
 Ignatius?" And Mr. Macarthy's smile broadened as he re- 
 turned that that seemed to him a question better directed in 
 the first place to Father Ignatius. 
 
 At first sight this seemed to Adam excellent advice. But 
 he somehow felt a difficulty in asking Father Steele whether 
 he did not think it would be a privilege for Dr. Hillingdon- 
 Ryde to meet him. So after much thought the conversion 
 of that gentleman through his agency was temporarily 
 shelved, but Adam did the best he could for him when not 
 
 45
 
 46 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 too sleepy to remember it in his night prayers. His morn- 
 ing prayers were rather hurried because of his healthy ap- 
 petite for breakfast. At the back of his mind lurked the 
 intention sooner or later to hear the claims of the Blessed 
 Virgin put before Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde in Father Steele's 
 persuasive manner. He was sure that Dr. Ryde was the 
 very man to appreciate these claims if he once knew what 
 they were. 
 
 It was a surprise when coming in to his guardian's room 
 one afternoon early in September to find Father Ignatius 
 and Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde seated in armchairs at either side 
 of the fire (Mr. Macarthy was fond of a fire) and drinking 
 tea poured out for them by the fair hand of the Marchesa 
 della Venasalvatica, while somewhere in the background 
 hovered Herr Behre and Mr. O'Meagher. For once Adam 
 was tongue-tied by bewilderment and made no effort to 
 introduce himself into the conversation. He had been 
 scarcely more bewildered if the Marchesa had produced the 
 head of Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B., from the muffin-dish. The 
 conversation turned on the subject of strikes, and the word 
 strike recalled to Adam, as he ate more than his due share 
 of muffin, the fact that the first time he had visited Westland 
 Row Station that because of a strike the Waterford Cor- 
 ridor Express was lying idle in the bay, and that he had 
 pointed out to Caroline Brady and another young lady whose 
 name he had forgotten, that the carriage at one end of the 
 train was number nineteen and that at the other end was 
 number thirty-eight, and he had told Caroline Brady that 
 twice nineteen was thirty-eight, and Caroline Brady had 
 said that it was clever of him to know that . . . the first 
 sweet, unforgettable praise other than the condescension of 
 elders he had heard from fair lips ... to be sure Caroline's 
 lips were not fair, hers was a dusky beauty. . . . He won- 
 dered why Father Ignatius and Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde were
 
 THE MARCHESA STARTLES FATHER STEELE 47 
 
 talking about strikes instead of about the Blessed Virgin. 
 The Blessed Virgin was the most interesting of all females 
 and almost any female was more interesting than a strike. 
 
 He gathered that the whole company were interested in 
 some strike organized by those wicked men at Liberty Hall. 
 Herr Behre and the Marchesa appeared to be wholly in 
 favor of the Liberty Hall side of the question: Father 
 Ignatius and Mr. O'Meagher were opposed to it: Dr. Hill- 
 ingdon-Ryde and Mr. Macarthy appeared to sympathize with 
 both parties, the Presbyterian minister explicitly and Mr. 
 Macarthy by implication ; for Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde mildly 
 praised the arguments of both parties while Mr. Macarthy 
 drove a coach and four through them. Mr. O'Meagher de- 
 clared that it was no use having social trouble or expecting 
 any remedy for any evil or troubling about it while Dublin 
 Castle stood one stone upon another. Mr. Macarthy said 
 that some of the worst employers in Ireland hated Dublin 
 Castle as much as Mr. O'Meagher did. . . . The Marchesa 
 said that one of the strike leaders resembled Christ, Mr. 
 Macarthy asked the Marchesa where she had been to school. 
 . . . Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde said that Mr. Macarthy was 
 rather severe on the Marchesa : Mr. Macarthy said that was 
 because he admired her so much. . . . Herr Behre said that 
 the cause of humanity was the same all over the world : Mr. 
 Macarthy said that neither employers nor employed were in 
 the least interested in humanity as it was understood over 
 the rest of the world. . . . Father Ignatius said with hum- 
 ble pride that Ireland was the one country that kept the 
 Faith : Mr. Macarthy said, "And what a Faith to be sure !" 
 
 Adam was a little shocked by his guardian's tone : he was 
 particularly pained at his guardian's flippancy in speaking 
 thus of the Catholic religion before a Presbyterian whom 
 he himself hoped sooner or later to convert. It was per- 
 plexing to hear the Presbyterian turn on his host to protest:
 
 48 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "I have the greatest admiration for the way in which the 
 Irish, particularly of the lower classes, have been faithful 
 to their pastors." 
 
 "Allow me," said Father Ignatius, "it is not to their pas- 
 tors they have been faithful, but to the tenets of the 
 Church." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled deferentially. "Is it your experi- 
 ence that the people of Ireland know anything about the 
 tenets of the Church?" 
 
 Father Ignatius honestly wavered: "I am not a parish 
 priest," said he, "and can produce no evidence, but I believe 
 it to be so." 
 
 "It is my experience," said Mr. Macarthy, "that the noble- 
 minded take the nobility of other's minds for granted . . ." 
 
 Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde tapped the table approvingly and 
 Herr Behre followed his example. It occurred to Adam 
 that he might also do so, and he did. He was gratified by 
 his guardian saying something agreeable to Father Ignatius. 
 Mr. O'Meagher said that there would be no true nobility in 
 Ireland while Dublin Castle remained. This also seemed to 
 Adam a good point; for Mr. Byron O'Toole, he suddenly 
 remembered, had the Castle behind him, and although he 
 did not dislike Mr. Byron O'Toole as much as he used to, 
 he felt that Mr. O'Toole was not truly noble . . . thence 
 his mind traveled to the portrait of Sir David Byron-Quinn 
 at the National Gallery and he wondered if Sir David had 
 been truly noble . . . was a baronet noble by right of birth? 
 Suddenly he heard himself addressing the Marchesa. "Was 
 that baronet you painted truly noble, ma'am?" he asked. 
 All eyes were instantly turned on him and he thought that 
 all at once would rebuke him, but the Marchesa merely 
 answered, "Of course he was," just as if she had expected 
 him to put the question . . . and the general talk went on 
 as before as though nothing had happened. Adam decided 
 that rag-bag or not there was something truly noble about
 
 JHE MARCHESA STARTLES FATHER STEELE 49 
 
 the Marchesa . . . and he decided that she was not ninety 
 ... it suddenly occurred to him that Barbara Burns was 
 a trifle jealous of the Marchesa . . . why jealous of the 
 Marchesa? . . . without clearly formulating an answer he 
 found himself looking indignantly at Mr. Macarthy, and 
 then Mr. Macarthy happened to turn and look at him and 
 smiled, and Adam smiled back. ... It was impossible to be 
 indignant with Mr. Macarthy; he was such a simple old 
 gentleman. 
 
 He noticed now that when the Marchesa spoke it was 
 always to Mr. Macarthy that she addressed herself ; and on 
 the rare occasions when she was not speaking she looked 
 at him as if she were thinking of something to say to him. 
 On the other hand, Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde and generally Herr 
 Behre addressed themselves to her. Father Ignatius ad- 
 dressed himself to everyone except her, and Mr. O'Meagher 
 had the effect of unburdening himself to an audience larger 
 than the room could contain. Were it not for the fact that 
 he spoke every word distinctly, Mr. Macarthy might have 
 been talking to himself. Adam felt out of it ... he did 
 not like feeling out of it, so he sidled round towards the 
 Marchesa until he touched her. The next instant he was 
 whisked up in her bony arms and deposited in her bonier 
 lap while she whispered in his ear, "Now I know of whom 
 you remind me." 
 
 Adam struggled between two emotions, pride at being 
 signalized for attention by this mysterious gentlewoman and 
 horror at being publicly caressed, more particularly in the 
 presence of Father Ignatius ... he found himself already 
 asking his conscience whether he should have to confess to 
 Father Ignatius what Father Ignatius himself had wit- 
 nessed : the holy man must have perceived that he had fallen 
 through sheer inadvertency . . . and could a sin be a sin 
 if you had no sinful intention and took no pleasure in it? 
 . He tried to remember if the Marchesa was married
 
 50 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 . . . Marchesa meant marchioness, the wife of a marquis 
 or marchesi, as they called him in Italian . . . therefore she 
 had a husband; he thought it his duty to remind her of him; 
 "How's the Marchesi," he asked, but the Marchesa was talk- 
 ing to Mr. Macarthy and perhaps accidentally ignored the 
 question. His instinct forbade him to repeat it. 
 
 The Marchesa's lap was far from luxurious, and her 
 atmosphere at such close quarters savored not too delicately 
 of drink and tobacco . . . but Adam was born into a world 
 which reeked of these odors, and her lap was as restful as 
 his ancient refuse heap which served him as bed for the first 
 seven years and more of his life in the corner of the crazy 
 tenement in Count Alley. . . . Also a very highly romantic 
 thought occurred to him, what was it that Hamlet said to 
 Ophelia, and she and he watching a play ? "Lady, shall I lie 
 in your lap?" 
 
 He was startled to hear the rebellious daughter of Lord 
 Derrydown answer: 
 
 "You're dreaming." ... As he was unable to say whether 
 he was dreaming or not, she suggested, "You're dreaming 
 that I am Ophelia." Nothing could have been further from 
 Adam's mind, and he was on the verge of laughter when 
 she murmured in his ear as a confidence between them which 
 even Mr. Macarthy might not share, "He once played Ham- 
 let to my Ophelia." Here was indeed a revelation, for 
 there was no need to tell Adam that he was Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn. . . . But Adam wondered how could a lady 
 and gentleman, and they both of title, noble beings more or 
 less, condescend to take part in a stage play. "Was the 
 baronet a play-actor ?" he whispered. 
 
 "Sir David was everything under the sun," she declared 
 almost loud enough to be heard by Father Ignatius. "There 
 was nothing that man could not do." 
 
 Adam answered with half -conscious irony, "He must have 
 been pretty nippy."
 
 THE MARCHESA STARTLES FATHER STEELE 51 
 
 The Marchesa was indulgent, albeit hurt. "That is hardly 
 the word to use of a great man," she said, "and he was one 
 of the greatest of all men." 
 
 "Did you," said Adam thoughtfully, "did you think more 
 of him than that chap at Liberty Hall who you said was like 
 Christ?" 
 
 "Oh, he was incomparably superior," said the Marchesa 
 without hesitation, and Adam was puzzled. 
 
 "I didn't know there was anyone superior to Christ," 
 said he. 
 
 "Sir David was not, perhaps, superior to Christ as a 
 Christian," the Marchesa rejoined, with as much thought 
 as her mentality allowed ; "in fact, he didn't call himself a 
 Christian . . . though I'm sure he was a good Catholic in 
 his own way ... he was always much better than I ; but, 
 then, I was never religious ... at least, not as religion was 
 understood by my mother : she was a very good woman, 
 poor dear, and deeply religious; she and I hated each 
 other . . ." 
 
 "How could she hate you if she was religious?" Adam 
 asked. 
 
 "Because of my being irreligious, of course," the Mar- 
 chesa insisted. "Religious people always hate irreligioils 
 people . . . and it's perfectly right they should. If I ever 
 had a religion I should hate everybody of every other re- 
 ligion. It isn't honest to believe anything yourself and not 
 to hate anybody who believes that what you believe is 
 wrong ..." 
 
 Adam did not clearly follow the Marchesa's argument. 
 "Did the baronet believe the same as you ?" he asked. 
 
 "Sometimes he did and sometimes he didn't," the Marchesa 
 answered, adding, after a pause, "At least, so far as I re- 
 member it was like that." 
 
 Adam demanded something definite. "Did he tell you 
 when he did and didn't?" he said.
 
 52 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Beneath his bones he felt the Marchesa's bones stretch 
 as though she were yawning. "Did he tell me when he did 
 and didn't . . . did he tell me when he did and didn't? 
 Dear me, my dear child, it's too long ago to remember now." 
 
 But Adam was not to be gainsaid. "If he was such a 
 remarkable chap as all that," he suggested, "why didn't you 
 keep a diary?" At this the Marchesa laughed outright. 
 
 "Stephen," she called to Mr. Macarthy, "Adam wants to 
 know why I didn't keep a diary all about David Byron- 
 Quinn. Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling him?" 
 
 Ere Mr. Macarthy could answer, Father Ignatius sprang 
 to his feet. "I must go," he said hurriedly ; "my duties 
 call me. My duties call me," he repeated, "or I would 
 not go."
 
 ADAM wondered why Father Ignatius so suddenly departed : 
 or would have wondered had he allowed himself to doubt 
 that saintly man's word. He felt the priest was shocked: 
 but he did not appear to be shocked by him; for Adam, 
 opening the door for him, was patted affectionately on the 
 head and in the gentlest tone admonished to keep on being 
 a good boy. Seemingly the Church did not hold the sitting 
 of a young male in a married woman's lap to be a mortal 
 sin. Perhaps Father Ignatius blamed the Marchesa. That, 
 Adam felt, was not altogether fair: he had wished the 
 Marchesa to take notice of and even, perhaps, to caress 
 him, although he had not been prepared for the form which 
 her endearments had taken. Still, he was quite sure that 
 her caresses were as parental as that of any other elderly 
 person: they had in them nothing reminiscent of Caroline 
 Brady or even Josephine O'Meagher. The lightest touch 
 of Barbara's finger-tip burnt hotter than the Marchesa's 
 kiss. 
 
 "I frightened your holy man away," the Marchesa was 
 saying as Adam reentered the room. 
 
 "Are you proud of that?" Mr. Macarthy asked drily. 
 
 She shot a tempestuous glance at him, "Do you think I 
 ought to be ashamed ?" 
 
 "I think you ought to be ashamed of being silly," Mr. 
 Macarthy answered, and silenced her retort with a wave of 
 his hand: "We are discussing something more important 
 than even our own love affairs." 
 
 53
 
 54 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "I am not sure," Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde argued, "that there 
 is anything more important than love." 
 
 The Marchesa turned to him gratefully, "How perfectly 
 ripping of you to say that !" 
 
 The minister bowed deferentially, but Mr. Macarthy in- 
 sisted, despite a Hear, Hear ! from Mr. Behre, echoed by Mr. 
 O'Meagher, "At the present moment we are discussing a 
 Strike which involves our daily bread. I am more inter- 
 ested in my own daily bread than in other persons' daily 
 heart-burns." 
 
 "I protest," said Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde, "I protest." But 
 the Marchesa, more sensibly, replied, albeit with a pout, 
 "You never understood me in the least. But, anyhow, go 
 on with your beastly old Strike." 
 
 "It is not my strike," Mr. Macarthy replied. "If I had 
 my way there would be no strike. But, since there is one, 
 I'm prepared to stake my all on seeing, firstly, that the men 
 are not beaten, and, secondly, that they are not encouraged 
 to take such risks lightly again." 
 
 "I am entirely with you," said Dr. Ryde. "I think you 
 are, it may be, right," declared Herr Behre. But Mr. 
 O'Meagher shook his head: "The Castle is behind all this 
 trouble. It's a trick to get the Irish proletariat into the 
 grip of the English Labor party: so that they'll put their 
 bellies I beg your pardon, Marchesa their stomachs . . ." 
 
 "Say bellies, and don't be an idiot," the Marchesa 
 broke in. 
 
 "... Their . . . their whatever you may call 'ems be- 
 fore their country," Mr. O'Meagher eloquently perorated. 
 
 "What is the use of your country if it won't support 
 you?" Mr. Macarthy inquired. 
 
 "That's a question for a Macarthy to ask an O'Mea- 
 gher !" protested the Laisridere. 
 
 "I should not ask it if it were not," Mr. Macarthy de- 
 clared.
 
 ADAM LOOKS BACKWARD 55 
 
 "Would you blame Sweet Granuaile . . ." Mr. O'Meagher 
 commenced, but Mr. Macarthy cut him short, "I'd blame 
 the canting jackass who invented her. I've no more pa- 
 tience with silly patriots than I have with silly lovers." 
 
 "Are you sure you were never a silly lover yourself?" 
 the Marchesa blurted indignantly. 
 
 "To be sure I was," Mr. Macarthy gently replied, "And 
 a silly patriot too. And a silly everything under the sun. 
 And have a vast and inexhaustible fund of silliness in me 
 still. . . . But at least I do aim at the mark of commo 
 sense, and do not consider it a meritorious deed to appear 
 a bigger fool than I am." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher thundered with a triumphant laugh: 
 "I'd rather look a bigger fool than I am than be a bigger 
 fool than I look"; but on Mr. Macarthy replying that they 
 need not discuss impossibilities, he fell abruptly silent. 
 
 Adam looked pityingly at Josephine's father: his nat- 
 urally bright and jolly face had taken on the gloom of one 
 brooding o'er ancient wrong. At times he threw his host a 
 glance almost of hate ; and yet, Adam knew that few loved 
 and admired Mr. Macarthy more than did Mr. O'Meagher. 
 Adam thought it silly of Mr. O'Meagher to behave like 
 that: silly and babyish . . . unworthy of Josephine's 
 father: he was positively making faces at his host, you 
 might almost say putting out his tongue. . . . Now was it 
 to be understood why Mrs. O'Meagher, despite her lesser 
 intelligence, laid down the law at Capua Terrace ! . . . And 
 yet he, Adam himself, had been making faces at his guar- 
 dian a little while ago, and only relinquished that occupation 
 when disarmed by a smile. . . . What was it gave this 
 funny old fogey the double power to wound and salve with 
 two successive flashes of his eye. The minister, rising to 
 go, towered above him, massive, ponderously magnificent, a 
 perfect figure of a healthy, amiable, Samson. A few feet 
 away was Herr Behre, as tall as Dr. Ryde and as straight,
 
 56 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 but gaunt and haggard, colorless of skin and beard: an 
 ancient Daniel. Both looked towards Mr. Macarthy, Adam 
 thought, as he had once seen a pair of Guinness's dray 
 horses look at their driver : as it were affectionately curious 
 of the use to which he would next put their great limbs. 
 
 It seemed to Adam, as he gazed at the trio, that he was 
 fonder of Dr. Ryde and Herr Behre than he was of Mr. 
 Macarthy: just as he was really fonder of the dray horses 
 with their deferential eyes than of their master, who, though 
 he might never whip them, yet had it always in his power to 
 do so. Adam felt that Mr. Macarthy, though the mildest 
 spoken person he had ever met, would cut a man in two 
 with a whip if his intellect prompted him to that solution 
 of a problem he thought of matter. . . . On the other hand, 
 he never teased you with a sight of the whip. Indeed, he 
 spoke as though whips had no existence even in his thoughts. 
 In that he differed even from Father Innocent, who palpably 
 dreaded punishment, though more for the sake of others 
 than for himself. 
 
 His mind went back to the first day he had sat in that 
 same room with Herr Behre, Mr. O'Meagher and their host 
 ... it was barely six months ago, and yet how completely 
 his world had altered since then . . . the most vital moment 
 of his life had been that when Mr. Macarthy had brought 
 him to the window to let the spring sun fall upon his face 
 while he asked him whether he was willing to trust him. he 
 remembered the very words as they looked in each other's 
 eyes : "Do you feel you could trust me as you trusted Father 
 Innocent?" and how he had recalled his ancient jealousy 
 because he had first seen him in a photograph with Josephine 
 sitting in his lap, and how Mr. Macarthy went on because 
 of his silence, "I don't want you to trust me without ques- 
 tion . . . but so far that I can trust you in turn ... to do 
 nothing . . . behind my back," and how he, Adam, at long
 
 ADAM LOOKS BACKWARD 57 
 
 length had answered firmly that he could trust him . . . 
 that he was sure of that . . . yes, and he had been sure of 
 it ever since. 
 
 It is possible that, as he walked back with Herr Behre 
 that spring night six months ago from Mountjoy Square, 
 Adam saw his future through too rosy spectacles. It is 
 possible that he thought the new guardianship would weigh 
 lightly on his shoulders, and that at thirteen he would be 
 even freer than he was in the period between his father's 
 death and the rule of Father Muldoon, S.J. It is possible 
 that he fancied himself already a grown man then. If so, 
 he was undeceived; for Mr. Macarthy had placed him in 
 leading-strings from which there had been no breaking 
 away. Indeed, it was now, as he believed himself to be on 
 the point of leaving childhood behind, he found himself for 
 the first time consistently treated as a child. Not that Mr. 
 Macarthy was wanting in respect for him: if hardly so flat- 
 tering as Herr Behre and Mr. O'Meagher, he was as punc- 
 tilious and perhaps more urbane than either. But he had 
 perfectly clear-cut ideas as to what Adam ought to do, and, 
 in the absence of equally clear objections on Adam's part, 
 he saw that it was done. 
 
 Adam's soul was still, in those early days of his guardian- 
 ship, hot with indignation from the force of Miss Gannon's 
 assault upon his person. He almost demanded that his 
 guardian should allow him to seek another lodging; but 
 Mr. Macarthy merely laughed at the story of the battery, 
 and came round to St. George's Place to interview her. 
 . . . Adam was tempted to rebellion to see them part 
 friends. "That will be all right," Mr. Macarthy said; "Miss 
 Gannon may have a dirty temper, but it's the cleanest house 
 of its kind I've seen in Dublin ; also, she's honest and, within 
 her limitations, well-meaning." 
 
 "D'you mean," said Adam, "that I've got to stay there?" 
 His tongue was querulous.
 
 58 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "You've got to stay there," said Mr. Macarthy, "and be 
 grateful to be allowed to stay there." 
 
 Adam frowned. "If she attacks me again," he mur- 
 mured . . . 
 
 "She will not attack you again," said Mr. Macarthy, "un- 
 less you deserve it." There was something in his tone 
 which forbade rejoinder. "You need not go with her to 
 eleven o'clock mass any more." 
 
 In these unregenerate days Adam brightened at this ; for 
 he had taken it to mean that his new guardian considered 
 it unnecessary for a youth of his intellectual attainments 
 to go to mass at all, yet he had a misgiving: "I don't think 
 Father Innocent would like me to give up going to mass," 
 he said. 
 
 "I'm sure he would not," was Mr. Macarthy's unexpected 
 rejoinder, "but I don't think he would rather have you go 
 with Miss Gannon to eleven than with me to twelve." He 
 added that if Adam thought otherwise that would be a 
 matter for his conscience, but he did not advance this objec- 
 tion. He was not overjoyed at the prospect of spending 
 over an hour in church instead of half an hour, but he pre- 
 ferred Mr. Macarthy's company to Miss Gannon's. Yet was 
 he mildly surprised at the notion of Mr. Macarthy going to 
 mass. Mr. Behre never went at all, and Mr. O'Meagher 
 only under protest, to please his wife ; here was a gentleman 
 as liberal-minded as either yet so pious as to be willing 
 even to sit out a sermon by Father Strong, than which there 
 could be few severer trials of anyone's patience. 
 
 "Are you fond of sermons, sir?" he asked as they came 
 out of church for the first time together. 
 
 "You might as well ask me if I am fond of religion," 
 said Mr. Macarthy with a gentle smile, ignoring his com- 
 panion's mechanical effort to reach the holy water font. 
 Adam said he had never thought of anyone being fond of
 
 ADAM LOOKS BACKWARD 59- 
 
 religion. "Come," said Mr. Macarthy, "you know you have- 
 been taught to sing 'I love my holy faith'." 
 
 Adam was much puzzled. "I love my holy faith right 
 , enough," said he; "at least, I suppose I do; but faith is 
 " what you believe, isn't it? ... and religion has nothing to 
 do with that, has it?" 
 
 "Hasn't it?" was all that Mr. Macarthy had said upon 
 that occasion; but Adam returned to the attack. "Look 
 here," said he, "sermons, anyhow, have nothing to do with 
 what you believe." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy answered pensively: "To tell you what 
 sermons have to do with what I believe would be a very 
 long story. And, to be quite frank with you, I should say 
 they have nothing to do with what most of the people you 
 were brought up among believe. And that is for the simple 
 reason that they believe in nothing ... at all events, noth- 
 ing that can be expressed in words." 
 
 "Is there anything," Adam asked, "that can't be ex- 
 pressed in words?" 
 
 "Ask your own experience," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 Adam returned that he found it easier to ask him, say- 
 ing, "I don't rightly know whether I've ever had any ex- 
 perience." 
 
 And then he remembered that Mr. Macarthy had taken 
 him very gently by the arm and said : "My poor friend, I 
 feared you might have had so much as to be disgusted with 
 the world you know," and Adam had answered that he sup- 
 posed it was pretty disgusting, but somehow it had always, 
 interested him ; and Mr. Macarthy had declared, "That's; 
 the answer I like to hear: it shows that your experiences; 
 have not been wasted on you." 
 
 And then Adam had asked him, "What exactly," repeat- 
 ing the words to emphasize them, "What exactly is ex- 
 perience?" and Mr. Macarthy had replied: "Experience, 
 according to my lights, is exactly everything."
 
 60 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Half a year had passed since these things were said, and 
 there was nothing in that half year that did not come back 
 to Adam's mind as he watched, by the glow of the flicker- 
 ing firelight, the faces of Mr. Macarthy, Herr Behre, Mr. 
 O'Meagher, and, startling to behold, the Marchesa, looking 
 young as when she was Daphne Page.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE MARCHESA IN THE FIRELIGHT 
 
 To Adam's mind it was, indeed, startling to see how young 
 the Marchesa della Venasalvatica looked in the flickering 
 firelight ; true, all the company looked young in that ruddy 
 light; even the gaunt Herr Behre, with his sweeping beard, 
 a lean Father Christmas was rejuvenated. Mr. Macarthy 
 himself seemed almost a boy. But, to Adam, the effect on 
 the woman was the most amazing ... it was easy enough 
 to understand now why she had had many lovers ... at 
 least it was easy to understand why many had sought her, 
 but he could not understand how any woman could love 
 more than one. Sorely as he despised his mother, and much 
 as he doubted whether she had loved the man she called his 
 father, he had never thought of the possibility of her loving 
 anyone else . . . possibly because he found it impossible 
 to love her, he had not thought about the subject at all, he 
 had never even wondered why she did not marry O'Toole. 
 . . . He felt he belonged to the world he saw round him in 
 this room, not to the world that lived in Pleasant Street, 
 much less that into which he had been born in Count Alley. 
 And they were quite separate worlds, revolving in orbits 
 absolutely distinct. 
 
 He looked hard at the Marchesa ; her eyes were fixed on 
 Mr. Macarthy, and she was talking to him eagerly. Adam 
 heeded not what she said; he did not see her as what she 
 was but rather as what she had been . . . someone had told 
 him that she had been to school with Lady Bland . . . that 
 was nonsense : Lady Bland was an old woman of that kind 
 
 61
 
 62 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 who was never young enough to go to school. He could 
 not conceive of Lady Bland as ever having long hair down 
 her back. Adam associated the idea of youth with the 
 possession of long hair down your back possibly you might 
 wear it in a plait but long hair you must have, and, for 
 preference, it should be loose. Caroline Brady's hair had 
 been loose . . . and so had Josephine O'Meagher's; Bar- 
 bara Burns wore hers short, but she did not put it up, and 
 if she had allowed it to grow he was sure it would have 
 flown down her back in enough volume for her to play Lady 
 Godiva in it. He was tickled by the idea of Barbara Burns 
 playing Lady Godiva and of his playing Peeping Tom . . . 
 no, Peeping Tom was a silly ass, a dirty little snivelling 
 ass ; if he wanted to see Lady Godiva he ought to have up 
 and said so ... what would happen to Peeping Tom if he 
 had the pluck to say what he wanted ... he could not re- 
 member enough about the atmosphere in which Peeping 
 Tom lived to come to any conclusion in this matter; he 
 could not even remember whether Tom were a real or a 
 fictitious person. Plainly said, he knew even less about 
 Peeping Tom than about Lady Godiva; for her he could 
 visualize quite clearly (assisted by the pictures in the 
 National Gallery), whereas Peeping Tom was just a pair 
 of greedy eyes pitted in a fool's skull. 
 
 The Marchesa, in the days when she was Daphne Page, 
 might have been rather like Lady Godiva. After all, she 
 was a lady too, the daughter of a belted earl ... he knew 
 that earls wore belts, because there was a song about it, 
 (Cook's son, duke's son, son of a belted earl), the meaning 
 of which was recondite : it referred to something before his 
 time . . . suddenly he heard his voice, again, aloud, "Why 
 didn't you marry the baronet?" he asked. 
 
 Adam felt Mr. O'Meagher's warm hand across his mouth, 
 and heard him murmur, "Whisht, will ye? that's no ques- 
 tion to ask a lady"; but the Marchesa broke off in the
 
 THE MARCHESA IN THE FIRELIGHT 63 
 
 middle of a sentence and turned to him. "Did you ask me 
 something, child?" she said. 
 
 Adam went over to her. "I did ask you something," he 
 answered, "but I didn't mean to." 
 
 "Didn't mean to?" the Marchesa repeated, almost re- 
 sentfully. 
 
 Adam explained. "I wanted to know it, but I had no 
 right to ask it it was a question about yourself." 
 
 "About myself?" said the Marchesa; "you need never be 
 afraid of asking me any question about myself." 
 
 "Well, it was about yourself and the baronet," Adam 
 said. The Marchesa laughed a little scornfully. "Were 
 you afraid to ask me about myself and the baronet? You're 
 as bad as Father Steele; no one need be afraid to ask me 
 about Sir David Byron-Quinn. What was it?" 
 
 "Then," said Adam, point blank, "why didn't you marry 
 him ?" 
 
 "Oh, my dear," said the Marchesa, 'that's a long story 
 why I didn't marry him. There were all sorts of reasons; 
 but one of them was that he was married already." 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, for some vague reason recoiling, "was 
 he? Then, of course, you couldn't, could you?" 
 
 "No," said the Marchesa, "I could not." 
 
 "And," said Adam, still inquiring, "did you do that pic- 
 ture of him for his lady wife?" 
 
 The Marchesa's answer came sharply: "I did not; I'd 
 have seen her damned first." 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, and retired, a little scared, from the 
 circle by the fire. He sat down again in obscurity to dove- 
 tail this fresh piece of knowledge into its proper place in 
 this new world he was building round him. The Marchesa, 
 seen from where he sat, again looked young, but when he 
 had gone up close to her he had realized what an aged and 
 worn, passion-worn, face she had. When she answered his 
 question as to the baronet's wife, there had been a tigerish
 
 64 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 snap of the jaws perhaps it was as well for Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn that he had perished in Kordofan rather than 
 run the risk of coming to an end at her hands. It was 
 easy to imagine the Marchesa killing a man, it was easy to 
 imagine her doing almost anything which Lady Bland would 
 think it wrong to do ... and yet they had gone to school 
 together and learnt and repeated the same lessons day by 
 day . . . no, one thing already he was old enough to see: 
 the Marchesa had never learnt any lesson, never could learn 
 one while she walked the earth. She was unteachable. 
 
 Suddenly, and without giving any reason, she rose to go. 
 The minister asked her which was her way, and she 
 answered vaguely, "The tram." He offered to see her to 
 it, and they left together. Mr. O'Meagher smiled mildly 
 when they were gone. "They say Hillingdon-Ryde is a bit 
 of a lad," said he. 
 
 Herr Behre, as no one answered, said, as one called upon 
 to say something, "Is he, and why not?" 
 
 "And why not?" repeated Mr. O'Meagher; "indeed, I 
 think a clergyman of no denomination, not even Presby- 
 terian itself, should be too fond of women." 
 
 "Should anyone be too fond of women?" Mr. Macarthy 
 asked cuttingly. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher retorted: "That's a question you might 
 ask yourself; for there's some say you know a little 
 about it." 
 
 "I know a little about a great many things," Mr. Mac- 
 arthy said calmly; "unfortunately, it is very little; but I 
 do know that, whatever Ryde may or may not do, he is a 
 gentleman." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher returned, rather in sorrow than in anger, 
 "Is that to mean I'm not ?" 
 
 "Rubbish," said his host; "you know it means nothing 
 of the kind, but you're getting no wiser as you grow older." 
 
 Adam thought that Mr. O'Meagher was going to return
 
 THE MARCHESA IN THE FIRELIGHT 65 
 
 an answer that would make things no better, and perhaps 
 Herr Behre thought so too; for he turned the conversation, 
 addressing himself to Adam, "I hope that you grow wiser 
 as you grow older." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher snapped out: "How can he grow wiser 
 and he going to no school ?" 
 
 "Is schooling necessary to wisdom?" Mr. Macarthy asked. 
 
 "It's generally considered so," Mr. O'Meagher declared. 
 
 "By whom?" asked Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 "By everybody except yourself," said Mr. O'Meagher. 
 
 The fire-light showed Mr. Macarthy smiling. "Prove 
 to me that I am wrong." But Mr. O'Meagher turned 
 away without attempting to do it; he merely said over his 
 shoulder as he looked out into the night that there were 
 some people with whom it was impossible to argue. Behind 
 his back, Mr. Macarthy and Herr Behre exchanged smiles. 
 
 Suddenly Mr. O'Meagher turned to fire the shot : "Any- 
 how, Adam ought to be doing something." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy said gently: "He is doing something." 
 
 "What?" snapped Mr. O'Meagher. 
 
 And, in the same gentle tone, Mr. Macarthy answered: 
 "Unlearning the nonsense your namesake taught him at 
 Belvedere." 
 
 "I never held with the Jesuit teaching," Mr. O'Meagher 
 expostulated. "I never met a Jesuit that was a true Irish- 
 man ; at the bottom of their hearts they're Jesuits first and 
 what you like afterwards . . ." 
 
 "At the bottom of their hearts," Mr. Macarthy broke in, 
 "they are what they like first and Jesuits afterwards." 
 
 "You're cynical about everything," cried Mr. O'Meagher. 
 
 "I'm cynical about nothing," returned Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 And here Herr Behre said, laying his hand on his host's 
 shoulder, "No, my friend, I have never known you cynical 
 about anything except yourself." 
 
 "If I was that," said Mr. Macarthy, "it was only pose."
 
 66 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Here Mr. O'Meagher was understood to say that he hated 
 pose of any kind. At all events, he used many rhetorical 
 phrases which seemed to Adam in their essence to bear this 1 
 construction, but neither Mr. Behre nor Mr. Macarthy paid 
 any attention to them : they talked together in low tones by 
 the fire. 
 
 Adam felt so sorry for Mr. O'Meagher that he joined him 
 at the window, and Mr. O'Meagher, realizing his propin- 
 quity, said, "You'd like to go to a good Irish school, wouldn't 
 you?" 
 
 "No," said Adam, "I would not," and drifted away from 
 him into darkness again. 
 
 But Mr. O'Meagher stumbled after him, and leaned over 
 him to say, "And why wouldn't you?" Seeing that Adam 
 was unready with his answer, he pursued his advantage, 
 putting his lips down near Adam's ear, to say in a wheedling 
 voice: "Would you like Josephine to think of you growing 
 up a dunce?" 
 
 This was a horrible thought to Adam : it was bad enough 
 to grow up a dunce, but to imagine Josephine hearing of it 
 and thinking him a dunce was unbearable; had it not been 
 for the vision of Father Tudor, with his maniacal face and 
 ubiquitous ferrule, he would have offered to return to Bel- 
 vedere then and there. "I don't want to be a dunce," said he. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher thrust his head yet lower. "But a dunce 
 you will be if you're not mighty careful, my lad," he said, 
 almost vindictively; and Adam was conscious for the first 
 time, so far as Mr. O'Meagher was concerned, of an aroma 
 associated in his mind with Mr. O'Toole and others : the 
 aroma of whisky. "A dunce you'll be," said Mr. O'Meagher. 
 
 It was a relief to Adam to hear Mr. Macarthy's voice ad- 
 dressing itself sharply to Mr. O'Meagher: "Pull yourself 
 together, and don't talk nonsense." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher stiffened and moved over towards the
 
 THE MARCHESA IN THE FIRELIGHT 67 
 
 fire-place. "You ought not to talk like that to me before 
 the lad," said he. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy slightly waved his hand, quite without im- 
 patience, and he almost sang the reply: "What I ought or 
 ought not to do is a question I decide for myself." 
 
 "And what I " Mr. O'Meagher began when he was 
 again cut short. 
 
 "What you do so far as Adam is concerned, I decide for 
 you," said Mr. Macarthy with perfect urbanity. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher turned, with an air of passionate appeal, 
 to Herr Behre, but the latter answered only : "Yes, yes, 
 that will be best, that will be best ; there will be no mistake 
 then." 
 
 "Well, I'm jiggered," said Mr. O'Meagher; "I really am." 
 
 "That is interesting," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher looked at him surprisedly. "I'm glad you 
 find something interesting about me," he said ; "and what is 
 it, I'd like to know?" 
 
 "Only," Mr. Macarthy declared, "that, although you tell 
 me Gaelic comes more naturally to you than English, yet in 
 moments of surprise you never express yourself in that 
 language." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher passed his hand mistily across his brow. 
 "Moments of surprise . . . never expressed myself in that 
 language . . . how d'ye mean?" he murmured. 
 
 "I mean," said Mr. Macarthy, quite reasonably, "Why 
 don't you say 'I'm jiggered' in Gaelic, or doesn't the word 
 exist in that language ?" 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher pulled himself together to say stoutly: 
 "Every word exists in our beautiful language." 
 
 "What, then, is the Gaelic for 'jiggered?'" Mr. Mac- 
 arthy insisted. 
 
 Adam thought, by the bright light in Mr. O'Meagher's 
 eyes, that he knew the word and could produce it ; but after
 
 68 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 one or two stumbling efforts the light suddenly went out 
 again, and, muttering "Jiggered if I know," he took his hat 
 to go. Adam heard him and his host speak in cordial under- 
 tones on the staircase, and bid each other no less cordial 
 farewell.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 GOING TO SCHOOL 
 
 WHILE Mr. Macarthy was ushering Mr. O'Meagher out, 
 Adam seized the opportunity to ask Herr Behre if he had 
 noticed that Mr. O'Meagher smelt of whisky, to which the 
 musician answered, curtly for him, "Why should not the 
 gentleman smell of anything he pleases?" 
 
 Adam answered fierily : "I never said he shouldn't ; I said 
 he did." 
 
 "Well," said Herr Behre, "and what of it?" 
 
 Unable to deny that there was nothing of it, Adam held 
 his peace : he felt that even his long suffering neighbor at 
 St. George's Place was weary of his questions to-day. And 
 yet he meant them all in good faith: he was not, as it ap- 
 peared to himself, a mere Paul Pry. He did wish to under- 
 stand the world he lived in, and how could he come to under- 
 stand it without questioning his friends as to its working 
 ... he tried again: "Do you think, Mr. Behre," said he, 
 "that Mr. O'Meagher ought to smell of whisky ?" 
 
 It was interesting to note that Herr Behre now did what 
 he often saw Mr. Macarthy do : he turned his back on him, 
 and his shoulders rose and fell. For the rest, all he said 
 was "Donnerwetter !" and at this point Mr. Macarthy re- 
 joined them. Apparently he took in the situation at a 
 glance, only, as Adam thought, in an inverted view of it; 
 for he said to Adam: "So Mr. Behre has been cross-exam- 
 ining you." 
 
 Herr Behre swung round on his heel: "I ... cross-ex- 
 amine him!" 
 
 "No, no," cried Adam, "it was me I mean it was I." 
 
 69
 
 70 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "You surprise me," said Mr. Macarthy. "Perhaps you 
 would like to ask me a few questions now?" 
 
 Adam smiled gleefully. "I can always ask you ques- 
 tions," he said. 
 
 Both men laughed, and Herr Behre came over to him: 
 "And me, too, Adam," said he; "you can always ask me 
 questions, if you may not expect such ready answers to 
 them as Mr. Macarthy makes." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy was suddenly stern. "One thing, Adam," 
 said he, "there is no harm in asking questions, but there is 
 a time for questioning and a time for not questioning. I 
 leave it to you to think out for yourself when each of these 
 alternatives arises." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said Adam humbly, and that particular 
 conversation ended there. 
 
 The following morning, however, when they were alone, 
 Mr. Macarthy reverted to the question of Adam's educa- 
 tion. "In the spring," said he, "when I took you away from 
 Belvedere after that unfortunate trouble with Father Tudor, 
 it seemed to me that it was better for your nerves, in fact, 
 for your health generally, that you should have no more 
 schooling in the ordinary sense of the word for some time 
 to come. I may have been right or I may have been wrong 
 in this, but, anyhow, you seem to have benefited by it, and 
 Miss Gannon, who has known you longer than anyone else 
 ... at any rate, of the people with whom I come in contact, 
 tells me she has never known you look so well. You your- 
 self feel well, do you not?" 
 
 Adam's face glowed with gratitude as he panted : "Sure, 
 I never thought anyone could feel as well as I do." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy's lips reflected his smile. "Come, that's 
 good news," said he. "Father Innocent will thank me at 
 least for that . . . but there are other things which, per- 
 haps, he will think of greater importance . . ." 
 "My soul," Adam gravely suggested.
 
 GOING TO SCHOOL 71 
 
 "Your soul," echoed Mr. Macarthy, "certainly your soul ; 
 but that is at the present in charge of Father Ignatius Steele, 
 and I feel no immediate responsibility for it. What I am 
 bothering about now is what we may call your mind." 
 
 "Is the mind different from the soul ?" Adam asked. 
 
 "I imagine not," said Mr. Macarthy, "though I would 
 rather you asked Father Ignatius. Perhaps I should have 
 said I am concerned with that part of your mind, or your 
 soul, upon the development of which will depend your im- 
 mediate future in the world of Dublin, or wherever you 
 may elect to live." 
 
 The last clause brought into Adam's mind a beating of 
 waves on desert islands visions of the Bristol boat, half 
 forgotten dream voyages at Belvedere, and that very baffling 
 thing the chart of the world on Mercator's projection. "Of 
 course," said he, "I might go foreign, mightn't I?" 
 
 "You might," said Mr. Macarthy gravely, "or, for the 
 matter of that, you might stop at home." 
 
 "Or," cried Adam with a high-pitched voice, "I might 
 do both." 
 
 "You might," his guardian again assented, "but not at 
 once." 
 
 It was a little disappointing to Adam this thought that he 
 might not do all things at once. Even in the wretchedest 
 hours of his life in the foul alley under the shadow of the 
 Pro-Cathedral, he had been buoyed up by a vague notion 
 that all things could be done at once if you only knew how 
 ... in his dreams, he was positive that he had done all the 
 things he ever heard of in one breath . . . but if Mr. Mac- 
 arthy said all things could not be done at once, they could 
 not, and there was an end to it ... there, at least, there 
 ought to have been an end to it, but he could not resist the 
 temptation to ask his guardian why everything could never 
 be done at once. 
 
 "The answer to that," said Mr. Macarthy, "so far as there
 
 72 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 is an answer to that, is because of the limitations of place 
 and time." 
 
 Adam was still of an age to be content with answers 
 which explained nothing, and he repeated pensively, "I see, 
 the limitations of place and time." He told Attracta that 
 evening that it was useless to try to bring Mr. Gannon's 
 dinner and his own at the same hour because of the limita- 
 tions of place and time, and Attracta was so impressed that 
 she very nearly failed to do so, and, consequently, incurred 
 a scolding from her mistress. Adam heard her trying to 
 explain her intellectual position to the head of the house, 
 who the next morning exhorted him not to be putting non- 
 sense into the girl's head. 
 
 "It is not nonsense," Adam said stoutly. "Mr. Macarthy 
 told me so." 
 
 "Then he ought to be ashamed of himself," said Miss 
 Gannon. 
 
 "Why ought he to be ashamed of himself ?" Adam asked, 
 but Miss Gannon fled to escape his fire. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Macarthy pursued the question of Adam's 
 future. "We are now in September," said he, "and you 
 have had fully six months' holiday. Don't you think it is 
 time that you should be doing some sort of regular work 
 again ?" 
 
 Adam expressed the more or less pious and not deeply 
 felt conviction that he ought. "Well, then," said Mr. Mac- 
 arthy, "how about going back to Belvedere?" 
 
 Adam's heart fell. "Are you telling me to do that?" he 
 quavered. 
 
 "I am telling you nothing," said Mr. Macarthy, "except 
 that I am bound to advise you that it may be to your 
 material interests to do so." 
 
 "How d'ye mean?" Adam asked, almost too depressed to 
 feel properly curious. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy glanced at a paper on his desk and said:
 
 GOING TO SCHOOL 73 
 
 "I mean this. When I took you away from Belvedere 
 Father Muldoon, as I thought you were aware, entered a 
 strong protest against my doing so." 
 
 Adam clenched his fingers testily. "What right had he 
 to protest ?" 
 
 "He had this right," said Mr. Macarthy. "Some person 
 who wishes to remain anonymous had sent him money to 
 be devoted to your education and your welfare generally. 
 The terms of this trust are not very clear to me, and in the 
 absence of anyone who has seen the letters on the subject 
 I myself have not, nor, perhaps, has anyone except Father 
 Innocent, who left no note of them beyond his general im- 
 pression as to their contents it is impossible for me to 
 question Father Muldoon's interpretation of it. He holds 
 that he cannot, and it is quite obvious that he will not, 
 allow the money to be used unless he remains in complete 
 charge of it, which is to say that he remains in complete 
 charge of you so far as your education is concerned. He 
 and I are on sufficiently friendly terms that he accepted my 
 advice about removing you from Belvedere until you had 
 recovered from the effect of Father Tudor's" here he 
 hesitated for a word "Father Tudor's mistaken view of 
 you." 
 
 "There was no mistake," Adam blurted; "he did it on 
 purpose." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy went on smoothly. "Let us call it then 
 Father Tudor's mistaken purpose . . . anyhow, the long 
 and the short of it is, if you are to benefit from this money, 
 Father Muldoon holds in trust for you, he requires that 
 you should return to Belvedere." 
 
 Adam sank into a chair and suddenly buried his face 
 in his arms. It seemed to him the world was crumbling 
 around him. "I'd rather die," he groaned. "I'd rather 
 die." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy's tone remained cold. "You are young to
 
 74 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 want to die," said he. "But, of course, even at thirteen it 
 is impossible to imagine circumstances in which one would 
 be better dead." 
 
 "I'd be much better dead," Adam answered in a sing- 
 song of self-pity, "than back at Belvedere with Tudor tor- 
 menting the life out of me." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy laid his hand on his shoulder. "I agree 
 with you there," said he. "But some of us are not entirely 
 without influence, and I think it might be possible for you 
 to go back to Belvedere without having much to fear from 
 Father Tudor. At all events I could promise you that at 
 the first sign of his attempting to lay hand on you you could 
 march out of class then and there without anyone daring to 
 stop you." 
 
 For an instant Adam had a darkling vision of his defying 
 Father Tudor with his fingers to his nose, but his stomach 
 sickened even at this view of the good priest, and he shook 
 his head. "I don't want to go back to Belvedere," said he. 
 "I loved it once, but Tudor's made me hate it for ever and 
 ever." 
 
 "But supposing your whole future may depend on your 
 pleasing Father Muldoon in this," Mr. Macarthy urged. 
 "Suppose on the one hand it's a question of your meeting 
 his views and being brought up in ... in what he and your 
 godfather Mr. O'Toole would call a gentlemanly way and 
 your being thrown on the streets to earn your own liveli- 
 hood again, which would you deliberately prefer?" 
 
 Adam sprang up and faced his guardian with a crash of 
 his little fist upon the table. "The streets any day," he 
 cried. Mr. Macarthy held out his hand. "That's right," 
 he said, "and so would I. The streets any day, by God." 
 He took a turn up and down the room, then suddenly 
 caught Adam and swung him up in his arms and laughed 
 at him. "Good man," said he, "the streets any day." Then
 
 GOING TO SCHOOL 75 
 
 he sat down with Adam in his lap. "It won't be the streets 
 while I live," said he. Adam began to feel quite fond of 
 Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 He tried to think of something nice to say to him. "It 
 was very kind of you to give me that bicycle," he said. 
 
 "Was it?" said Mr. Macarthy, "and to let you strain your 
 little entrails out trying to ride it; I suppose that was very 
 kind of me, too?" 
 
 "I was thinking of the second bicycle more than the first," 
 said Adam frankly, and was a little surprised that Mr. Mac- 
 arthy roared with laughter, but seeing that he did so, thought 
 it polite to imitate him, and so they both laughed until the 
 tears ran down their cheeks; but in his heart Adam saw 
 nothing at all amusing in straining his inside from falling 
 off a bicycle. His laughter was really a rejoicing at the 
 thought that for sure now he need never go back to Bel- 
 vedere. 
 
 "Tell me," said Mr. Macarthy at last, "what really you 
 would like to do." 
 
 Adam's eyes swept the walls for inspiration. "What 
 were you doing at my age?" he asked. 
 
 "At your age," said Mr. Macarthy, "I was at Clongowes 
 . . . you know Clongowes?" 
 
 Adam nodded. "Clongowes Wood, the boarding-school 
 in Kildare." His face fell. "Father Tudor came from 
 there." 
 
 "Well, anyhow he's not there now," Mr. Macarthy pointed 
 out, "so would you like to try how that would agree with 
 you?" 
 
 Adam had a happy inspiration. "Old Muldoon would 
 think that as good as going to Belvedere ?" he asked. 
 
 "I daresay he might," Mr. Macarthy said, "if we put it 
 to him in the right spirit." 
 
 Adam somewhat wistfully sought still a loop-hole of
 
 76 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 escape from doing what he thought Mr. Macarthy wished 
 him to do. "D'ye think Mr. O'Meagher would approve?" 
 he asked. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy's eyes had what seemed to Adam a mis- 
 chievous, look. "Why should he not approve?" he said. 
 "At all events you heard him the other day very strongly 
 disapprove of your doing nothing. . . . Mind you, I don't 
 say that you're doing nothing, but that is how your present 
 existence appears to Mr. O'Meagher, who is, after all, in 
 his own opinion at all events, as good a judge of boys as 
 I am." 
 
 Adam shifted from one leg to the other. "I don't want 
 to go to Clongowes unless you want me to," he said, and 
 seeing that his guardian was slow to answer pushed what 
 he thought to be his advantage. "You don't want me to go 
 there, do you?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy looked him straight in the face. "Adam," 
 said he, "I've always tried to be frank with you; I really 
 don't know whether I want you to go or not. If I were to 
 consider myself alone and had complete faith in my own 
 ideas to say nothing of my being sufficiently well off 
 to be able to carry them to their logical conclusion I am 
 under the impression that I would risk keeping you with 
 me, but I feel myself bound in honor to try to meet Father 
 Muldoon's views in every way I can. Also as I tell you, 
 it is very much in your own interest that you should do the 
 same. Now if I were in your position I would try Clon- 
 gowes . . ." 
 
 "I don't mind trying it," Adam blurted. 
 
 "Very good, then," said Mr. Macarthy, "try it. That is 
 all I ask; it is quite possible that you may be happy there, 
 and if you are everyone will be pleased : no one, I give you 
 my word of honor, can be more pleased than I ... Try 
 it for one term anyhow, the new one is beginning now and 
 three months brings you to Christmas, that term you must
 
 GOING TO SCHOOL 77 
 
 stick if you go there at all, but if when I see you at Christ- 
 mas you can give me any good and honest reason for not 
 going back, then I promise you that whether Father Mul- 
 doon, or for the matter of that anyone else, finds it a suffi- 
 cient reason or otherwise, back you shall not go." He took 
 a turn up and down the room, and then paused again before 
 the boy. "Come, how's that for a bargain between us?" 
 
 Adam seized the proffered hand. "I'll do anything on 
 earth you like," said he, and added almost in a whisper, 
 "I've no right to bargain with the like of you." 
 
 So it was arranged that to Clongowes Adam should go. 
 Father Ignatius Steele blessed the arrangement and even 
 Father Muldoon himself appeared to commend it. Mr. 
 O'Meagher was particularly gracious and took to himself 
 no little credit for the advice upon which he believed Mr. 
 Macarthy to be acting. For the rest he reminded Adam 
 more than once that at Clongowes he would have every op- 
 portunity of learning Gaelic. "Sure there are men there 
 speak it like natives," he declared. 
 
 Adam looked at him surprisedly. "Do natives speak 
 Gaelic?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher tied himself up in an effort to answer 
 this question: so Mr. Macarthy came to the rescue: "The 
 natives of Ireland commonly speak English," he said. 
 
 "More shame to them!" roared Mr. O'Meagher, but did 
 not show cause. 
 
 On the whole going to Clongowes was capital fun; for 
 what seemed to Adam a most elaborate trousseau had to 
 be purchased, and he had the town-bred boy's instinctive 
 joy in shopping. A less agreeable item was going to say 
 farewell to his mother at 7 Pleasant Street. She received 
 him in state in a room all red paper and queer gimcracks. 
 The interview was very short ; for Mr. O'Toole was there, 
 too, seeing her on business. When Mr. O'Toole came, so 
 far as Adam remembered, he always came on business ; but
 
 78 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 what the business was never appeared. Mrs. Macfadden 
 gave him five shillings for himself and a kiss strongly 
 flavored with Guinness's stout. "Never forget to say your 
 prayers," she admonished him, "particularly to the saints. 
 St. Kevin of Glendalough was a lovely saint. I'd pray to 
 him if I were you every morning, noon and night, the more 
 the merrier." 
 
 His godfather gave him half a sovereign. "Always let 
 on to be a gentleman," said he, "and if anyone says you're 
 not kick the tripes out of him."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 CLONGOWES WOOD COLLEGE 
 
 To say good-by to his mother and his peerless god-father 
 was one thing, but to say farewell to Herr Behre and to 
 Mr. Macarthy and to Attracta and perhaps above all to the 
 bull's-eye lantern through whose intermediary he had made 
 the acquaintance of the poets and notably Mr. Keats, was 
 another. He had thought of taking the bull's-eye lantern 
 with him, but all his guardians agreed in saying that to do 
 so would be to risk its confiscation by the Society of Jesus. 
 Herr Behre had at first argued that it was reasonable for a 
 boy to have a bull's-eye lantern and a gross interference 
 with the rights of the subject to forbid a schoolboy to carry 
 one about with him. But Mr. Macarthy said that the pro- 
 tection of the rights of the subject had never been a plank 
 in the Jesuit platform, and indeed since their suspected 
 association with the frustrated exploit of Mr. Guido Fawkes 
 the Jesuits had been tetchy on the subject of such methods 
 of illumination. Adam did not fully perceive the drift of 
 this argument, but allowed himself to be persuaded to leave 
 the lantern behind. He tenderly folded it in many copies 
 of the Irish Homestead, full of pathetic recollections of a 
 certain goose, and brown paper and string withal, and 
 having sealed the whole with a stick of sealing-wax costing 
 rather more than the lantern, he committed the parcel to 
 the care of Attracta with assurance that she would end her 
 days in misery and probably spend eternity in the least 
 agreeable surroundings if she lost it or attempted to ascer- 
 tain its contents. 
 
 Where he expected Attracta to conceal it from the morally 
 
 79
 
 80 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 sleepless eyes of Miss Gannon, he had not the time to 
 think, nor did Attracta think about it in her romantic desire 
 to have a secret with the young Master, as she now called 
 him, that none but the two of them should share. It is 
 probable that while Adam was at school that parcel per- 
 formed a steeple-chase through the house with such rapidity 
 that even Miss Gannon's gaze failed to keep pace with it. 
 It were as indelicate to pursue Attracta's strategems in de- 
 fense of the young Master's property as those of Miss 
 Flora Macdonald in the preservation of the person of the 
 Young Pretender: waking or sleeping it was seldom far 
 from her. 
 
 But meanwhile Adam started on his journey into the un- 
 known. Mr. Macarthy himself drove him on a car to 
 Kingsbridge station, and about five o'clock of a chilly 
 autumn afternoon handed him over to the care of a tall and 
 amiable young Jesuit with longish hair whom Adam had 
 never seen before ; his name was Mr. Beam, and he was in 
 charge of a party of boys mostly of Adam's age or a little 
 older, who swarmed in and out of certain second-class car- 
 riages reserved for their accommodation. Adam quite 
 frankly clung to Mr. Macarthy when the moment came for 
 them to part, and he was conscious of a vaguely luxurious 
 notion that Mr. Macarthy clung to him. He thought there 
 was a new kindness in his guardian's voice as he whispered 
 in his ear, "There, there, old fellow, don't cry; that will 
 be bad for both of us and a bad beginning for your school 
 days . . . you can see Beam's a decent fellow and he'll 
 look after you . . . he's Third Line Prefect, so you'll be 
 under him . . . good-by," then there was just a blur, a 
 slamming of doors, a whistling, and the train was off. 
 
 The last journey Adam had taken by train was from 
 Sandycove to Westland Row, after his inglorious collapse 
 from his bicycle near Glasthule Church. He reflected that
 
 CLONGOWES WOOD COLLEGE 81 
 
 the only railway he had ever traveled on was the South 
 Eastern, commonly called the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wex- 
 ford. And by that he had never gone farther than Bray, 
 only thirteen miles or so. Now he was going to Sallins, 
 which was five miles more: he felt that as a traveler he 
 was getting on. He perceived at once that the train he was 
 in now ran much more softly than any he had been in 
 before ; it almost seemed to glide along, and even going 
 over points you only just felt it. The Southern and West- 
 ern was the great line surely, but he was not sure that he 
 did not miss a little that galloping feeling you had on the 
 Wicklow and Wexford ; you always had it : no matter how 
 slow you went, the train always bumped as if it were going 
 quite fast . . . that was a jolly sort of feeling, to bump. 
 Of course, you could bump a bit too much, like on a car 
 in Brunswick Street . . . 
 
 Such were his thoughts when he was conscious of the 
 green eyes of a lively-looking, though rather pale and sickly, 
 boy in a Norfolk jacket and long trousers, and a very deep 
 Eton collar round his neck, staring at him with a sort of 
 contempt. This boy said : "A penny for your thoughts." 
 
 "I don't want a penny," Adam answered, "for I have a 
 lot of money in my pocket . . ." 
 
 "How much?" asked the other boy promptly. 
 
 Adam began to reckon. "My mother gave me five bob, 
 and Mr. O'Toole gave me ten, and . . ." 
 
 "Who's Mr. O'Toole ?" asked the other boy. 
 
 "Mr. O'Toole is my godfather," said Adam submissively. 
 
 "How does he come to be your godfather?" the other boy 
 asked. 
 
 "I suppose he was asked to be," said Adam thoughtfully. 
 
 "Who asked him?" insisted the other. 
 
 Adam again took thought. "I dare say it might have 
 been my mother."
 
 82 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "Why didn't your father ask him ?" 
 
 Adam felt himself thrown on his defense. "How do you 
 know he didn't ask him?" he returned. 
 
 But the other maintained his attitude. "How do you 
 know he did?" 
 
 "I never said he did," said Adam ; "I only said it wasn't 
 for anyone to say he didn't." 
 
 "'Don't be cheeky," said the other boy. 
 
 "I'm not cheeky," said Adam. 
 
 "You are." 
 
 "I'm not." 
 
 "I say you are." 
 
 For a moment Adam was inclined to deal severely with 
 his interlocutor, but he swallowed the desire and held his 
 peace. The other boy looked round the compartment to 
 make sure they were not observed, and then said in a low 
 voice, "I say you are cheeky," and then, as Adam still held 
 his peace, he repeated, "I'll teach you to be cheeky." 
 
 Adam felt that the enemy had left a pretty hole in his 
 armor. "I dare say you could teach me a lot I don't want 
 to learn," he said, with a tolerable imitation of the manner 
 of Mr. Macarthy. The next instant he was conscious of a 
 vicious kick on his ankle. 
 
 "I'll teach you . . ." began his new acquaintance, but 
 his speech ended in a shriek; for Adam had no sooner felt 
 the toe of his tormentor's left foot touch his right ankle 
 than he ground down his own left heel on the other's right 
 toe, and seemed to that gentleman to clamp it to the floor 
 of the carriage. 
 
 "Go on teaching me," said Adam kindly. 
 
 "Pax," said the other ; "oh, pax !" 
 
 Adam's smile had the grimness of youth in pain, and his 
 gentle tone was grimmer still. "You began it," said he; 
 "it's for me to say when it'll end."
 
 CLONGOWES WOOD COLLEGE 83 
 
 "I didn't begin anything," said the other. "Let me go, 
 I tell you, you young brute." 
 
 "Go on teaching me," said Adam again. 
 
 The other was now sobbing. "If you don't let me go 
 I'll tell Mr. Beam," said he. 
 
 "What'll you tell him?" asked Adam derisively. "That 
 I trod on your toe, eh?" 
 
 "I'll tell him, I'll tell him," babbled the other. 
 
 Adam cut him short: "If you tell him anything more 
 than that you'll tell him a lie," said he; "but you may tell 
 him what you like for all I care only keep your dirty feet 
 to yourself in the future"; and with that he released him. 
 
 For the rest of the journey the youth in the Eton collar 
 swore strange oaths of grief and pain, and threatened 
 vengeance into the depth of his Norfolk jacket; but Adam 
 took no further notice of him, devoting himself entirely to 
 the attempt to discover, by some anticipated change in the 
 landscape and fauna, where the county of Dublin ended and 
 that of Kildare commenced. Then, suddenly, they were at 
 their journey's end, without his solving this problem. 
 
 Adam clambered out with his impedimenta, which, chosen 
 for him by Mr. Macarthy, were of a nature for a boy to 
 handle ; then he saw the other boy struggling with a sort 
 of chest which had been hidden under the seat, and offered 
 him a hand with it. 
 
 "I don't want your help," he grumbled, but, nevertheless, 
 availed himself of it. Then, again, followed a blur, and 
 the next thing Adam knew was that he was trying to climb 
 up on a car and that his right leg refused to help him. His 
 ankle had already caused him to shamble from the carriage 
 to the road outside the station, but there were cheery hands 
 ready to help him, and someone swung him up and, seeing 
 him in pain, gave him the more comfortable seat to ride on. 
 His train companion had disappeared, and his immediate
 
 84 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 neighbor now was a more attractive looking boy, with fair 
 hair and a rather girlish face, a couple of years older than 
 himself. 
 
 "If you're not used to car driving," said this boy, with a 
 soft accent, strange to Adam's ears and a pleasant undu- 
 lating roll which gave the word "car" an indefinite number 
 of syllables "if you're not used to car driving you had 
 better hold on tight, for an outside car on a country road 
 is queer driving with the night falling, and you never know 
 when a wheel may rock over a ditch if the driver is not as 
 teetotal as some." 
 
 "I'm not afraid of falling off," said Adam stoutly, "but 
 I'll hold on if you tell me to." 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, the night was not yet falling, 
 and the sun was barely sunk by the time the train of cars 
 had covered the few miles of autumn-decked roadway be- 
 tween Sallins station and the entrance to the school avenue. 
 Adam opened his lungs to the country smells, of which the 
 dominant note was peat smoke. Greatly he enjoyed the 
 ride, and would have thought it too short but that the desire, 
 the greatest desire of youth, the satisfaction of curiosity, 
 added many fanciful furlongs to each mile. 
 
 Bowling up the drive he glimpsed a castle, such a castle 
 as you see in a pasteboard theater, and believed himself in 
 the presence of immemorial antiquity. "I suppose now," 
 he said to his neighbor, "Clongowes will be a thousand years 
 old at least?" 
 
 "Hardly that," said the other, without show of erudition, 
 "but I dare say it might be a hundred, or even more." He 
 added, thoughtfully: "Daniel O'Connell sent his sons to 
 Clongowes." 
 
 "But, sure, Daniel O'Connell himself only died about 
 the time Herr Behre was born," Adam cried, disappointed 
 that the school should be such a comparative novelty. 
 
 "I don't know when Herr Behre was born," the other
 
 CLONGOWES WOOD COLLEGE 85 
 
 simply replied, "but I know Daniel O'Connell died before 
 I was born. And anything that happened before you were 
 born always seems a long time off, doesn't it?" 
 
 Adam's voice piped sympathetically : "Doesn't it seem an 
 awful long time? I used to think that nothing had hap- 
 pened before I was born." 
 
 "So used I," said the other; "but that's all nonsense, of 
 course, for History happened and all that." 
 
 Adam advanced philosophically the proposition: "Some 
 say History isn't true." 
 
 His new friend looked at him with lovable eyes. "I dare 
 say English History isn't true," said he, "but Irish History 
 is, of course." 
 
 "Of course it is," said Adam doubtfully, adding: "I never 
 read any . . . except for fun." 
 
 "Shame on you," cried the other, half seriously. "The 
 idea of reading the History of Ireland for fun! There's 
 no fun about the History of Ireland, I can tell you." 
 
 Adam shook his head knowingly. "Mr. Macarthy says 
 there's fun about everything if you look at it in the right 
 spirit." 
 
 "What Macarthy is that?" the friendly boy asked him, 
 and then, without waiting for an answer, cried : "Here we 
 are !" 
 
 There was a blur again, a blur of smoking horses after 
 the sharp drive, gray light around outside, and a big door 
 open, with light inside, against which stood black-frocked 
 men with clean-shaven faces and birettas on their heads, 
 reminding him of the shadows of crown loaves, and people 
 were shaking his hands, and a fatherly voice was saying, 
 "Welcome to Clongowes !"
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 ADAM IS BIDDEN TO KEEP THE FAITH 
 
 FEW boys forget their first night at a boarding-school, and 
 Adam's memory was of a kind to register even less notable 
 events. More than to most of them was it strange to him 
 to be, as it were, afloat in a sea of boys: so far he had 
 lived in a world of men ; for the youngsters with whom he 
 had rubbed shoulders when he sold his papers outside the 
 Gresham Hotel and in Stephen's Green verily did not be- 
 long to the world of children, the world of nurseries and 
 Father Christmas. Perhaps even to-day there are few 
 children permitted to know childhood in families of a rank 
 far below the middle class. At all events, in Adam's time 
 there were few children compared with the number of em- 
 bryo wage-earners, or, as the stocky man with the black 
 mustache whom Adam had seen Mr. Macarthy salute on 
 the steps of Liberty Hall called them, wage-slaves. 
 
 Perhaps it was Father Ignatius Steele's sentimental, as 
 some thought, appeal for the right of children to be chil- 
 dren, that first endeared him to Adam. He somehow sus- 
 pected that Father Muldoon held that only souls of some 
 social position were really worth the trouble of saving, at 
 all events by his reverence. And Adam had no reason to 
 suppose that Father Muldoon was worldlier than other 
 priests, though he wore a markedly shinier tall hat. Mr. 
 OToole himself had praised the gloss of Father Muldoon's 
 tall hat, and Mr. O'Toole, whatever his foibles, was a stern 
 critic of male apparel : Adam remembered the days when 
 his costume was ragged to the verge of indelicacy, but 
 
 86
 
 ADAM BIDDEN TO KEEP THE FAITH 87 
 
 never had he worn a coat which had not at some period, 
 however remote, been the last thing in fashion. 
 
 Somehow Adam's thoughts were full of Mr. O'Toole as 
 he lay down to rest that first night in his cubicle at Clon- 
 gowes. His mind recurred to the conversation with the 
 boy who had attacked him in the train: the boy who had 
 asked him who was Mr. O'Toole . . . why should people 
 ask him who was Mr. O'Toole? . . . and why was it that 
 he did not really properly know the answer to this ques- 
 tion? . . . Who was Mr. O'Toole? . . . His godfather? 
 . . . Why was he his godfather? Because his mother 
 wished it. And why did his mother wish it ? He scratched 
 his head. Some day he must ask Mr. Macarthy why his 
 mother wished Mr. O'Toole to be his godfather . . . and, 
 now he came to think of it, Mr. O'Toole was supposed to 
 be a sort of guardian to him too, but he never interfered 
 with what Mr. Macarthy did. . . . Nobody interfered with 
 what Mr. Macarthy did. . . . Mr. O'Meagher seemed want- 
 ing to interfere, but nothing came of it all. . . . But, 
 then, Mr. O'Meagher was not a strong man, whereas Mr. 
 O'Toole, he felt in some mysterious and sinister way, was 
 a very strong man indeed. . . . Perhaps that was because 
 he had the Castle behind him. . . . Mr. O'Meagher had the 
 disadvantage of having the Castle against him. . . . Mr. 
 Macarthy had the Castle . . . was it for or against him? 
 Adam could not make out which. When Mr. Macarthy 
 mentioned the Castle he did so as carelessly as if it were a 
 public lavatory : something that you might use or you might 
 not, but hardly the sort of place where a gentleman would 
 like to be seen employed ... it must be a very queer place, 
 the Castle ; for he remembered now that Mr. O'Toole always 
 spoke of his friends employed there as "gentlemen from the 
 Castle" ... so Mr. Macarthy and Mr. O'Toole held dif- 
 ferent opinions as to what a gentleman was, or, at all events, 
 what a gentleman ought to do ... it was a very queer
 
 88 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 world. How could you be a gentleman when no two people 
 agreed as to what a gentleman was? He remembered tell- 
 ing Father Innocent he was a gentleman and Father Inno- 
 cent's annoyance at the suggestion. . . . Now, was Father 
 Innocent annoyed because he really was a gentleman or be- 
 cause he really was not? . . . Anyhow, Mr. O'Toole's in- 
 structions were if anyone said he was not a gentleman to 
 perform a violent operation on him with his boots . . . but 
 he didn't think it worth making a fuss about whether people 
 questioned his gentility or not. 
 
 The bed he was lying in was very hard, not that he had 
 been accustomed to lying soft, even in the comparative 
 luxury of St. George's Place, but the flock on which he was 
 lying now was, as it were, monastically hard, a sort of pre- 
 monition of the hard bed the Christian was bound to make 
 for himself wished he ever to take his ease on the heavenly 
 throne. . . . Adam turned from side to side, thinking the 
 heavenly throne uncommonly far away, and wondering 
 whether it was really worth while taking a lot of trouble 
 to be an angel. Somehow angels had lost any definition of 
 outline since Father Innocent died; up to then he had seen 
 them as beautiful and satisfying to the eye, and no less ob- 
 jective in their bodily charm than the three heavenly visitors 
 who had caused such a sensation when they visited the 
 cities of the plain . . . not that Adam knew much about 
 that wonderful visit or the tribulation that it had cost a 
 worthy and far from proud patriarch. That is the disad- 
 vantage of being a little Catholic, that you are encouraged 
 to love your holy faith but not to make too intimate an 
 acquaintance ^ with it. Adam had never conceived of any 
 angel as being of the male sex, with the possible exception 
 of himself ... of course, there was Father Innocent, but 
 somehow even Father Innocent did not readily lend him- 
 self to the essential scheme of decoration ; he could not 
 think of Father Innocent in heaven wearing any costume
 
 ADAM BIDDEN TO KEEP THE FAITH 89 
 
 more fanciful than that which he wore at the altar, and had 
 a horrid suspicion that if the sweet little saint had been 
 given wings he would at once have toppled on his nose . . . 
 yet a Heaven without Father Innocent, transfigured or 
 plain, would have been emptier to Adam than a heaven 
 without God. 
 
 Adam never wanted to join Father Innocent in heaven, 
 though often he lay awake at night longing with a heart- 
 breaking passion for him to return to earth ... in the 
 daytime he often forgot him, but surely as he woke in the 
 night his first thought was of him, and that he was dead, 
 never to be seen again, and his tears would wet his pillow; 
 for Adam felt that Father Innocent's was the kingdom of 
 heaven, while his will was to inherit the earth, and he knew 
 that to no man was given a place in both these realms. 
 Even Mr. Macarthy strongly insisted, as strongly as did 
 Father Steele himself, that no man could worship God and 
 Mammon too. To be sure, Adam was not conscious of 
 worshiping Mammon, but in his heart he knew that he did 
 not worship God. He never at any time had worshiped 
 God, though he had passionate moments when he thought 
 of God's mother and God's son . . . how did God's mother 
 become the mother of His son? That sounded like a ques- 
 tion in the Catechism, but he did not remember any answer 
 to it. In the daytime a question like that seemed of no 
 importance, but at night. . . . Why did questions that 
 seemed so trifling in the daytime loom so large at night? 
 ... Of course, God the Father and God the Son were the 
 same person . . . but, then, if they were, what was the use 
 . . . and the Holy Ghost? Where, exactly, did He come 
 in ? ... Did the Blessed Virgin marry them all, and Joseph 
 too? . . . Perhaps there was someone at Clongowes who 
 could tell him that. The first man who shook hands with 
 him at the door looked very clever someone said he was 
 Father Bernard James ; on the prospectus of the school,
 
 90 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Father Bernard James was named as spiritual director; so 
 he ought to be able to tell him all about the Blessed Virgin 
 and which of the Blessed Trinity she really married. . . . 
 But was she really married? The Catechism said nothing 
 about her marrying anyone but Joseph : it was all very 
 vague. . . . Now, in the Roman Mythology, they told you 
 definitely what happened, as when Jupiter turned himself 
 into a bull or a swan or some other old thing when he 
 wanted to get married. . . . But then, of course, the ancient 
 gods got married as often as they liked, the modern Chris- 
 tian God could only get married once. For him to have had 
 more wives than one would never have done at all. ... It 
 was a queer thing that the three Divine Persons should have 
 had only one woman between them, and that she should 
 have had all the three of them, and Joseph as well. . . , 
 Lady Bland had said that his mother was like the Blessed 
 Virgin . . . could Lady Bland have been right after all? 
 . . . The late Mr. Macfadden had not been at all like 
 Joseph. . . . Nor was Mr. O'Toole at all like . . . Like 
 who? What nonsense was he thinking now. . . . After 
 all, that bed was not so hard that he could not go to sleep 
 on it, still wondering whether Mr. O'Toole was or was no; 
 like some historical person, he could not quite remember 
 whom; but, anyhow, he dreamt of Mr. O'Toole with white 
 wings and a wand in his hand, and was presently awakened 
 by the ringing of the Angelus. 
 
 He rubbed his eyes and looked around, wondering for 
 the moment where he was ; the dusky light of a September 
 morning was breaking in the dormitory, notably in a dis- 
 traught chequer on the ceiling: that patch of the ceiling 
 visible above the white curtain that screened off his parti- 
 tion from the gangway . . . the bed was very hard, but not 
 so hard that he was unprepared to go again to sleep upon it. 
 . . . From the partitions round him came gentle snorts and 
 murmurs, the ripplings of adolescent slumber on the shores
 
 ADAM BIDDEN TO KEEP THE FAITH 91 
 
 of day: but not only he was awake; for from one partition 
 came a rattle of crockery, and from another the winding of 
 an immeasurable watch-spring, in another someone, possibly 
 still asleep, was saying his prayers ; Adam pricked his ears 
 to listen to it ... yes, it was the prayer of St. Bernard 
 ... he once had fallen asleep saying the prayer of St. 
 Bernard, his invisible neighbor promised to wake up saying 
 it ... it was a queer thing to say prayers in your sleep 
 . . . did prayers said in your sleep count? Or were they 
 just wasted breath. . . . Perhaps, if prayers said in your 
 sleep counted, you could train yourself to say them all the 
 time you were asleep : that would be a great saving. . . . 
 He was not quite sure what it would save, but it seemed 
 clear that it must save something. . . . But, then, prayers 
 were no good without intention, and how far was it pos- 
 sible to have intention in your sleep? . . . On the whole, it 
 seemed unlikely that prayers said in your sleep received 
 equally high marks in heaven with those said when you 
 were awake. . . . He was dozing off when an electric bell 
 buzzed fiercely, and a moment later he heard a door open 
 and a swish of priestly garments moving down the room, 
 while a voice said sharply : "Now, boys, time to get up !" 
 It required no great effort that morning for Adam defi- 
 nitely to shake off slumber and swing himself out of bed. 
 He had already learnt that there was no question of having 
 a morning tub or any hot water ; it was no joke washing the 
 whole of his person in that narrow space between the par- 
 tition wall and the bed, but he managed it somehow by in- 
 stalments, though he splashed the whole place with water 
 when he sat in his basin ; the water coursing along the floor 
 into the gangway drew the dormitory prefect's attention, 
 and Adam, sitting in his little shirt on the bed, with his feet 
 in the basin, was roused by the startled question: "Have 
 you had an accident?": through round spectacles the no less 
 startled infantile eyes of the prefect gazed on him, imme-
 
 92 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 diately to disappear again with a murmured "Oh ! that's all 
 right, that's all right, I thought you'd had an accident, I 
 didn't know you were washing, I thought you'd had an 
 accident." The voice sped off repeating as it went, "I didn't 
 know you were washing, I thought you'd had an accident, 
 I didn't know you were washing, that's all right, I didn't 
 know you were washing, that's all right, I thought " and 
 so deceased. Adam was still brushing his teeth when the 
 voice came again : "Hurry up, my boy, hurry up ! No time 
 to lose, you'll be late for chapel." 
 
 Adam protested respectfully: "I'm brushing my teeth, 
 sir," and the voice answered, "Never mind that now, you'll 
 be late for chapel." And in effect Adam was the last, or 
 one of the last, of a queue of tousled little boys clattering 
 downstairs and along an endless corridor into the chapel, 
 where a voice was already saying: "In the name of the 
 Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." 
 Which set Adam thinking at once upon the question of Mr. 
 O'Toole. 
 
 Nevertheless, he made his responses with proper energy 
 and impressed the prefect in charge as being a pious as well 
 as an exceptionally tidy little boy. And not only was the 
 prefect impressed by him, particularly by his clean and 
 rather pretty color as he came panting to his place, but he 
 was unconscious of being noticed favorably or otherwise: 
 he was preoccupied with alternate thoughts about his rela- 
 tionship to Mr. O'Toole and the hope that he would be 
 given tea for breakfast that would be less undrinkable than 
 that which had almost turned his stomach on his arrival the 
 night before. 
 
 Alas, the tea at breakfast seemed almost worse than he 
 had drunk the night before; but his neighbor, a red-haired 
 boy from Kerry, insisted that it could not be worse. "For 
 sure," said he, "it's the same mucky old tea over again, the
 
 ADAM BIDDEN TO KEEP THE FAITH 93 
 
 same as you had last night, only maybe with more jollop 
 in it." 
 
 Adam wondered what "jollop" was, but his instinct told 
 him that it would be indelicate to inquire. "It makes me 
 sick, the taste of it," said he. 
 
 The other boy leered at him mockingly. "You've a 
 mighty fine stomach," said he, "for I never heard of jollop 
 making anyone sick yet. . . . Sure isn't it there to keep 
 you from being sick ?" 
 
 "Is it?" said Adam politely. "I didn't know." 
 
 His neighbor called down the table, "Say, you fellows, 
 here's a beggar didn't know what jollop was for." 
 
 Some boys seemed amused by this and others not. Adam 
 felt that he preferred the boys who did not. He looked 
 about the room wishing he could catch sight of the boy 
 who had driven up from the station with him the night 
 before, but he was not visible ... he tried to discover 
 from his neighbors who he was, but not being able to give 
 him a name or describe him in terms which called up any 
 image to their inattentive minds, he got no help from them. 
 At his own table, but not near him, sat the boy who had 
 assailed him in the train ; Adam had seen him also about the 
 passages and was under the impression that he occupied one 
 of the cubicles in his dormitory, but he vouchsafed no more 
 than a surly half -nod of recognition ; on the other hand, 
 Adam saw from the glances of his neighbors that his tongue 
 had not been silent on the subject of their meeting. What- 
 ever he may have said on that subject no one since then 
 had offered to bully him . . . the worst thing that had hap- 
 pened at Clongowes so far was the tea; but there was no 
 gainsaying that was a very evil thing indeed. After break- 
 fast Adam's impressions began to blur again ; there was a 
 good deal of indeterminate hurrying about up corridors and 
 down corridors, into class-rooms and out of class-rooms,
 
 94 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 into the great study over the refectory and out of it again, 
 and down to the box-room to unpack things and so on ; 
 and a great deal of ringing of the big bell at the angle of 
 the two great corridors and an hour or so in the playground 
 which bored him stiff, for he was quite without the art of 
 playing with other boys and without the desire to acquire 
 it. What he would have liked to do was to take out his 
 bicycle on the cinder-path, he had never ridden a bicycle on 
 a cinder-path yet, but he felt that etiquette if nothing else 
 forbade a new boy to do this at once. 
 
 As a set-off against this, Mr. Beam, finding him standing 
 alone near the cricket-patch on the Third Line playing- 
 ground, gave him a few kind words in the intervals of 
 keeping the peace among his brawnier charges, and as he 
 walked back alone from the play-ground a kindly hand was 
 laid on his shoulder from behind and he found himself look- 
 ing up in the face of Father Bernard James. 
 
 "Adam, my dear boy," said he, "tell me, are you happy 
 at Clongowes?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Adam mechanically, adding with caution : 
 "I mean, sir, I hope to be." 
 
 Father James smiled genially. "That is right," said he, 
 "if you hope to be happy you will be happy . . . always 
 provided that you hope in the right spirit ... and I know 
 you have the right spirit." 
 
 "How do you know, sir?" Adam asked. 
 
 Father James laughed outright, though very softly and 
 as it were roundly, "God bless you my dear boy, we know 
 all about you here," and then gravely, making the sign of 
 the cross upon his forehead, he added, "Keep the faith, 
 Adam Macfadden."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 FATHER CLARE'S SURPRISING OBSERVATION 
 
 YES, Adam's hope that he should be happy at Clongowes 
 seemed quite likely of fulfilment. To begin with, everyone 
 he met, at all events among those in authority, spoke to him 
 as if their intentions towards him were at least kindly; and 
 Adam, even more than other boys, was susceptible to the 
 veriest implication of kindliness. He was willing to believe 
 that he was being treated well even when he was not. At 
 Clongowes none apparently sought to treat him ill : Mr. 
 Beam, the Third Line Prefect, was notably kind, being, 
 indeed, kind to all but a few obviously provocative boys. 
 . . . Adam thought to some he was foolishly kind ; for 
 many who showed the Prefect a servile face mocked at him 
 and his slightly finicking way behind his back. Father 
 Bernard James, too, in an older and more sophisticated 
 manner, the fine shades of which Adam was yet too young 
 to analyze, showed him a winning amiability. 
 
 Less attractive in person, but perhaps most appreciative 
 of all, was Father Clare, the master of the class in which 
 Adam was placed, confessedly as an experiment : he was 
 young for Father Clare's Class, but Father Clare seemed 
 anxious to keep him in it if he himself did not shirk the 
 work. A short man and stout was Father Clare : he looked 
 to Adam to bear a refined and spiritualized resemblance to 
 Lady Eland's butler . . . even he who had introduced him 
 to the dread luxury of a bath in her ladyship's house in 
 Fitzwilliam Square, in those distant days when he was still 
 a little ragamuffin, dreading soap and its smell rather worse 
 
 95
 
 96 
 
 than the brimstone which his father had prophesied would 
 make an end of Mr. O'Toole. . . . Adam was a little 
 shocked to know that this bright and engaging little priest 
 was known to his pupils, simply by reason of his hooked 
 nose and rounded tummy, as "The Toucan." . . . True, 
 Adam did not know what a toucan was, but he judged from 
 a drawing that appeared one day on the blackboard ere 
 Father Clare entered the class-room that it was some absurd 
 kind of bird . . . reference to the natural history book in 
 the Third Line library confirmed this impression. So much 
 so that Adam regretted consulting it; for the picture of the 
 toucan there so closely resembled Father Clare in certain 
 aspects at his less dignified moments that Adam himself, 
 grateful as he was to him, and conscious of his essential 
 goodness underlying his grotesqueness, dared not always 
 look him in the face. . . . Making his first confession to 
 Father Bernard James, Adam expressed his contrition for 
 his inability to refrain from laughing at Father Clare ; but 
 even saintly Father James did not appear to think that it 
 greatly mattered whether one laughed at Father Clare or 
 not. 
 
 Father Clare himself was quite unconscious of any lack 
 of respect on Adam's part, and showed as real a desire to 
 help him in his work and to further his education within 
 his own limitations as had Father Strong or anyone else at 
 Belvedere. Adam found himself once again really inter- 
 ested in Latin and eager to avail himself of his new master's 
 good offices in introducing him to Greek. . . . English came 
 to him so naturally that he could keep his place in the class 
 at that without consciously studying it ... the question 
 now arose: should he study Gaelic? . . . Happy thought! 
 He would ask Father Clare, and accept his decision. 
 
 "Gaelic," said Father Clare, "Gaelic! You are good 
 enough to ask me whether I think you ought to devote your 
 attention to the study of Gaelic. Well, well, Gaelic Ha!
 
 FATHER CLARE'S OBSERVATION 97 
 
 hum ! the question is whether I should advise you to study 
 Gaelic or not. . . . Am I right in saying that that is the 
 case?" 
 
 Adam answered very respectfully : "Yes, sir, it is," though 
 he was suffering inwardly from a desire to grimace or 
 worse over Father Clare's immediate and pressing effort, 
 as it were, to realize the picture of the toucan in the natural 
 history book, a resemblance that was made all the more 
 absurd because Father Clare happened to be wearing his 
 biretta, a head-dress which threw up into preposterous re- 
 lief the more toucanesque of his features. The conversa- 
 tion took place, not in the class-room, but in the corridor 
 between the school house and the old building, where they 
 had happened to meet outside the minister's door; between 
 that and the door by the refectory, up and down the passage, 
 his master marched him while they discussed the subject; 
 and Adam could not help noticing that, keeping step with 
 the plump priest, his young feet rebelliously outpaced the 
 man's: even in the matter of his legs poor Father Clare 
 resembled a toucan. 
 
 But the mentality behind the ludicrous mouth was not the 
 dullest Adam encountered on his way through the world. 
 Father Clare was an educationalist not merely by accident 
 but by temperament : he loved to learn, and even to impart 
 learning, despite the dire physical handicap under which he 
 labored, to all he could persuade to listen to him. For 
 Adam's hearing and heeding little brain he had conceived 
 an almost passionate affection. While he walked apparently 
 so foolishly up and down, repeating in his chattering tone, 
 "Gaelic: is that the question?" in his heart he was praying 
 that he might advise this young mind, that had honored him 
 by seeking his advice, with a wisdom that was worthy of his 
 confidence. His instinctive prejudice, strengthened in him 
 by his own schooling, was in favor of the curriculum com- 
 mon to all Jesuit schools since the first was opened at
 
 98 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Salamanca. But he strove manfully to suppress all preju- 
 dice in advising Adam. 
 
 "My dear boy," said he, "I am nothing of a Gaelic scholar 
 . . . for the matter of that, I am not a scholar at all. But 
 I mean that, while I can speak Latin perhaps better than the 
 average man who is not a scholar, and can read Greek 
 fairly fluently, at all events well enough to be interested in 
 it, I cannot speak Gaelic at all nor read any difficult text 
 without the help of at least the dictionary ... so, in a 
 purely literary sense, it would be vain of me to pretend to 
 be able to decide the value of Gaelic as compared with 
 Latin or Greek." He put his arm through Adam's: "Tell 
 me, did you think of studying it as a living or a dead 
 language ?" 
 
 It had not occurred to Adam whether he regarded Gaelic 
 as a living or a dead language : he could not even decide, on 
 the spur of the moment, whether he thought of it as a living 
 language or not. He hazarded the question: "There are 
 people speaking Gaelic still?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said Father Clare; "in Ireland alone 
 there are many thousands who have practically no other 
 language." 
 
 "Then," said Adam, "it is a living language, isn't it?" 
 
 Father Clare hesitated, anxious not to give an unfair 
 answer : the easy official answer, not necessarily untrue, that 
 it was moribund. "Gaelic is, in a very real sense, a very 
 special sense, a most excellent sense, a living language," 
 said he; "for some of the liveliest brains in Ireland are 
 devoting themselves to the task of making it again the 
 dominant language of the Irish nation." He coughed, as 
 though to turn things over in his mind. "I am assuming, 
 for the sake of this discussion, that there is an Irish nation 
 . . . many hold that there is not . . . but I myself incline 
 to the view that there is an Irish nation . . . rightly or
 
 FATHER CLARE'S OBSERVATION 99 
 
 wrongly, there is an Irish nation . . . yes, there is an Irish 
 nation." 
 
 "What, exactly, sir," Adam asked, "what, exactly, is a 
 nation ?" 
 
 Father Clare paused, and clapped him on the back : "Ah, 
 there," said he, "there you have a very old and difficult 
 question. What is a nation? ... I don't know whether 
 you have ever read Shakespeare's Henry V.t" 
 
 Adam confessed he had not. The world of the theater, 
 even in its printed form, was not intimately known to him ; 
 Hamlet he had read, and Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet, 
 perhaps some others he had glanced into, but he found them 
 difficult reading and dull, save for a few set speeches here 
 and there ; Macbeth was the only one that held his attention, 
 without too many breaks of incomprehensible matter. 
 
 "In Henry V.," said Father Clare, "we have Shake- 
 speare's only portrait of an Irishman ... it is not a very 
 flattering portrait : he represents him as a noisy and quarrel- 
 some soldier, and makes him the more foolish by contrasting 
 him with a perhaps equally quarrelsome but less fatuous 
 Welshman." 
 
 Adam's patriotic spirit was up in arms at once : "I never 
 could stand Welshmen, sir," said he. 
 
 Father Clare turned to look at him. "Is that so?" he 
 said gently. "Now, tell me why." 
 
 Adam, somewhat at a loss, replied : "Taffy was a Welsh- 
 man, Taffy was a thief, Taffy came to my house . . ." but 
 felt this was an overstatement, and stopped. 
 
 "Do you mean," Father Clare asked, "that you yourself 
 know a Welshman who is a thief?" 
 
 Adam indignantly disclaimed all personal knowledge of 
 Welshmen; whereupon Father Clare sighed. "I did not 
 expect you, Adam, to talk so foolishly," said he. 
 
 Adam, rather irritated than crushed, regretted that he had
 
 loo ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 done Father Clare the honor to consult him about his 
 studies. 
 
 But Father Clare was too interested in his educational 
 ideas to notice more than very superficially Adam's fallen 
 face. "It is always foolish to repeat cant phrases about 
 things, and more especially persons, of whom we have no 
 actual knowledge. When Shakespeare painted his Irish 
 soldier, and painted him as a braggart, if not actually a base 
 fellow, he gives us the impression that the portrait, however 
 malicious, is done from life. . . ." 
 
 Adam's quick brain and almost quicker tongue inter- 
 posed : "But didn't Shakespeare live in the time of Queen 
 Elizabeth?" 
 
 "Why, yes, of course," said Father Clare; "he was born 
 in 1564, when she had not been long on the throne, and 
 died in 1616, just thirteen years later than she." 
 
 "Then Henry V." said Adam, "was dead near a century 
 and a half before Shakespeare was born; so how could he 
 have painted one of Henry's soldiers from life?" 
 
 "True," said Father Clare, "he could not, and I appreciate 
 your smartness in raising that objection; but he could paint 
 an Irish soldier of his own time from life, couldn't he?" 
 
 "I suppose he could," Adam reluctantly admitted, adding, 
 still unwilling to concede the point, "if he knew how." 
 
 "I think we may take it," Father Clare smilingly said, 
 "I think we may take it that Shakespeare knew how." He 
 cleared his throat and added, a little in the manner of Mr. 
 Flood at Belvedere, but with less youthful pomposity: 
 "Shakespeare was a man of genius." 
 
 "What, exactly, is genius?" Adam asked. 
 
 Father Clare answered with trepidation : "Let us take one 
 question at a time. You asked me just now what was a 
 nation, and I was about to tell you that Shakespeare's Irish 
 soldier, Captain Macmorris, asks more or less the same 
 question: 'What is my nation?' he says, 'What is my
 
 FATHER CLARE'S OBSERVATION 101 
 
 nation?" 3 Father Clare abruptly stopped. "After all, 
 what does it matter what he says? The question is not 
 what Shakespeare thought but what we think a nation is." 
 
 As he fell silent, Adam volunteered the observation that 
 he himself had not thought very much about it. Father 
 Clare seemed rather relieved at this than otherwise. "To 
 tell you the truth, Adam," said he, "I do not think it of 
 very great importance for you to know what a nation is; 
 the great thing for you to do is to learn your lessons: 
 politics we can leave till later on. . . . Speaking for myself, 
 as a priest I have, of course, no politics." 
 
 Adam remembered that the first time he had met the 
 Provincial, that is to say, the head of all the Jesuits in Ire- 
 land, Father Muldoon, that great man had insisted on this 
 point of priests having no politics; promptly, the question 
 framed itself on his lips: "Why have priests no politics?" 
 
 Equally promptly Father Clare answered : "Because they 
 are priests . . . and priests are, or ought to be, exclusively 
 concerned with religion." He patted Adam's shoulder: 
 "You understand that, don't you ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Adam politely, though as a matter of 
 fact he did not. 
 
 Father Clare looked at his watch : "But we were discuss- 
 ing the question whether you ought to learn Gaelic, and my 
 advice to you, on the whole, is, that you will not try to learn 
 more at present than you are already learning; you are one 
 of those boys who can learn anything, and learn it pretty 
 easily; your pit-fall in life, so far as your education goes, 
 will be a tendency to acquire a smattering of everything and, 
 perhaps, learn nothing really well. My advice, for what it 
 is worth, is not to try to learn more than you are doing now ; 
 but if you want to learn Gaelic I will not stand in your 
 way. Even before taking a final decision, I would advise 
 you to talk to Father O'Gorman: he is, as you know, a 
 real Gaelic scholar; I warn you that if you take up Gaelic
 
 102 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 under him he will not allow you to play with it, as many 
 masters would." 
 
 "I think," said Adam, "I'll leave Gaelic alone for the 
 present." 
 
 Father Clare held his hand a moment, and his absurd, 
 bird-like eyes had a wistful, anxious look as he said : "Mind 
 you, you mustn't let me influence you; I may be wrong; 
 and any time you want to see Father O'Gorman I'll put 
 your case before him. He and I don't agree about every- 
 thing, but he is far more learned than I, and I would bow 
 to his decision." 
 
 "I don't think I'll trouble him yet, anyhow," said Adam ; 
 "I see you don't think Gaelic is necessary, and I'm pretty 
 sure Mr. Macarthy doesn't think so either." 
 
 Father Clare, about to release him, turned and caught 
 his hand again. "Mr. Macarthy?" he repeated, "What Mr. 
 Macarthy is that?" 
 
 "My guardian," Adam answered, "Mr. Stephen Mac- 
 arthy." 
 
 Father Clare lifted his biretta and put it on the back of 
 his head. "Mr. Stephen Macarthy?" He took a pinch of 
 snuff. "Not Stephen Macarthy who was here at Clongowes 
 years and years ago?" 
 
 "He was at Clongowes, sir," Adam answered. "I don't 
 know how long ago, but he told me he was here at my age," 
 he added in a burst of confidence, "and that's why I'm here 
 now." 
 
 "Dear, dear, to think of it!" said Father Clare. "To 
 think of Stephen Macarthy being your guardian." He 
 broke off, and asked, with an absurd air of suspicion, "Are 
 you sure Father Muldoon isn't your guardian ?" 
 
 "No, sir," Adam answered firmly, "he is not. Mr. Mac- 
 arthy is my real guardian." 
 
 Father Clare's curiosity carried him away, and he became 
 for a moment as a talkative parrot. "You're sure Stephen
 
 FATHER CLARE'S OBSERVATION 103 
 
 Macarthy is your guardian? ... I thought it was Father 
 Muldoon. . . . But it's Stephen Macarthy. ... To be sure, 
 to be sure, Stephen Macarthy, your guardian well, well." 
 He looked at Adam very hard : "Why, now I come to think 
 of it, you're the living image of him." He broke off, and 
 crushed his biretta down on his nose. "Never mind now, 
 never mind ; good-by, good-by, God bless you." He heaved 
 a deep sigh. "Stephen Macarthy, Stephen Macarthy, we 
 were boys here together." He dropped his voice mys- 
 teriously. "I'll tell you a little secret, Adam: Stephen 
 Macarthy was a great loss to the Church, and I wonder 
 now if God in His Providence has not sent you here to take 
 his place." He shook his hand once more. "Good-by, 
 Adam Macarthy; God bless you." 
 
 Adam had reached the door to the school house when 
 he called him back hurriedly. "Adam," he cried, "Adam!" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Adam, turning back, and finding him in 
 great confusion. 
 
 "Did I say Macarthy just now? I meant of course, 
 Macfadden," he chattered, and added what seemed to Adam 
 the astounding sentence : "You need not tell anyone what I 
 said to you about Mr. Macfadden being a great loss to the 
 Church."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ADAM IS ADVISED NOT TO DISCUSS HIS 
 MOTHER 
 
 ADAM had not been a week at Clongowes ere he forgot the 
 hardness of his bed ; he had not been there a fortnight be- 
 fore he ceased to struggle with the difficulties in washing 
 himself, and was content to be as Isabel-colored with regard 
 to those parts of him not exposed to the air, as were the 
 other boys . . . that cleanliness is next to godliness has 
 never been an article of faith in the Catholic Church . . . 
 perhaps it is a pagan virtue . . . perhaps, when all is said 
 and done, there is no virtue in it. ... Anyhow, Adam was 
 content to do as Rome does : he was as tidy as any other 
 boy, perhaps the tidiest of those with whom he came in 
 contact. Other things there were at Clongowes to which 
 he easily accommodated himself, but there was one which, 
 twice a day, roused him to physical and mental revolt . . . 
 The tea. The thought of that tea haunted his sleep, and 
 one morning in the third week he was at the school he 
 thought of it at morning prayer, and that thought, on an 
 empty stomach so early in the morning, chased him out of 
 chapel. . . . He had barely cleared the sacred precincts when 
 it seemed.to him that all the tea he had tried to drink since 
 he left Dublin was up in arms against him, determined to 
 make a sight of him before the world. . . . He was not 
 quite clear what happened, but he heard a lay-brother say, 
 "Dear, dear, what's that now; what's that?" and he was 
 marched down the breezy covered way dividing the school 
 house from the infirmary. 
 
 In the infirmary, a lady bearing an astounding resem- 
 
 104
 
 ADAM IS ADVISED 105 
 
 blance to Attracta grown rather elderly, in spectacles, looked 
 at his tongue and prescribed for him. He understood her 
 to say that she didn't think him bilious, and that she was 
 asking him if he suffered from nerves, and Adam politely 
 answered that perhaps he suffered a little from nerves, but 
 he thought he suffered much more from the tea. The lady 
 smiled sympathetically. "1 wouldn't drink that tea," said 
 she, "if I was never so. Would you like a cup of my 
 own?" 
 
 Adam said he would, and it was given him ; and this kind 
 lady, confident in her diagnosis that he was not bilious, 
 added several rounds of buttered toast, which he consumed 
 with greater gusto than anything he had touched for some 
 weeks. Then the two of them talked about literature in which 
 they were equally interested, although it did not appear that 
 she was acquainted with any of the works in which he was 
 interested, nor he with any which interested her; still, their 
 conversation was very friendly; for she told him many of 
 the best passages from Handy Andy, laughing over them 
 the while, and he for his part recited to her the Ode to a 
 Grecian Urn, to be rewarded by the observation that she 
 would have liked it better if it had been an Irish urn. 
 
 "Are there Irish urns?" Adam asked, glad to find some- 
 one acquainted with the question of urns. 
 
 "Of course there are," said she; "the country's full of 
 them. My sister was housekeeper to Canon Fricker at 
 Killinaman, and his reverence had three and more he never 
 used." 
 
 "What are urns really used for?" Adam asked. 
 
 She looked at him surprisedly. "Wasn't I telling you 
 his reverence never used them at all?" she said, and 
 would have been for dropping the subject if Adam had not 
 clung to it. 
 
 "Were they at all like Grecian urns?" he asked. 
 
 "What's a Grecian urn like ?" asked she, and he was still
 
 io6 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 undecided whether to give it up or repeat the poem over 
 again very slowly so that she could question him on any 
 point that she thought needed clearing up, when the kitchen 
 door opened and Father Denver came in. Father Denver 
 was the minister, a portly priest and not very young, but 
 with a quick and joyful step and a round and jovial voice, in 
 no way resembling the Jesuit of the Evangelical or even 
 the Benedictine tradition, a man incapable of crooked 
 or cruel acts. So far Adam had seen little of him, but he 
 stretched out his arms as if they were the oldest friends and 
 roared with a benevolent laugh: "Well, well, just look at 
 him ! To see the poor sick fellow filling his rum-turn with 
 the buttered toast. Run for the doctor, run for the doctor." 
 This exhortation was addressed to empty air. The lady in 
 charge of the infirmary said she did not think there was 
 much the matter with Adam. 
 
 Father Denver gravely waggled his head from side to 
 side: "Tut, tut," he said, "a dreadful case, a dreadful 
 case. . . . Buttered toast on the brain and visibly working 
 downwards. Whatever shall we do?" 
 
 "I think," said the lady, "he might go back to the 
 school now." 
 
 But Father Denver still shook his head. "Oh, no, no, 
 no," said he, "never do. Smelling of buttered toast like 
 that, he'd corrupt an angel. We'd have the whole school 
 coming in here to eat buttered toast." Then he came down 
 to business. "I hear you don't like our tea," said he. 
 
 Adam confessed that he did not. 
 
 "Very well, then," said Father Denver, "we'll compro- 
 mise over it. In future you shall come to second breakfast, 
 where they bring you a fresh pot of tea all to yourself ; but 
 in the evening, if you want to drink tea at all, I'm afraid 
 you'll have to drink what's good enough for the boys. 
 How's that now?" 
 
 Adam thanked him very heartily, as indeed he had reason
 
 ADAM IS ADVISED 107 
 
 to be grateful, for second breakfast with the select half- 
 dozen proved to be a very cozy meal, quite unlike any other. 
 You had unstinted rolls and butter and what seemed to him, 
 after the past few weeks, the most exquisitely fragrant 
 freshly-made tea. Could he have had the same thing at 
 night, the -cup of his physical happiness had been full to 
 overflowing ... as it was, he consoled himself at supper 
 by the thought of how much he would enjoy his break- 
 fast. 
 
 Also, second breakfast was to be enjoyed for the reason 
 that he found among the little company there the pleasant 
 boy who had driven with him on the car from Sallins sta- 
 tion ; his name was Dominic Cahill. He was in the Lower 
 Line, and two classes higher than Adam in the school, but 
 condescended to him without any show of arrogance. Soon 
 he came into Adam's prayers for those he loved. 
 
 Dominic Cahill, it took Adam a little time to realize, was 
 one of the brightest lights of the school : he had an extraor- 
 dinary capacity for learning what he was taught while shut- 
 ting his apprehension and locking it against the possibility 
 of any casual knowledge. Give him the dullest school book 
 and he would faithfully commit it to memory . . . but he 
 could read the newspaper through without understanding a 
 word of it. In him Adam felt that he had found his intel- 
 lectual complement ; for they had no common knowledge 
 but much common kindliness. 
 
 Adam opened their conversation by introducing himself 
 as the boy whom Master Cahill had helped on to the outside 
 car at Sallins station some weeks before, and he had the 
 kindly answer, "I remember you. How's your ankle?" 
 
 Adam thanked him and said his ankle was quite all right. 
 "I only had a bit of a kick on it," he explained. . . . Domi- 
 nic said kicks could be very sore, and Adam, quite forgetful 
 of the one that he himself had launched into a vital part of 
 his putative father, said they didn't hurt really.
 
 io8 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Dominic Cahill gazed at him with a grave, lovable, ox- 
 like eyes. "You are a brave lad," said he. 
 
 "Oh, go on," said Adam, "not a bit." Though he knew 
 himself to have fished shamelessly for some such tribute 
 to his valor. 
 
 He was unprepared for his companion's next speech. "I 
 hope you are as brave as that morally. . . . It's easier to be 
 brave physically than morally." Having said this, Dominic 
 winced, and added: "I know I sound awfully priggish, 
 because I'm not good at expressing myself, but what I say 
 is true ... at least I think so. ... I mean, I've been 
 told so." 
 
 Adam did not need to be told that originality was not his 
 new friend's salient characteristic, but he felt no desire to 
 laugh at him any more than he had desired to laugh at 
 Father Innocent. "Yes," said Adam, "I've heard Mr. Mac- 
 arthy say the same thing." 
 
 "Mr. Macarthy?" repeated Dominic; "is that the same 
 Mr. Macarthy you spoke of before?" 
 
 "Yes," said Adam, who really was under the impression 
 that there was only one Mr. Macarthy in the world and 
 that everyone ought to know all about him. 
 
 But Dominic Cahill's school books said nothing of Mr. 
 Macarthy, nothing of any living Macarthy, so Dominic dis- 
 creetly asked for more information about him. 
 
 Now that it came to the point, Adam found it difficult to 
 say anything very informative about his guardian. He fur- 
 nished Dominic with his full name and address, and then 
 the fountain of his information ran momentarily dry. 
 
 Dominic tried to help him. "I see," said he, "he's your 
 guardian, and he lives in Mountjoy Square, Dublin." 
 
 "Yes," said Adam, buttering his roll, "that's it: he's my 
 guardian, and lives in Mountjoy Square, Dublin." 
 
 "And, of course, he's a very kind man," Dominic took 
 for granted.
 
 ADAM IS ADVISED 109 
 
 "Fearfully kind," Adam gurgled enthusiastically, with 
 his buttered roll in one hand and his tea-cup in the other, 
 and his mouth compounding the contents of both. 
 
 Cahill further predicted that he was a good Catholic, and 
 then Adam nodded vigorously: "Topping!" said he, and 
 then emptied his mouth to add: "Father Clare says he was 
 a great loss to the Church." 
 
 Dominic's face fell, and he asked solemnly: "What do 
 you suppose Father Clare meant by that ?" 
 
 Adam's tone fell into harmony : "I thought it meant that 
 everyone here must have thought a lot of him." 
 
 "Oh," said Dominic reflectively, "was he here as school, 
 or what was he here for ?" 
 
 "He was here at school," Adam said; "when he was my 
 age he was here at school." 
 
 "And how long did he remain here ?" Dominic asked. 
 
 "I've no notion," Adam confessed, adding apologetically : 
 "I really don't know much about him. . . . You see, he only 
 became my guardian a few months ago, and I'd never heard 
 of him before that." 
 
 "You'd never heard of him before that?" Dominic re- 
 peated; "then, I suppose, you hardly know whether he ful- 
 fils his religious duties or not?" 
 
 Adam was up in arms at once in Mr. Macarthy's defense. 
 "Oh, rather!" he cried; "he goes to long mass every 
 Sunday." 
 
 Dominic was unconvinced: "There's many go to mass 
 that are not good Catholics," he declared. 
 
 Adam was pained by his doubts. "I bet you anything 
 you like, Mr. Macarthy's a good Catholic," said he; "what 
 on earth makes you doubt it?" 
 
 From sheer good-nature, Dominic hesitated about reply- 
 ing, but, repeatedly urged by Adam, he said at last: "I 
 should have thought, from what you tell me, Father Clare 
 said that Mr. Macarthy may have been a spoiled priest."
 
 no ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 From his companion's tone Adam scented something 
 vaguely demonic. "What is a spoiled priest?" he asked in 
 a hushed voice. 
 
 But Dominic refused further to be drawn: "If you don't 
 know already, it's not for me to tell you, nor for me to risk 
 making a scandal about a man I never heard of before in 
 jny life. . . ." 
 
 "But you might tell me what a spoiled priest is?" Adam 
 urged. 
 
 "I will not," Dominic answered firmly, and inquired, to 
 turn the conversation, how it was that Adam came to be at 
 second breakfast. 
 
 It was unconsciously diplomatic of Dominic to lure 
 Adam's attention from the interesting subject of his guardian 
 to the most interesting of all subjects himself. He readily 
 informed his friend even of the smallest detail relative to 
 the reasons for his coming to second breakfast. Nothing 
 was too sordid or too trivial to be overlooked in connection 
 with this matter ; he pursued it so far as to throw out a hint 
 that the only good thing he knew about his mother was that 
 she would not drink tea that had not been freshly made. It 
 was on the tip of his tongue to say that she would not drink 
 tea at all if she could get porter, but he refrained from this, 
 as, perhaps, impugning that claim to gentility on his part 
 which Mr. O'Toole had exhorted him to uphold at all costs. 
 
 His heart sank as he read in Dominic Cahill's patient eyes 
 that he was a little shocked by his tone in speaking of his 
 mother. 
 
 "Some mothers are better than others, no doubt," said 
 Cahill, "but I think there was ne'er a mother yet that didn't 
 suffer a great deal for her children's sake." 
 
 "You mean . . ." said Adam. 
 
 Dominic reddened. "You're too young for me to say ex- 
 actly what I mean," said he; "but if I were you, Macfadden, 
 if I couldn't talk about my mother more nicely than that I
 
 ADAM IS ADVISED in 
 
 wouldn't talk about her at all." He waited for his words 
 to sink in, and then added : "Anyhow, I'm not going to 
 talk with you about her." To emphasize his words, he 
 turned away, and addressed himself exclusively to the few 
 others at the table. 
 
 Tears stole down Adam's cheeks as he finished his but- 
 tered roll, and one fell into his tea-cup. . . . He felt very 
 much inclined to use the naughty language of the Dublin 
 gutters to his new acquaintance. . . . But his longing for 
 the sympathy of Dominic Cahill won an easy victory over 
 his momentary irritation, and as the latter rose from the 
 table Adam jumped up and followed him out. Just by the 
 refectory door he caught him, and when it had closed be- 
 hind them and they were alone in the reentering angle of 
 the corridor he said to him plaintively : "Won't you talk to 
 me any more ?" 
 
 Cahill's dully beautiful eyes looked into his. "Of course," 
 he said slowly, "I'll talk to you about anything that is not 
 against my conscience." 
 
 "Thanks, old man," said Adam, "thanks awfully." And 
 so began their friendship.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 
 
 HAPPY as Adam was at Clongowes, and even, compared with 
 his last months at Belvedere, modestly successful, the 
 Christmas holidays approached none too quickly for him. 
 The very joy of discussing second breakfast with placidly 
 virtuous Dominic Cahill paled before the thought of sitting 
 once again at table with Mr. Macarthy or even Herr Behre. 
 While at Belvedere Adam had already savored the delight 
 of possessing a home: he had learnt to look longingly 
 through the window at the honest and far from ugly clock- 
 face of St. George's Church; for it was jocund to reflect 
 that a face identical with that which envisaged him was 
 looking down into the window of the little room which held 
 the works of Mr. Keats and the bull's eye lantern which 
 added so greatly to the luxury of reading them. . . . He 
 had brought that dumpy book containing Keats to Clon- 
 gowes with him, but, in the absence of the bull's eye lantern, 
 they failed to command his attention. The presence of the 
 volume, however, in his desk did not escape the attention of 
 the study prefect, and he was summoned before the rector 
 to explain his harboring it. There was a further charge of 
 concealing in the same desk a complete and unexpurgated 
 edition of the works of Shakespeare which Adam had bor- 
 rowed from Herr Behre, with the, as we have said, unful- 
 filled intention of mastering them. 
 
 Crowded recollections of foolish punishments for supposi- 
 titious offenses at Belvedere lent Adam's walk some trepida- 
 tion as he made his way to the rector's room in the old 
 building: it is a cheerless thing to pace long corridors and 
 
 112
 
 HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 113 
 
 climb high stairs to judgment, and all the more if your 
 earliest experience has been of the cruel fatuity of your 
 elders. And so far Father Rector was little more than a 
 name, a cloudy name of majesty to Adam. Adam had heard 
 that he was a good man : he had heard that he was not : he 
 had no idea what to expect from him. It was a relief to 
 find him entirely charming, most reasonable, actually flatter- 
 ing. . . . "For," said Father Rector, "it is unusual for a 
 boy of your age to have such books as these in his desk, but, 
 it is unusual for a boy of your age to take a serious interest 
 in literature. ... I am afraid there is no other boy of your 
 age in the school who is equally interested in the master- 
 pieces of the English language." He looked closely at 
 Adam : "I take it that you really keep these books to read 
 and not in order that you may point out certain loose and 
 reprehensible passages to other boys ?" 
 
 Adam truthfully assured him that such an idea had never 
 entered his head, and Father Rector went on urbanely : "Of 
 course not; I should never dream of accusing you of such 
 a thing . . . though it has been done, it has been done, to 
 my knowledge it has been done ; even," he sighed, "even with 
 the text set down for our special study by the Government." 
 He cast his eyes upon the Falstaffian volume of Shakespeare 
 and the dwarfed Keats which lay on the desk in front of 
 him. "I am convinced," he said, "that you would never use 
 either of these volumes for an immoral purpose . . . but I 
 am less sure of others ; to show my confidence in you, I am 
 content to give them back to you, on condition that you 
 never allow them to pass out of your own hands so long as 
 you remain at Clongowes." 
 
 Adam eagerly gave his undertaking, and Father Rector 
 handed him the volumes ; then he turned to another publica- 
 tion lying in front of him, which Adam recognized as an 
 odd number of the Boy's Own Paper which he had 
 bought for the sake of a colored picture of birds' eggs. . . .
 
 ii4 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 It had been an ambition of Adam's once to go and find a 
 bird's egg somewhere, sometime; so far this had not been 
 carried out, but you never knew when this picture might be 
 useful, if a bird happened to lay an egg somewhere handy. 
 As the good priest's eyes descended on it, his expresion be- 
 came extremely grave, and he turned the pages, making dis- 
 tressful sounds the while. "Yes," he said at last, "those 
 two books you may keep, but this, I fear, I must burn." 
 Possibly noticing the bubbling question on Adam's lips, he 
 added: "A boy of your intelligence, so well read in many 
 respects, ought to have known that the whole tenor of this 
 production is contrary to faith ... it must burn." Then 
 he held out his hand and opened the door : "I absolve you 
 from all evil intentions ; keep your Shakespeare . . . keep 
 your Keats . . . but, remember, it is most important of all 
 to keep the faith. Mind the step. Good-day." . . . And 
 that was that. 
 
 From this ordeal Adam returned with the proud heart of 
 a conqueror, and little boys who had seen him depart, and 
 believing him to be going to some form or other of chastise- 
 ment, had whispered to him sympathy of a back-stiffening 
 nature, were disgruntled (though they might not admit it) 
 to see him return, as it were, transfigured and glorified. . . . 
 For was he not the only boy in the Third Line permitted to 
 keep an unexpurgated Shakespeare, to say nothing of the 
 more recondite works of Mr. Keats, in his desk? . . . Not, 
 indeed, that any other boy in the Third Line had the smallest 
 desire to possess either of these volumes, though there were, 
 perhaps, some had been tempted by an offer of a volume 
 containing only those parts of Shakespeare which Mr. 
 Bowdler had cut from the poet's corpus, and to discover 
 which for oneself was a labor too tedious. 
 
 No incidents of interest comparative with this arose dur- 
 ing that first term at Clongowes: if he knew no greater 
 triumph than his return from the rector's room, neither did
 
 HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 115 
 
 he experience any trepidation comparable with that of going 
 thither. That first term at Clongowes, save for its begin- 
 ning and its ending, made a gray, pleasantly gray, patch in 
 the lively pattern of Adam's life, but the Breaking-up day 
 was vivid enough. The rising with the other boys by arti- 
 ficial light (no second breakfast to-day, thank you), the 
 gleam of hoar frost on tree and road-way, suggesting to 
 picturesque and romantic young minds that the highways 
 could not be traversed by horses at all, nor eke foot pas- 
 sengers unless provided with alpen stocks, were rich with 
 the essence of romance, though Adam, with all the town 
 boy's credulity as to the phenomena of nature to be ob- 
 served in the barbarous regions beyond the tram-lines, was 
 seriously perturbed by the thought of impassable roads, and 
 maybe snow-bound trains, impeding his return to within 
 sound of St. George's bells. It was a weight off his mind 
 when the grinding of wheels and cracking of whips, sharp 
 as pistol firing, in the frosty air, announced the arrival of 
 the first cars at the portal of the old house, and presently 
 to find himself seated on one, beside no less a person than 
 Father Bernard James, drawn by a horse at something like 
 a gallop in the direction of Sallins railway station. What 
 a fine thing it was to be alive that morning! Even Father 
 Bernard himself forgot to be anything but just jolly, as if 
 no such terrific and, on the whole, rather annoying, thing 
 as religion had ever entered his mind. 
 
 And then there was the train, which, to Adam, was like 
 being home already; for he really considered his life to 
 have begun on the day when he and Caroline Brady made 
 themselves so very much at home in one, in the mystical 
 darkness of Dalky tunnel. Adam had already noted that 
 there was no tunnel to speak of between Kingsbridge and 
 Sallins : this he regretted, as indicating the unfinished con- 
 dition of the otherwise commendable railway line connect- 
 ing these geographical expressions.
 
 u6 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 The day was yet young when he reached Kingsbridge 
 . . . and there oh, joy ! was Herr Behre, with outstretched 
 arms, awaiting him. 
 
 Adam had many faults of vanity, but not that priggish 
 form which forbade him to accept, in the spirit they were 
 offered, of Herr Behre's hugs and kisses. . . . Nor was he 
 so callous as to fail that moment to remember that the only 
 other occasion on which the musician had kissed him was 
 the day that Father Innocent had died. He was thinking 
 this, and of how, perhaps, he owed to Father Innocent him- 
 self, now Saint Innocent, maybe helping God's Mother to 
 hang the walls of heaven with holly and ivy for Christmas, 
 or to pack up toys for St. Nicholas to drop down chimneys, 
 this same Father Innocent who had remembered him in his 
 dying hour and, likely, the last prayer he said, the happiness 
 of the friendship of Herr Behre, and of Mr. Macarthy, and 
 of all the good people who had been kind to him since the 
 first and kindest of them all was dead. 
 
 And then there he was on another car, sitting with Herr 
 Behre on one side and the carman, heavier than the twain, 
 on the other, and his smart gladstone bag between them, 
 holding the clothes he would wear at Christmas and the 
 now historic editions of Shakespeare and Keats. To the 
 left, over Kingsbridge, with its handsome perspective of the 
 Liffey, from the fleet of Guinness's barges outside the brew- 
 ery to the blue-domed Custom House in the far distance, 
 and the proudly ported Four Courts holding a somewhat 
 lop-sided balance between the two. . . . Then the car 
 plunged into some fanciful short cut unknown to Adam and, 
 he suspected, but partially known to their driver, past a 
 queer old church, wherein, Herr Behre told him, were to be 
 seen the desiccated remains of men of alleged holiness whose 
 earthly crowns had long demised. . . . Adam's lively imag- 
 ination, more than ever active on this joyful day, readily 
 visualized them in the likeness of once human kippers. . . .
 
 HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 117 
 
 He accepted the view put forward by the carman that this 
 long tenure of their mundane exterior was a proof of their 
 full enjoyment of spiritual beatitude, but he preferred to 
 think of Father Innocent as charitably feeding worms at 
 Glasnevin. ... It was a little gloomy to think of death at 
 all on your way home for the holidays, and he wished the 
 carman, even for the sake of getting him home the faster, 
 had not chosen the road he did. (For Adam had an ever- 
 growing horror of anything that reminded him of the foul- 
 ness in which he had been born.) But when they emerged 
 into the light of something more like civilization, where the 
 west side of Rutland Square, here called Granby Row, joins 
 with that thoroughfare called Great Britain (or Parnell) 
 Street, Adam soon shook off all gloomy view of past or 
 future. 
 
 It occurred to him now for the first time, looking across 
 the horse's back at the tall red-brick Georgian houses, with 
 the gray of Charlemont House, built by the famous noble- 
 man of that name, but long since devoted to the purposes 
 of registering the births and deaths of the citizens of Ireland 
 (though Mr. Macfadden had been too patriotic to recognize 
 its existence), that Rutland Square was good to look upon, 
 and, passing up Gardiner's Row, he perceived that the 
 glimpse of Mountjoy Square, closing the perspective, had a 
 pleasantness not merely sentimental. He would have liked 
 to go straight to it, but the address given to the carman was 
 St. George's Place, and so past Belvedere, of which Adam 
 felt scornful now as a mere day-school, he turned his horse 
 to the left up Temple Street, and St. George's bells were 
 ringing ten as Adam fell into the arms of the faithful 
 Attracta. . . . "J esus > Mary, and Joseph, you have grown !" 
 said she, as though it would have been more reasonable for 
 him, being deprived of the care and consideration of herself 
 and her mistress, to have diminished. 
 
 And there was St. Kevin to be greeted. . . . Adam was
 
 u8 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 quite a long time trying to make up his mind whether St. 
 Kevin knew him or not. At first he thought he did ; for he 
 came forward, as Adam thought, to greet him, but it proved 
 to be his intention to describe geometrical figures in and 
 about Herr Behre's ankles. . . . But if St. Kevin did not 
 recognize him as an old friend, he was quite content, on the 
 strength of his intimacy with Attracta and Herr Behre, to 
 accept him as one who had moved in proper society. He 
 was even content to leave Herr Behre and Attracta herself 
 to follow Adam when Attracta had given him the parcel con- 
 taining his bull's-eye lantern. It is conceivable, though Adam 
 did not think of it at the time, that he was misled by the 
 odoriferous nature of the contents of this parcel into the 
 simple faith that Adam had brought him an uncommonly 
 succulent Christmas dish. 
 
 Adam's first act of proprietorship in his regained terri- 
 tory was to fill the bull's-eye lantern and to trim the wick. 
 That done, he placed it, with a box of matches and his 
 stunted Keats, in a nameless receptacle unlikely to be 
 searched by his austere landlady and yet to be reached with- 
 out leaving his bed, and, much gratified by his ingenuity, 
 proceeded with Herr Behre to Mount joy Square. 
 
 It was gratifying also to his physical vanity to find, as 
 they made their way through Temple Street and along Gar- 
 diner's Place, that he had no longer to move at a sort of 
 canter in order to keep up with Herr Behre's strides : two 
 paces to the musician's one kept them fairly level and caused 
 him no fatigue ; also he had not to crane his neck quite so 
 much to make his conversation audible. . . . He had a faint 
 hope that Attracta was, after all, right in allocating his re- 
 cent growth to the category of observed phenomena. And 
 this was strengthened by Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde, who, over- 
 taking them in Gardiner's Place, and receiving Adam's salute 
 as he passed by, jumped off his bicycle to turn back and say,
 
 HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 119 
 
 with the thunderbolt of a clap upon his shoulder: "What? 
 Adam Macf adden ? Why, I hardly knew you !" It is true 
 that he did not specify the causes which made Adam difficult 
 for him to recognize, but Adam was content to believe that 
 he had grown out of all recognition. 
 
 And, withal, the joy of his home-coming was dashed with 
 a sub-acid flavor. . . . He knew now what had troubled him 
 from the moment he had reached Kingsbridge, or, at all 
 events, had climbed on the car to leave Kingsbridge station, 
 until he found himself now on the north side of Mountjoy 
 Square, within a stone's throw of that door which had been 
 opened to him for the first time just nine months before. 
 . . . Nine months : what was the idea associated with the 
 term of nine months? . . . He gave it up. . . . But, any- 
 how, he knew why he was not altogether satisfied with his 
 reception in Dublin. He had been jubilant to see Herr 
 Behre waiting for him, but his face had fallen, as the heart 
 within him, when he realized that Herr Behre was come 
 alone to meet him. ... It was not Herr Behre who saw 
 him off, nor, after all, was Herr Behre his guardian. It is 
 true that he would not have been pleased to find Herr Behre 
 in the company of that one of his guardians whom his 
 mother had appointed : his esteemed godfather, Mr. O'Toole. 
 Even he had been but moderately pleased to find Herr Behre 
 had for a companion Mr. O'Meagher. . . . He could not 
 say why, but Mr. O'Meagher seemed fading out of the pic- 
 tures which he loved best to conjure up when dropping off 
 to sleep : so far as he existed at all as a memorable figure, 
 it was only by reason of his claim to be Josephine's father, 
 and, oddly enough, it required an effort of will to visualize 
 him in that relationship. . . . Adam thought he was fonder 
 of Josephine's father than of her mother, but he could see 
 her mother in Josephine : he could not see her father in her 
 even when that kindly man almost pathetically desired him
 
 120 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 to do so. ... He did not think Josephine was like her 
 mother, but for sure, whether it pleased him or not, she was 
 her mother's child. 
 
 His quick brain rehearsed all this between Gardiner's 
 Place and their destination, and all thought ended with the 
 conviction that, glad as he was to see Herr Behre waiting 
 for him at Kingsbridge, and grateful to him as he was for 
 coming to meet him, he would have been better pleased to 
 see Mr. Macarthy, and felt within him the rising resentment 
 of a jealous boy that Mr. Macarthy had not troubled to do 
 so. ... His spirits sank lower and lower as they approached 
 the door, but his smoldering resentment began to throw 
 out flame. 
 
 "I suppose," he snorted, "Mr. Macarthy was too busy to 
 think of meeting me?" 
 
 "Ach !" cried Herr Behre, absent-mindedly lifting him up 
 the steps with his long arm; "there, there, did I not tell 
 you? . . . He is not too busy to meet you, of course not. 
 . . . Did I not tell you he is ill." 
 
 Adam's spirits collapsed so utterly that he seemed to feel 
 them coldly lying equally divided between his boots. Simul- 
 taneously the flame of his resentment guttered ignominiously 
 out. ... It seemed to him that it was smothered by some- 
 thing that had got him by the throat. 
 
 It was in his nature to try to say something, but it ended 
 in nothing.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 MR. MACARTHY LIES IN BED 
 
 A LADY of no great age, dressed in a becoming costume, 
 which Adam associated with the non-religious staff of a 
 hospital, admitted them to Mr. Macarthy's sitting-room, 
 where Adam was too awed by the thought of his guardian 
 lying, perhaps, helpless behind the folding-doors, to feel him- 
 self at once at home. They were asked to wait a moment, 
 so they sat down while the nurse answered Mr. Behre's 
 questions as to her patient's condition. Adam was sur- 
 prised to learn that his guardian was a delicate man, re- 
 lieved to know that any danger there had been seemed 
 passed. The trouble had been with his lungs : the details 
 concerning it were discussed in terms he could not follow 
 . . . anyhow, the long and short of it was, his guardian was 
 well enough to see visitors he had seen some already that 
 day. . . . The flutter of skirts and a cheerful good-by, 
 spoken in a voice Adam seemed to know but could not name, 
 told that one, or perhaps more, departed now. 
 
 The nurse left them, returning in a moment to admit them 
 to the sick-room. Adam entered it with curiosity under- 
 lying his very real anxiety: he wanted to see not only his 
 guardian but his guardian's bedroom. Before giving him 
 the hip-bath, Mr. Macarthy had taught him the more ad- 
 vanced stages, still unknown to him, of the gentle art of 
 self-cleansing in his own bath-room at Mountjoy Square: 
 quite a luxurious tiled apartment it was, with a geyser and 
 other thermal furniture : Adam believed that it was the only 
 room in the suite that had no book in it, being consecrated 
 solely to Hygeia. He knew there were many books in his 
 guardian's bedroom from the glimpses he had caught of it, 
 
 121
 
 122 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 but these glimpses were few and far between ; for the owner 
 was always up and about betimes, and Adam had no excuse 
 to gratify his curiosity by passing the threshold until now. 
 . . . But there, at last, lay the man he thought so strong, 
 lying in bed like an elderly child, and waited on by a young 
 woman not so very unlike Sister who had nursed Adam's 
 own little self at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital. A sud- 
 den impulse, that momentarily drove even curiosity from his 
 mind, almost as though it were a shameful thing, flung him 
 on his knees by his guardian's bed. "I hope you're better, 
 sir!" he cried. 
 
 "All the better for seeing you," Mr. Macarthy cheerily 
 answered, and Adam felt there was still strength in the arm 
 that pressed him to rise until he rested on the bed. 
 
 Adam found himself playing "Little pigs went to market" 
 (taught him in infancy by Miss or Mrs. Robinson) with his 
 guardian's hand while he asked: "Why didn't you send 
 forme?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy laughed softly, a very kind laugh, Adam 
 thought. "And what would they have said at Clongowes if 
 I'd sent for you ?" he inquired ; to which Adam's reply was 
 a somewhat incoherent defiance of anyone at Clongowes who 
 might so far presume as to say anything. He was only con- 
 scious of Mr. Macarthy looking fondly in his eyes, and his 
 own eyes filled with tears as the sick man said: "If I had 
 been really ill I would have sent for you, but it doesn't do 
 to be hysterical." Then his tone changed : "Sit down over 
 there by the fire, Adam, and tell us all about yourself. Mr. 
 Behre will be as curious as I am to know how you got on at 
 Clongowes." He turned to the German : "You've never 
 been to Clongowes, have you?" 
 
 "No," said Herr Behre absent-mindedly, "and never will." 
 
 So Adam sitting by the fire told them of such things at 
 Clongowes as he thought would redound to his favor, with 
 just a little coloring of the ridiculous here and there that he
 
 MR. MACARTHY LIES IN BED 123 
 
 might not be suspected of romancing. It was impossible to 
 explain to Herr Behre why Father Rector had burnt the 
 Boy's Own Paper: "You will not tell me that it is on the 
 Index Expurgatorius ?" he pleaded. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy laughed. "Not in what somebody called 
 The Great Mother Index of 1608 that deals with Jerome 
 Cardan (whose name is perpetuated in the driving shaft 
 of our motors, some of them) and other big birds . . . but 
 the B.O.P. is implicitly on the index all the same. It's funny 
 but logical; for the paper in my time anyhow was frankly 
 evangelical and seriously analyzed there is no denying that 
 it was an elaborate and seductive, more or less seductive, 
 tract." 
 
 "Bah !" said Herr Behre, "I wish all you religious people 
 would burn each other's books." 
 
 "My church," Mr. Macarthy submitted, "does its best, as 
 Adam has found to his cost." 
 
 Herr Behre snorted : "You and your church ! Bah !" 
 said he. "You have no church . . . any more than I." 
 
 "Possibly less," said Mr. Macarthy, "for you have a faith 
 in the imminence of the social revolution, to say nothing of 
 its desirability, that I have not so far felt about anything 
 whatever." 
 
 While their talk went to and fro Adam had leisure at 
 last to give his curiosity free play and his eyes wandered 
 at large round the room. After all, it contained nothing 
 extraordinary. Mr. Macarthy lay in a rather large bed 
 from which he could look out on Mountjoy Square, with the 
 wintry sunlight now at noon, playing among the babies and 
 their perambulators in the central plot. Adam could see 
 the seats which had helped or promised to help him in his 
 efforts to learn the bicycle. He recalled, too, how several 
 times he had walked with Mr. Macarthy round that central 
 plot after mass on Sunday. He remembered Mr. Macarthy 
 telling him that it was two hundred and twenty yards in
 
 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 circumference; so eight times round it was a mile, and 
 across its center was rather more than seventy yards. 
 
 There had been a time when Mr. Macarthy used to run 
 across it, and eight times and more than that around it, too ; 
 but that belonged to a remote past, since when much water 
 had run under Butt and other bridges. And Mr. Macarthy 
 had seen it run under many bridges; for he had not spent 
 his whole life in Mountjoy Square. Waterloo Bridge, Adam 
 had heard him speak of, and the old bridge at Walton that 
 was also on the Thames, and Magdalen Bridge which was at 
 Oxford, and the Forth Bridge and the Brig o' Doon, both 
 in Scotland, and many foreign bridges : the Pont Neuf and 
 the great bridge over the Hollandsch Diep and the pontoon 
 bridge linking Ehrenbreitstein with Coblenz ; and bridges 
 yet farther afield in Italy and Russia, and away in Asia 
 itself, and home again, east about by the Brooklyn Bridge, 
 \vhich Adam had heard described by Father Innocent on 
 the authority of hearsay and a picture postcard as a wonder 
 reducing the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to insignificance. 
 
 His guardian must have had an extraordinary life, yet 
 there was little in his bedroom to show it. The wall-paper 
 where it was visible behind the books and pictures was a 
 rich deep blue, the wooden fittings of all kinds the color 
 of dark oak. Over the fire-place hung a large carbon print 
 of Holbein's portrait of Erasmus : beneath it was a very old 
 and, Adam thought, unsightly crucifix, with a text in Greek 
 lettering which Adam could read but could not understand : 
 
 Aaw<5 6c o 0aa<Arvf iyiwijoe rbv So^owwra rrft rov Oi'piav 
 
 and beneath that a framed theater program which he was 
 now old enough to perceive to be incongruous. It informed 
 the world that on a date undecipherable from where he sat, 
 at the Grand Theater, London, the Lessee of which was Mr. 
 Oswald Onsin, and the Manager Mr. Oswald Onsin, Mr. 
 Oswald Onsin would present a New and Original Comedy, 
 "What Rot !" by Oswald Onsin, in which, what fat lettering
 
 MR. MACARTHY LIES IN BED 125 
 
 suggested must be, the leading part of Lord Algy Taplow 
 would be impersonated by Mr. Oswald Onsin in scenery de- 
 signed by Mr. Oswald Onsin and with effects invented by 
 Mr. Oswald Onsin : the whole masterpiece being produced 
 by Mr. Oswald Onsin and played to music selected by an 
 amateur of no less distinction than that gentleman himself. 
 The display of this document in the place of honor in Mr. 
 Macarthy's bedroom puzzled Adam not a little. Later on 
 he was to learn that it puzzled Mr. Macarthy's other visitors, 
 most of them, as much or more than him. 
 
 Mr. Burns explained its presence as on account of its con- 
 taining the name of Miss Belinda Bellingham (Mrs. Oswald 
 Onsin) with whom in the young days of her beauty, said Mr. 
 Burns, Macarthy had been in love. And as he spoke of an 
 occasion in the reign of Queen Victoria, that reign so illus- 
 trious by reason of its length, when he had helped Mr. 
 Macarthy to unharness the fair Belinda's chariot outside 
 the Gaiety Theater and draw it by devious ways to the Shel- 
 bourne Hotel, this was the theory generally obtaining; but 
 Adam found it too thin for credence. There was no por- 
 trait of Miss Belinda Bellingham about the place: though 
 there were portraits of other ladies, including Mrs. Burns, 
 and a very faded photograph of the Marchesa, from which 
 perhaps Adam had subconsciously derived the basis of cer- 
 tain dreams of her . . . besides, if Belinda Bellingham were 
 the wife of Mr. Oswald Onsin, Adam could not imagine his 
 guardian indulging in a passion for her, damaging to him- 
 self and the ninth commandment. Save for his ready laugh- 
 ter, Mr. Macarthy seemed to him rather an austere sort of 
 man: he ate little, when alone drank only tea or coffee, 
 seldom smoked, and (so far as Adam knew) never went to 
 music-hall or picture palace. Sometimes he visited the 
 Abbey Theater; but that was not the sort of place, Adam 
 imagined, to take your pleasure in, any more than in a con- 
 cTt room or picture gallery.
 
 126 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Adam was staring at the Greek inscription beneath the 
 crucifix, trying lazily to construe it, but baffled by the ap- 
 parent absence of substantive other than proper nouns that 
 were only vaguely familiar, when Mr. Behre rose to go, 
 and he found himself alone with his guardian. 
 
 "Come over here by the bed and talk to me," said Mr. 
 Macarthy. "I expect you have many questions that you 
 have been saving up to puzzle my poor brain with." 
 
 Adam bashfully dropped his eyes, protesting that he had 
 been a foolish fellow to ask so many questions, and that he 
 meant never to trouble his guardian in this particular again. 
 
 "Tut, tut," said Mr. Macarthy : "it is only by questioning 
 that we can learn anything though, mark you, there are 
 many questions the answers to which only teach us the 
 fatuity of asking them . . . little children, for example, only 
 learn how not to be silly by being silly. Philosophers will 
 ask questions that fools would deem idiotic," he added with 
 a thoughtful smile; "they very often are." 
 
 "Are they, sir?" said Adam inattentively; for his mind 
 was already wandering to a little book lying face down- 
 wards on the table at Mr. Macarthy's elbow. He could 
 not resist the temptation to take it up and examine it. It 
 was a thin, finely printed volume, lettered on the vellum 
 binding, Aftermath, by ... he was thrilled to read the 
 name, David Byron-Quinn. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy's eyes followed his to the book, and it may 
 be that they twinkled, though Adam did not notice it. "You 
 are interested in that?" he queried. 
 
 But something that he had acquired at Clongowes forbade 
 Adam to admit that he was: "I just took it up," he said 
 half apologetically. 
 
 "Evidently," said Mr. Macarthy, "but not because you 
 were interested, eh?" 
 
 "Not particularly interested," Adam answered, still fenc- 
 ing aimlessly.
 
 MR. MACARTHY LIES IN BED 127 
 
 "Then I should put it down again," Mr. Macarthy sug- 
 gested, and Adam obeyed, but not before he had read on 
 the fly-leaf, in sloping handwriting, "Stephen, from D.P. 
 June 24 1893." The date of the month had a line through 
 it, and in another hand the correction, "23rd." At the foot 
 of the page there was, in the sloping writing: "If you have 
 the patience to read so far as page 57, you may understand 
 me better than you do now," and below that there were 
 words that Adam knew to be German, though he did not 
 know enough of that language to take their meaning at a 
 glance; he thought he had seen them somewhere before 
 . . . perhaps on a piece of music in Herr Behre's room : 
 
 "Ein Tag im Jahre sind die Todten frei." 
 
 Their conversation was interrupted by the nurse reenter- 
 ing with a large tray, on which Adam was rejoiced to see 
 not only the invalid's luncheon but his own. Clearing the 
 bed-table for the tray to be set upon it, he carried away 
 the book of Sir David Byron-Quinn's poems, together with a 
 newspaper, to his place by the fire. Eating his luncheon, 
 the simplicity of which seemed to him now luxurious, he 
 forgot about literature and everything else except the joys 
 of filling his stomach. But after luncheon, when his 
 guardian fell into a long silence, which Adam, obeying the 
 nurse's instruction, did not break lest he should scare away 
 slumber, he took up first the newspaper, which was on the 
 point of sending him to sleep, when he had the happy 
 thought of taking up the book. 
 
 He read again the inscription on the fly-leaf, and then 
 turned to what promised to be a picture : as frontispiece 
 there was reproduced, in photogravure, the portrait of the 
 author he had seen now more than once in the National 
 Gallery: and, so much reduced, it looked in black and white 
 far more effective than did the original painting. The whole
 
 128 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 thing seemed more alive : the man's face had a keenness 
 which had somehow been brushed away by Lady Daphne 
 Page's sentimental pencil : in it the dead major, Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn, resembled less the living Mr. Byron O'Toole : 
 he looked a man not easily slain. . . . Nevertheless, he had 
 been slain, Adam remembered, by some wild people in 
 Africa: not South Africa, where Adam's uncle had disap- 
 peared, but north of the Equator, in the Soudan, not so far 
 from the Blue Nile. . . . What was the name of the place 
 he ought to remember. He framed his mouth to cry it as 
 he had once cried it in St. Stephen's Green, years and years 
 ago, the day he had first seen the Marchesa della Venasal- 
 vatica, who had been Lady Daphne Page . . . the name of 
 the place was Kordofan. 
 
 Adam was trying to recall what he had read of the author 
 of Aftermath in the National Gallery catalogue and what 
 he had been told of him by the Marchesa and Air. O'Meagher 
 and others, and to piece his several fragments of informa- 
 tion together, when a gentle stir in the bed wakened him 
 to the knowledge that his guardian's eyes were fixed on 
 him. "Well?" said Mr. Macarthy, "so you are interested?" 
 
 Adam was not quite sure whether to feel guilty or not, 
 and merely said, "I thought you were asleep." 
 
 "And, thinking me asleep," said Mr. Macarthy, "you con- 
 sidered it your duty to find out whether these poems were 
 fit to be perused by an invalid." 
 
 Adam, relieved that his tone, albeit ironical, held no re- 
 proof, said that he had not read the book: he confessed he 
 had been puzzling over the dedicatory inscription. Mr. 
 Macarthy said there was nothing puzzling in that. 
 
 "I can't understand the German words," Adam admitted. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy assured him that nothing could be simpler. 
 "Just bear in mind that 'Tod' is German for death, and, 
 consequently, 'die Todten' means those who are dead." 
 
 Adam turned to the fly-leaf again and attacked the prob-
 
 MR. MACARTHY LIES IN BED 129 
 
 lem with spirit : "Does it mean that sometimes the dead are 
 let loose?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy feebly clapped his hands: "The meaning 
 could not be more graphically expressed, and you will under- 
 stand the allusion if you turn to the page mentioned above. 
 Is it 76?" 
 
 "No," said Adam, "it's 57." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy passed his hand across his brow, as though 
 brushing away a cobweb. "57, of course," said he, and 
 paused a moment before saying: "Turn to it and let me 
 hear you read it." 
 
 And then Adam found himself solemnly piping out the 
 lines which he had first heard thundered by Mr. O'Meagher 
 in the room beyond the folding-doors. 
 
 THE DEAD LOVER 
 
 "When that I was alive there were women that loved me; 
 
 When that I was alive they loved only me; 
 
 And that I could do no wrong 
 
 Was the burden of the song 
 
 Of the dear good women that loved me. 
 
 Now that 1 am dead, those good women that loved me 
 Are sought by other lovers happily, O happily ; 
 And in my narrow bed I can hear as I lie dead 
 Little feet that I have kissed dance lightly over me. 
 
 Yet though in my grave I He, I laugh deliciously 
 
 At the foolish living lovers that are dancing over me 
 
 For the Queens of all their toasts are the cold and careless 
 
 ghosts 
 Of the women that have loved me and are lying dead with 
 
 me." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Macarthy, "do you still admire that 
 poem as much as you did last spring?"
 
 i 3 o ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Adam blushed. "It's very nice," said he, "but I don't 
 know that I rightly understand what it means." He looked 
 at his interlocutor. "Would you mind telling me?" 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" declared Mr. Macarthy, "that I, a mere 
 Irish man of letters from the high and windy hills, should 
 presume to interpret the poetry of an Anglo-Norman baronet 
 holding a commission in the army . . ." 
 
 "But, sir," Adam interrupted, "wasn't he a kind of rela- 
 tion of yours?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy's eyes traveled from Adam's face round 
 the room until it appeared to rest on the crucifix. "A kind 
 of relation," he repeated. "Well, yes, I suppose he was, 
 but he was much more nearly related to your friend Mrs. 
 Burns, so you'd better ask her." 
 
 Adam ignored the advice in his excitement over the infor- 
 mation. "Mrs. Burns?" he cried; "and what sort of a rela- 
 tion was he to her?" 
 
 "Her father," said Mr. Macarthy, and Adam was so aston- 
 ished that he forgot to ask any more questions on that day. 
 
 He was profoundly impressed so impressed that even 
 that night, back in his own dear bed, which it was a pleasure 
 to feel vibrate again with the boom of St. George's bells, he 
 found himself, though he faithfully got out his Keats and 
 lit his bull's eye lantern, unable to concentrate his mind on 
 any poetry but that of Sir David Byron-Quinn. The baronet 
 was more than ever interesting as the presumptive grand- 
 father of Barbara, who to-night leaped before his vision all 
 green and gold as he had seen her from the doubtful security 
 of the moorland pool. He determined to learn off all the 
 baronet's poetry by heart ; all of it that he could remember 
 to-night he repeated until he fell asleep. 
 
 "And that I could do no wrong 
 Was the burden of the song 
 Of the dear good women that loved me."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 MORE OF SIR DAVID BYRON-QUINN 
 
 ADAM dreamed that first night of the Christmas holidays 
 that he was living in what, for a boy born in the slums, was 
 pretty good society. True, he was no longer a boy, in his 
 dreams, but more or less grown up, nineteen or twenty an 
 age at which it appeared to him to be reasonable to marry 
 and settle down. There he was, comfortably housed in the 
 rector's room at Clongowes, with Barbara Burns as his 
 wife, and magnificent portraits of her romantic and titled 
 grandfather in every room (visible to his dream eye, as was 
 also the staircase and well-chosen fragments of the school 
 building, without leaving the apartment which Father Rector 
 had placed as his disposal) ; and worthy of her grandfather 
 Barbara looked; and worthily of him she behaved; for, 
 while always her green and golden self, she was also at 
 times the most attractive part of Josephine O'Meagher, and 
 at other times had an allure which he had thought peculiar 
 to Caroline Brady. It was a delicious dream; and when 
 he woke he rubbed his eyes a long time, wondering how it 
 could all have happened in that bare apartment where his 
 fancy had placed it. It was a little sad to think that such 
 a thing could never really happen. . . . Sadder still was it 
 to reflect that there was no woman in the world who could 
 combine the charms of Barbara Burns with those of Joseph- 
 ine O'Meagher and Caroline Brady. . . . But, when all was 
 said and done, the joyous fact remained that the grand- 
 father of Barbara Burns was not only a poet but a baronet. 
 . . . He would ask Mr. Macarthy. . . . 
 
 The recollection that Mr. Macarthy was ill momentarily
 
 132 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 drove even the dreams of fair ladies and fashionable mar- 
 riages from his mind, and he leaped out of bed, though it 
 was barely daylight, determined to be early at Mount joy 
 Square. ... As early as he had ever been. Remembering 
 that Sir David Byron-Quinn, into whose family he was 
 about to marry, had been an officer in the army and some- 
 body had told him that officers in the army always have 
 cold baths he emptied his jug into the hip-bath and spent 
 some seconds in it. Drying himself, he fell into doubt as 
 to whether, after all, even Barbara Burns was worth taking 
 a cold tub in winter for . . . the Barbara Burns of his 
 dream had been, but was the Barbara Burns of reality? . . . 
 She was not Josephine O'Meagher and Caroline Brady too. 
 Real life was a base and trivial thing compared with the 
 life you lived in dreams. He was arguing with himself the 
 possibility, provided you had not to work for your living, of 
 passing your life in dreamland, when Miss Gannon in per- 
 son brought him his breakfast. 
 
 It seemed to him a lovely breakfast, savory eggs and 
 bacon and lovely crisp brown bread with delicious butter 
 that was quite fresh and yet a trifle salt, and piping hot tea 
 with milk, which, if it looked a little blue and measly, was 
 all right so long as you didn't look at it, and, anyhow, there 
 were heaps of rich brown golden Demerara sugar to drown 
 the taste of it. Adam was so pleased with his breakfast 
 that, improving on his usual custom when alone, he said 
 grace after it. He may have been prompted to this by a 
 feeling of slight distention in his stomach, warning him to 
 propitiate the gods. 
 
 When he reached Mountjoy Square, a motor-car was 
 standing before the door, the only type of car which Adam 
 knew by appearance, that faithful beast among motor-cars, 
 more cursed and mishandled and generally abused than any 
 other chariot that fought in the Great War, the one that 
 pushed its bonnet furthest of all into the thick of fighting,
 
 MORE OF SIR DAVID BYRON-QUINN 133 
 
 going ninety times in a hundred where none other durst . . . 
 a cheap and unfashionable car, such as no medical practi- 
 tioner would use unless more interested in his patients than 
 in his prestige : Adam guessed it to be the car of his 
 guardian's doctor. It was a sharp wintry day, and the 
 doctor had left the throttled engine running; Adam stood 
 a moment watching it ; he delighted in machinery, though 
 his life had not thrown him in the way of understanding 
 it; he asked himself why it was that the thing puffed and 
 vibrated and yet made no attempt to move. . . . He came 
 to the conclusion that it was held there by the brakes. . . . 
 That seemed a wasteful way of doing things, and he sus- 
 pected there might be some other explanation. 
 
 Then his mind ran on something Mr. Macarthy had said 
 about motors ; he could not remember what it was or why 
 it connected itself with the Index Expurgatorius ; he knew 
 what that was a list of books the Pope forbade all Catho- 
 lics to read. . . . And the queer thing was that some of 
 these books were written by Jesuits; one priest he remem- 
 bered himself, though he could not remember his name, was 
 on the Index. If you read his books you might be damned. 
 ... It seemed a queer thing to look at a motor-car and 
 think of being damned, especially of being damned for 
 reading a book by a man who had taught you that you 
 might be damned for reading somebody else's book. . . . 
 There seemed to be something nonsensical in it somewhere ; 
 but to be damned was a serious thing: he wasn't going to 
 run any risk of being damned by reading books contrary 
 to faith. ... It really wasn't good enough, especially when 
 there seemed a fair chance of marrying the granddaughter 
 of a baronet and living happily, you might say, more or less 
 ever after. At this point the door opened and the doctor 
 came down the steps, got into his car, and drove off. Adam 
 was thrilled to observe that he was the same doctor who 
 had attended him at the Mater Hospital years ago and sent
 
 134 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 him on that expedition to Bray which led to his meeting 
 with Caroline Brady. Adam took it for granted that he 
 would be recognized, but he was not. The doctor only said, 
 rather sharply: "Well, boy, have you never seen a motor 
 before?" and gave Adam no time to explain the profound 
 thoughts which moved him while contemplating the throb- 
 bing chassis; and yet he thought how interested the doctor 
 would have been, and Sister too, to know that he who had 
 come to them in such a deplorable condition was now con- 
 templating matrimony with the granddaughter of a baronet. 
 He ascended to Mr. Macarthy's rooms, and, after somewhat 
 perfunctorily reassuring himself as to the condition of the 
 patient, seized the first opportunity to say : "By the way, 
 sir, about that baronet . . ." 
 
 "Eh, what?" said Mr. Macarthy shortly. "About what 
 baronet?" 
 
 "About Sir David Byron-Quinn," said Adam : "you were 
 telling me about Sir David Byron-Quinn." 
 
 "Oh, damn Sir David Byron-Quinn !" said Mr. Macarthy : 
 "what does it matter about him?" He said this laughingly, 
 but abruptly checked himself. "Don't misunderstand me, 
 Adam: I don't really wish poor David any harm; if there's 
 anything in conventional religion, I feel more sorry for him 
 than anything else. What did you want to ask about him ?" 
 
 Now that it came to the point, Adam had difficulty in 
 sorting out the questions that lay at the back of his mind, 
 but he said at last: "Is Babs really his granddaughter?" 
 
 "Why shouldn't she be?" said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 Adam suspected, without knowing the reason for his sus- 
 picion, that this question was partly jocular. In schoolboy 
 words, he advanced the proposition that the burden of proof 
 lay with the person that is to say, with Mr. Macarthy him- 
 self who propounded for his belief the statement that 
 Barbara Burns, well-bred little lady though she might be,
 
 MORE OF SIR DAVID BYRON-QUINN 135 
 
 was the granddaughter of so eminent a person, by reason 
 both of birth and attainment, as the baronet who had per- 
 ished with such dramatic completeness. To complete his 
 argument, he said, "She never told me he was her grand- 
 father. . . . Never so much as mentioned his name." 
 
 It was disconcerting of Mr. Macarthy to reply: "Did you 
 mention to her the name of your grandfather?" 
 
 Adam frankly replied: "No, but I should have if he'd 
 been a baronet." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy was obviously impressed by this. ... So 
 much so that his head disappeared beneath the bed-clothes, 
 and there was a pause in the conversation. But at length 
 he said : "Would you have mentioned him if he had been a 
 poet?" 
 
 "I never thought of his being a poet," Adam said, and 
 added, reflectively: "I don't think my father would have 
 mentioned it if he had been a poet." 
 
 "You forget," said Mr. Macarthy: "Sir David was not 
 the father of Mr. Burns: he was the father of Barbara's 
 mother." 
 
 "I don't know who my mother's father was," was all 
 Adam replied to that; then he colored and added hastily: 
 "I know he was a Mr. Smith, but I never saw him." His 
 tone became quite cheerful as he appended to this state- 
 ment : "I often heard my mother say that she'd married 
 beneath her." 
 
 "She's not the only woman to claim that honor," Mr. 
 Macarthy observed drily. He went on, with a smile : "And 
 they're quite right every woman who marries at all, mar- 
 ries beneath her." 
 
 "I suppose you might say that of Mrs. Burns?" Adam 
 suggested. 
 
 "I shouldn't," Mr. Macarthy murmured, "but I dare say 
 she might say it herself."
 
 136 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Adam was unconscious of the irony in his elder's tone; 
 he even nodded his head in acquiescence as he propounded : 
 "Mrs. Burns is an elegant lady." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy was content to reply: "Her husband is 
 entirely of your opinion." 
 
 "So is her daughter Babs," said Adam. 
 
 "Meaning?" Mr. Macarthy queried. 
 
 "I mean," said Adam, "that her daughter is an elegant 
 lady, too"; he added thoughtfully: "and younger." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy agreed that she was younger, but expressed 
 no opinion of an argumentative nature ; so Adam carried on 
 the conversation by remarking : "They never come to Mount- 
 joy Square." 
 
 "Don't they?" Mr. Macarthy responded, in the tone of 
 one without information on the subject. 
 
 "They don't," Adam assured him. "I have never seen 
 them, I should remember if they had. . . . I've often won- 
 dered why they didn't." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Mr. Macarthy dreamily, "perhaps they 
 are too elegant." 
 
 Adam took this to mean that it would scarcely become a 
 baronet's daughter and granddaughter to visit a mere com- 
 moner residing in the upper half of a house in a square 
 which he knew now to be no longer fashionable. It chilled 
 a little the ardor of his hopes, but he ventured tentatively 
 to observe : "I think Mrs. Burns likes me." 
 
 "Youth goes to youth," Mr. Macarthy murmured. 
 
 "She's not so young as all that," Adam protested. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy 's eyes distinctively twinkled notwithstand- 
 ing the lethargy of his tone: "How do you know? . . . 
 Have you invited her to St. George's Place?" 
 
 At last Adam chuckled a little bashfully. "You're making 
 game of me." 
 
 "Am I?" said Mr. Macarthy; and for the life of him 
 Adam could not decide whether he was or was not.
 
 MORE OF SIR DAVID BYRON-QUINN 137 
 
 thought really fastened in his mind that it would be pleasant 
 to invite Mrs. Burns to his little room, there to be alone 
 with her for just a while. . . . He was not quite clear 
 whether he wanted to see her about her daughter or just 
 . . . Then visions of other visitors drifted into his mind, 
 and the thought of some of them burnt deeper still. But 
 his tongue never even touched their names. . . . Unless it 
 was Caroline Brady. Sitting there looking at Mr. Macarthy 
 across his bedstead, he could visualize his own little room 
 and Caroline Brady in an enlarged reproduction of what 
 she had been when he kissed her in Dalkey Tunnel, there 
 before him. . . . With an effort of will he dismissed her 
 from his mind that he might work back to the subject of 
 the baronet : alive or dead, poor Caroline did not belong to 
 that galley. 
 
 "About Sir David Byron-Quinn," he began, and was 
 pained to hear Mr. Macarthy groan. He apologized for 
 returning to the subject. 
 
 "Never mind," said Mr. Macarthy, "carry on. . . . What 
 do you want to know now?" 
 
 "I thought last night in bed," said Adam, "that I'd like 
 to learn all his poetry off by heart." 
 
 "The dickens !" said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 As this expletive did not amount to a command to stop, 
 Adam proceeded. "Of course, I know he wasn't a great 
 poet; not like Shakespeare and Byron and Scott and," his 
 tongue went on mechanically, "and Keats and Yeats . . ." 
 
 "No, nor Moody and Sankey," Mr. Macarthy murmured ; 
 but the point of this observation, if point it had, was lost 
 on Adam. 
 
 "I should think, sir," he suggested very cautiously, "I 
 should think you would be right in saying that he was a 
 better poet or anyhow very near as good as Mr. Tinkler." 
 
 "As Mr. Tinkler?" Mr. Macarthy repeated with a ques- 
 tioning glance. "What do you know about Mr. Tinkler?"
 
 138 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Adam informed him how he had once been brought to 
 the Muses Club, where he had heard Mr. Tinkler read cer- 
 tain of his verses. 
 
 "Oh," said Mr. Macarthy, and that was all he vouchsafed 
 upon the subject of Mr. Tinkler. Of Sir David he said that 
 the man had been a genuine poet in intention, but not often 
 an effective one in reality. "Byron-Quinn," said he, "was 
 your true amateur with the amateur's qualities and defects. 
 Being a man of talent with no need to write for a living, 
 he wrote nothing, so far as we know, that was beneath con- 
 tempt: on the other hand, having no one to criticize him, 
 no one but himself to please, and not being in an artistic 
 sense self -critical, he wrote nothing or precious little, that 
 will satisfy a man of taste. . . . Don't imagine that I set 
 up to be a man of taste, but even I feel that the things of 
 his which impressed me twenty years ago fail to impress 
 me now." He paused and passed his hand thoughtfully 
 across his forehead. "It may be that I shall be impressed 
 by them again, but I think not." 
 
 Adam, glowing with the satisfaction that his guardian 
 was entering into a serious literary discussion with him, 
 said, unconsciously imitating his tone : "I was quite im- 
 pressed when Mr. O'Meagher recited 'The Dead Lover' to 
 us last spring." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled, but answered in grave tones, "And 
 you were impressed when you read it for yourself here yes- 
 terday ?" 
 
 "Not so much impressed," said Adam guardedly, "but, 
 as I told you yesterday, I'm not sure that I know what it 
 means. Do you ?" 
 
 "And as I told you yesterday I don't pretend to know 
 what it means," said Mr. Macarthy, "but I take it to have 
 been, possibly, in the poet's mind that while men have the 
 power to love many women, women have the power to love 
 only one man."
 
 MORE OF SIR DAVID BYRON-QUINN 139 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, blushing he knew not why, "Oh! Do 
 you think that, too?" 
 
 "For my part," said Mr. Macarthy, "I conceive that the 
 late Major Byron-Quinn may possibly have been wrong." 
 He looked at Adam quizzingly : "Let me hear what you 
 think about it yourself." 
 
 "I think that he must have been a very conceited sort of 
 fellow," Adam promptly responded. 
 
 "That one may presume is the view of the world," said 
 Mr. Macarthy, "and it is scarcely for me to say it is not 
 right yet I happen to know that the poet's boast is true of 
 at least one woman; for she makes no secret of it." 
 
 "Who's that?" asked Adam. 
 
 Said Mr. Macarthy : "Never mind." 
 
 Ordinarily Adam would have taken those two words as 
 a definite closing of the audience, but he sat still a little 
 while sunk in thought until he asked at last in a hushed 
 voice: "Is that lady dead?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy turned over on his side and put his hand 
 over his eyes, as though shutting out the sunlight. Adam 
 thought he did not mean to answer him, but at last the 
 words came slowly : "No, she is not exactly dead : but so 
 changed out of all recognition, even since I first knew her, 
 that if she were to meet her dead lover to-night, he would 
 turn away from her in disgust." 
 
 Adam felt a tremor between excitement and horror. "It 
 was the Marchesa," he blurted. 
 
 "Never mind who it was," said Mr. Macarthy sternly, and 
 Adam rose to go, feeling this to be definitely a dismissal; 
 but as he was leaving the room his guardian called him back 
 to say : "I was unjust to Sir David Byron-Quinn : he would 
 not turn away from any woman with disgust. . . . Not in 
 any circumstances whatever. He had his faults, but he was 
 not that sort of man."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 OF A CHRISTMAS PRESENT 
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY fell on a Wednesday. Adam, paying his 
 third visit to his guardian on the previous Monday, found 
 him up, and on Tuesday he declared himself well enough, 
 though the doctor appeared of a contrary opinion, to go out. 
 As a compromise with his medical adviser, he promised to 
 be back before nightfall ; but, with Adam as a companion, 
 Christmas shopping did not allow him to keep his promise. 
 Darkness had already fallen before they were clear of Graf- 
 ton Street, on their return journey. Working their way 
 through the crowd outside Hollander's, they ran into the 
 arms, or at least Adam ran into the arms, of the Marchesa. 
 Kissing him affectionately, she cried : "Happy Christmas ! 
 I heard you were home from that horrible school. How 
 hateful all schools are, even boys' schools, though I should 
 prefer them to my own. . . . St. Enda's is all right" she 
 turned to Mr. Macarthy : "Why didn't you send him to St. 
 Enda's?" 
 
 "For too many reasons to tell you now," said Mr. Mac- 
 arthy calmly. 
 
 "Your reasons are always nonsensical," the Marchesa de- 
 clared, "but I suppose you're right: you always are." 
 
 "Sometimes," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 "Don't be so vain !" cried the Marchesa. She appealed 
 to Adam, pointing her finger at his guardian: "Isn't he 
 awfully vain? Don't you find him so? Of course you do." 
 
 In point of fact Adam sometimes did, but he was glad, 
 for more than one reason, when the Marchesa went on, with- 
 out giving him time to answer her question : "I've often 
 
 140
 
 OF A CHRISTMAS PRESENT 141 
 
 thought of you while you were away ; I was thinking of you 
 this very day in fact, I was thinking of you just now, for 
 I'd been buying a Christmas present for you ; I hope you'll 
 find it when you get home . . . What are you looking at ?" 
 
 Adam did not quite know what he was looking at, but he 
 knew who had been looking at him, though with eyes that 
 held no recognition . . . Caroline Brady, dressed like a 
 grown-up little lady, in the height of fashion, as he con- 
 ceived the height of fashion to be. But where was she? 
 Where had he seen her ? He dared not say ; for it appeared 
 to him that he had seen her inside the glass front of Hol- 
 lander's window. . . . This his common sense, or what he 
 called his common sense, told him must have been a delu- 
 sion ; for Caroline Brady simply could not have been inside 
 Hollander's window. . . . What could she have been doing 
 there ? Nothing. His vision of the window was blocked by 
 the crowd around it. He had caught only a fleeting glimpse 
 of her. . . . The crowd opened again and he had another 
 such glimpse of the window, but there was no Caroline 
 Brady to be seen. His mind worked back to the more 
 tangible joy of the Marchesa's present. He tried to speak 
 of it, but, piqued by his off-handed manner when she told 
 him of it, she bade him and his guardian good-by. 
 
 Adam almost reproached himself with allowing his atten- 
 tion to be distracted from the Marchesa even by the appear- 
 ance, real or fanciful, of Caroline Brady. As they climbed 
 on a tram at the corner of Suffolk Street, he recalled that 
 once before, on his very birthday it was, Caroline Brady's 
 ghost had come between him and the Marchesa. . . . Worse 
 than that, had come between him and the Marchesa and 
 Barbara Burns too. ... It was uncanny to think that Caro- 
 line Brady's ghost should have the power to do this : it made 
 it seem such a real ghost, animated by a sort of deliberate, 
 and possibly sinister, intention. As the tram lumbered 
 slowly and heavily (being a Kingstown tram, and almost
 
 142 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 too ponderous and long in the wheel base for some of those 
 curves round Trinity College) Adam, innocent little boy 
 though he looked, even to the not unobservant Mr. Mac- 
 arthy, was asking himself whether the ghost of Caroline 
 Brady could possibly be inspired by jealousy of his acquaint- 
 ance with a baronet's granddaughter and a baronet's . . . 
 He was not quite sure of the correct word to describe the 
 Marchesa's relationship to the author of "The Dead Lover." 
 He opened his lips to broach the question to Mr. Macarthy, 
 but checked himself in time, remembering that this branch 
 of the Tree of Knowledge bore forbidden fruit. So, as Mr. 
 Macarthy had turned his ear, expecting him to say some- 
 thing, he said: "I wonder what sort of a present the 
 Marchesa has given me." 
 
 Not very promisingly, Mr. Macarthy made answer: "So 
 do I." 
 
 "Do you think it would be a box of soldiers?" Adam 
 suggested. 
 
 "More likely a box of infant druids," Mr. Macarthy 
 replied. 
 
 Mildly surprised, Adam said : "I didn't know you could 
 buy that sort of thing." 
 
 "It's wonderful what you can buy," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 Adam's full interest was aroused. "But can you buy in- 
 fant druids?" he said. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy only answered : "I don't think I could ever 
 bring myself to try." 
 
 But the idea pleased Adam, and he would not readily let 
 go of it. "What do you think infant druids would be like 
 if you could buy them?" he insisted. 
 
 "I shouldn't think that they would in any circumstances 
 be like infant druids," Mr. Macarthy said gravely ; and this 
 gave Adam food for thought, which kept him silent until 
 they left the tram at Findlater's Church. Together they
 
 OF A CHRISTMAS PRESENT 143 
 
 walked up Gardiner's Row and passed Belvedere. As they 
 were approaching it Adam fell into a little laugh, a laugh 
 of sheer happiness to think what a different world was his 
 since a year ago; then, suddenly, the laughter stilled, and 
 he caught at Mr. Macarthy's arm. 
 
 The latter looked down at him alarmed. "What's the 
 matter?" he said. 
 
 Adam answered nothing, but stood stock still holding his 
 companion to him; in the gloom of the full night a priestly 
 form emerged from nowhere, ascended the steps and disap- 
 peared again through the doorway. The dull bang of the 
 heavy door released Adam from what seemed to his com- 
 panion almost a nervous seizure, and the two stepped out 
 again. Mr. Macarthy walked with him as far as St. 
 George's Place, asking no question; but, as he bade him 
 good-night, he said: "Happy Christmas, Adam. Come to 
 me as early as you can to-morrow and have no bad dreams 
 to-night. Christmas should be a joyful time for children, 
 and after all you are a child still, aren't you?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Adam, "I am. Thank you . . ." he was 
 going to say "your honor," but checked himself half-con- 
 sciously, ending the phrase: "Thanks to you, sir, and God 
 bless you." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy lingered a moment, and perhaps it was the 
 cold air made him cough, then turning resolutely to go, he 
 said in a low clear voice : "One thing more, Adam, a piece 
 of advice from an old man; perhaps more than most boys 
 of your age you have suffered at the hands of others, cer- 
 tainly you have suffered badly at the hands of a man we 
 both saw just now. It may be, and I am willing to believe, 
 that you have fully forgiven him, for otherwise you could 
 not honestly have fulfilled your religious duties as you seem 
 to have done ; but in any case I tell you this, so long as you 
 feel the tiniest resentment towards any creature on God's
 
 144 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 earth, man or beast, you will never know any real happi- 
 ness." Then he stooped and kissed Adam on the forehead. 
 "Happy Christmas!" he repeated, and strode off. 
 
 Tearfully bewildered Adam ascended to his own little 
 room, vaguely cheered by a comparatively luscious smell 
 from the kitchen and a sort of peppering of holly and ivy 
 in and about the mean staircase : it was encouraging to know 
 that even Miss Gannon felt, or suffered Attracta to feel, the 
 atmosphere of Christmas. Always susceptible to kindly 
 suggestion, he had a momentary idea of rushing out to buy 
 a Christmas card with a motto about Christmas being the 
 time for forgiveness (if such a rarity might be obtained 
 locally) and delivering it himself at Belvedere addressed to 
 Father Tudor, with the legend "From You Know Who" on 
 the back. For two reasons this seemed to him attractive : 
 firstly, it would please Mr. Macarthy, and secondly it would 
 annoy Father Tudor. . . . But this he reflected, might not 
 be true forgiveness of the kind that makes you properly 
 happy. ... It would be fun, but fun was not strictly speak- 
 ing happiness. . . . "What's fun to you," said the frog. 
 ... At this point he entered his room and perceived on his 
 table that which drove Father Tudor out of his mind; it 
 was the Marchesa's present. He felt aggrieved at the size 
 of the parcel, it seemed much too small co be worthy of a 
 lady of title. Taking from his pocket a penknife of varied 
 accomplishments (that morning arrived from Columba and 
 Patrick O'Meagher) he cut the string. . . . The Marchesa's 
 present was a book ... it was ... he rubbed his eyes, 
 stared at it, thought there was some mistake about it until 
 he read his name (spelt Madfaden) on the fly-leaf, it was 
 Aftermath by David Byron-Quinn. 
 
 For a moment he threw it down, not feeling in the mood 
 for poetry, while he examined his other presents, the con- 
 ventional presents of boyhood, things for the cricket and 
 football field, surprisingly many of them for a boy who a
 
 OF A CHRISTMAS PRESENT 145 
 
 year ago had had no friends. Last year there had been but 
 two presents, one from Father Innocent and one from the 
 O'Meaghers. Even Mr. O'Toole had sent him a present 
 this Christmas, it was a book (how pleased Mr. O'Toole 
 would have been to know that his present took the same 
 form as the Marchesa's), a handsomely bound book en- 
 titled: The Young Gentleman's Guide to Good Society, by 
 an authority who modestly veiled his personality under the 
 style "A Public School Master." Adam had enough sense 
 to perceive at once that this book, despite the attractive bind- 
 ing, had better be concealed. He liked it none the better 
 for certain shaky but extremely legible writing within it 
 which bore witness that it was "A Christmas present from 
 Byron O'Toole, Esq., to his godson Byron O'Toole Wynd- 
 ham Macfadden, Esq." 
 
 Adam turned his back on all his presents and sat down by 
 the fire, sat there very moodily, for it was a queer thing 
 that even through the medium of a book and a well-bound 
 book; a book, to judge by the number of editions it was 
 advertised to have gone through, more successful than all 
 but a very few literary masterpieces, his godfather had flung 
 a sinister shadow into that little room. ... It was bad 
 enough that Father Tudor should have crossed his path to- 
 night : luckily Mr. Macarthy had been with him as a true 
 guardian to make light of the fear of him and as it were 
 exorcise the demonic part of him. Coming upstairs he had 
 quite made up his mind that he would regard Father Tudor, 
 not as the tormenting devil who still haunted his dreams, 
 but just as a sort of cruel freak to be pitied (as Mr. Behre 
 had once said) and so far as Christian piety would allow 
 it, despised. . . . But when Adam received any token what- 
 ever to remind him that he was still under the patronage of 
 Mr. Byron O'Toole, he felt himself not in a position to 
 despise anyone. . . . He asked himself what Barbara Burns 
 would think if she came across that book and learnt that
 
 i 4 6 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Mr. Byron OToole was his godfather ... his godfather 
 and that because he was his mother's friend. . . . What 
 would she think? She, the granddaughter of Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn? . . . And what would the Marchesa think? 
 . . . What would she think of the relations between his 
 mother and Mr. O'Toole? . . . Odd that she and Mr. 
 OToole had both given him books. . . . What a world 
 apart the two were ! ... If they ever met, and perhaps they 
 had met in the past, for Mr. O'Toole had boasted of the 
 days when he had enjoyed the intimacy of Dublin Castle, 
 with all the abandon of an extra waiter, and the Marchesa, 
 too, he knew used to go there in her salad days when she 
 was painting the portrait of David Byron-Quinn. . . . 
 David Byron-Quinn whom she still talked of as a living in- 
 fluence on her life (as he would have talked, if he dared, of 
 Josephine O'Meagher being an influence on his own), but 
 who, according to Mr. Macarthy would not know her if he 
 came to life again. . . . That was a terrible thing to think 
 of: a beautiful woman growing old without dignity. . . . 
 No, he wronged the Marchesa, she was not without dignity, 
 but it was a crazy, crumpled sort of dignity, like so many 
 of the beautiful old houses he had seen crumbling more and 
 more into a feverish decay : he almost likened the erstwhile 
 Lady Daphne Page to such a ruinous tenement house as 
 Mountjoy Court, where his godfather had once lived with 
 Miss or Mrs. Robinson and his own father had crashed to 
 his death through the rotten staircase. 
 
 He wondered why the Marchesa, whose life was such a 
 maddening failure to think upon, never appeared to him to 
 be otherwise than cheerful when he met her : to think of her 
 was infinitely sad, but to meet her was, on the whole, rather 
 exhilarating: he distinctly liked meeting her: he did not 
 share that fear which Mr. O'Meagher and others confessed 
 themselves to have of her. . . . He did not like her as much 
 as Mrs. Burns, for the simple reason that Mrs. Burns was
 
 OF A CHRISTMAS PRESENT 147 
 
 overwhelmingly brilliant and beautiful, but, on the whole, 
 he would rather talk to her than to Mrs. Burns. He could 
 not say why, but he liked talking to the Marchesa . . . per- 
 haps that was because she was so ready to talk about Sir 
 David Byron-Quinn. . . . And yet, Sir David Byron-Quinn 
 was Mrs. Burns's own father, who never mentioned him. 
 He asked himself why Mrs. Burns never mentioned her 
 father: he had a notion that Mrs. Burns was the sort of 
 lady who would be proud to have a poet for a father. . . . 
 He had even heard her say that she was proud to have Mr. 
 Tinkler as a friend, and the baronet's poems, he felt in- 
 stinctively, could knock spots off Tinkler's. 
 
 Taking up his Christmas present from the Marchesa, to 
 confirm his opinion, there came into his mind his conversa- 
 tion with his guardian on the subject of his merits. . . . He 
 remembered, too, that when his guardian wished him to turn 
 to the poem of "The Dead Lover," which was on page 57, 
 he had inadvertently said, "Turn to page 76." It occurred 
 to Adam that that number, though not the one he intended, 
 had not come into his head purely by chance; so Adam 
 turned to page 76, and was rewarded by rinding there a 
 poem that he recognized the last sonnet, the one which 
 Sir David was said to have written in the desert of Kor- 
 dofan the night before he was slain: that was in January, 
 1885, nearly thirty years ago. Adam read it through, first 
 silently, and then, strangely moved by it, he solemnly re- 
 cited it: 
 
 THE LAST PENITENCE 
 
 "Here, in the dark of the desert, that ultimate night 
 
 That hangs upon Africa, drowning the memory of day, 
 Making Egyptian darkness itself as broad light, 
 I kneel me in mystery to pray.
 
 148 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Not to Osiris I turn, the sleek lord of the sun: 
 Nor to old Jupiter, jovial and hotheaded god: 
 Nor to Jehovah, the bilious, mean-spirited one. 
 
 I seek not a heavenly crown, and I fear not the rod. 
 Let them ride their celestial hippogriffs over my corse . . . 
 
 Until my soul die, the smile of disdain shall not fade. 
 Not for the gods have I a thought of remorse. 
 
 Only of him who may follow me am I afraid. . . . 
 If thou art he, I beg thee abject to forgive 
 Him that lies dead, for the folly that called thee 
 to live." 
 
 He repeated it aloud once again; Attracta, bringing him 
 up his dinner, could hear him from the staircase, and was 
 extremely alarmed; for, although she could not parse the 
 dead baronet's verse, she gathered enough of its tenor to 
 suspect that it was impious. 
 
 "Oh, Master Adam!" she cried, putting down the tray 
 with a bang, "you ought not to say such things on Christmas 
 Eve ; if Miss Gannon heard you she wouldn't let you come 
 and light the Christmas candle, and that would be a pity, 
 wouldn't it ?" Adam waved the book at her. 
 
 "What have you got there ?" said she : "is it that has the 
 bad words?" 
 
 "Come here and look at it," said Adam, and, as she ap- 
 proached, opened it at the frontispiece. 
 
 Attracta was charmed. "Oh, isn't he the lovely gentle- 
 man?" she cried. "And the humbuggin' eyes of him!" 
 Then she recoiled with a shriek. 
 
 "What's the matter?" said Adam, dropping the book. 
 
 "Didn't you see, didn't you see him ?" she gasped. 
 
 Something cold passed down Adam's back as he picked 
 the book up. "I didn't see anything," he said. 
 
 "I saw," Attracta declared emphatically, "he was looking 
 right at you and trying to speak."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 THE WITCHING HOUR 
 
 FOR a small boy, and more particularly one brought up under 
 the shadow of the Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, Adam was not 
 superstitious: as the craven and ghastly terrors of his in- 
 fancy had been left behind in the saner atmosphere of Mr. 
 Macarthy and Herr Behre though even Father Innocent 
 had struggled as best he knew how to eliminate from his 
 God the taint of demonology Adam was gathering strength 
 to question the appearance and right of any mere bogey to 
 cast spells on him. Also he had no respect, despite his 
 affection, for Attracta : he considered her to be hardly better 
 than feeble-minded, and, in fact, she did belong to that 
 class in Ireland, of the very lowest order of intelligence . . . 
 temperamentally a slave, unfit for any other occupation. 
 
 "Pooh !" said Adam stoutly, staring the portrait boldly in 
 the face, "you're silly to be frightened of a picture; this old 
 chap died he was killed, you know, in Africa years and 
 years before I was born. Just look at it again." 
 
 "Not for anything," she protested, shrinking from the 
 proffered book. "I don't know anything about him, but I 
 seen his photo looking at you right enough, and I tell you 
 he's trying to talk to you. . . . And, anyhow, there's your 
 dinner." 
 
 She left the room a little offended at Adam's refusal to 
 be frightened, and, oddly enough, after she was gone, Adam 
 was conscious of not liking to be left alone with the book. 
 He shut it up, and ate his dinner hastily, so that he might 
 ring for her to come back again. . . . He was very pleased 
 to be summoned downstairs presently to light the Christmas 
 
 149
 
 150 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 candle, and spoke the accompanying prayers with unusual 
 reverence. This ceremony took place in the kitchen, which 
 on this occasion seemed to him to look cheerful. He made 
 an excuse to dawdle there for a long time, patting St. Kevin 
 and wishing him a Happy Christmas. 
 
 "It's no use your doing that," Miss Gannon protested: 
 "cats have no souls." 
 
 "Are you sure ?" Adam asked. 
 
 "Of course I'm sure," she snapped. 
 
 "But how do you know ?" he returned. 
 
 She turned on him : "Well, now, for you to ask that ; why, 
 even poor Attracta there knows better than to think any 
 animal would be having a soul." 
 
 "But you and Attracta are both animals," Adam said, 
 without meaning to be offensive, but he saw at once that he 
 had made a mistake. Miss Gannon actually reddened. 
 
 "Is that what they teach you at Clongowes?" she said 
 "to insult a lady? That's the last Christmas candle you'll 
 light in this kitchen," and she made an effort to puff it out, 
 but happily failed ; for it would have been unlucky thus to 
 extinguish it. 
 
 "You don't understand," Adam retorted ; "I'm an animal 
 just as much as you." 
 
 "Speak for yourself," snarled Miss Gannon ; "I'm not an 
 animal, and never was, and never will be; and if I ever find 
 that Attracta's an animal, out she goes, bag and baggage!" 
 
 "But if you're not an animal," Adam argued, really 
 anxious to conciliate her, though not, perhaps, very tactful : 
 "if you're not an animal, what on earth are you?" 
 
 "What on earth am I ?" Miss Gannon repeated scornfully ; 
 "that's a question to ask me !" 
 
 Adam began to lose patience with her denseness : "You see, 
 you don't know what you are. . . . You really don't, Miss 
 Gannon. . . . It's no use pretending that you do." 
 
 In her indignation, Miss Gannon made a further effort to
 
 THE WITCHING HOUR 151 
 
 extinguish the Christmas candle, and again failed. "I sup- 
 pose you'd say," she spluttered, "that your own mother was 
 an animal ?" 
 
 "Of course she was," Adam eagerly returned ; "ail women 
 are animals . . . they're . . ." he made a great effort of 
 memory, "they're mammalia." 
 
 This word had a staggering effect on Miss Gannon. 
 ''What's a mammalia?" she gasped. 
 
 Adam, suddenly recalling what it was, blushed at the 
 notion of defining the term to Miss Gannon. "It's the 
 plural of mammal," he said, "and every female of a certain 
 kind is a mammal. You're a mammal, Attracta's a mammal, 
 my mother is a mammal. . . . Even the Blessed Virgin her- 
 self was probably a mammal." 
 
 "Oh!" said Miss Gannon mollified, and even, perhaps, 
 exalted, at the notion of being placed in the same category 
 with the Blessed Virgin. "She was, was she? Did they 
 tell you that at Clongowes ?" 
 
 Adam was not prepared to give a direct answer to this 
 question. "I read it there in a book," said he. 
 
 Miss Gannon looked at him suspiciously : "But didn't you 
 go and say that you were a mammal too?" she asked. 
 
 Adam saw the difficulty, and was anxious to close the 
 conversation. "I think I'm a mammal," said he, "but I 
 forget how." 
 
 Miss Gannon snorted triumphantly: "A little knowledge 
 is a dangerous thing," said she, and, content with having 
 the last word, she allowed him to depart in peace, the 
 Christmas candle still burning. 
 
 For his part, Adam was glad enough to avoid further 
 zoological argument, though loth to leave the kitchen, with 
 the cheering reflections from its well-polished metals, the 
 curiously consoling companionship of St. Kevin, more in- 
 telligent than Attracta, more human than Miss Gannon, and 
 the evil-exorcising beams of the Christmas candle, to climb
 
 152 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 the mean staircase, which, there being no one in on the 
 intermediate floors, rang hollow, as he fancied, climbing to 
 his lonely little room, where the portrait of that charming 
 but wicked baronet, who had come to such an untimely end 
 after saying such deplorably incautious things, was waiting 
 to tempt him to look at it. Before he reached the mid-way 
 of the last flight, he had ceased to think of mammalia or any 
 other scientific thought, and was concerned only with the 
 finding of some excuse for going downstairs again. . . . 
 But none occurred to him, and he stood with his fingers 
 shaking the handle of his door, unable to summon up reso- 
 lution to open it, and wishing, firstly, that the Marchesa had 
 not presented him with Sir David Byron-Quinn's poems, 
 and, alternately, that he had not shown them to Attracta. 
 . . . He felt a resentment against the whole female sex be- 
 cause of these two who had so unmanned him. . . . St. 
 George's bells struck ten : it was two hours still to midnight, 
 and, reflecting that ghosts were said not to be allowed out 
 much earlier than that, he opened his door and walked in. 
 
 His heart jumped into his mouth. . . . There was some- 
 one sitting by the fire. Suppressing a scream, he clung to 
 the door. 
 
 "Ach!" said Herr Behre, "you look as one who has seen 
 a ghost. You do not, I hope, resent my intrusion?" 
 
 Adam eyed him as he sat there by the fire, with Aftermath 
 open on his lap. "I didn't hear you come in," Adam babbled ; 
 "I thought you were a burglar." 
 
 "And you have many riches," said Herr Behre drily. "A 
 sporting Irish burglar would be glad of a football, but I am 
 a German of the before-sporting period, and I came not to 
 burgle your football. Had I the burgling art, I might, per- 
 haps, rob you of this" and he waved the book of verses. 
 
 "Oh, please take it do," said Adam eagerly. 
 
 Fond as was the German of his little friend, he was not 
 prepared for such generosity. "What is this now?" he
 
 THE WITCHING HOUR 153 
 
 ejaculated, "that you would give away what you have but 
 just received?" 
 
 "Oh, I didn't quite mean to give it away," Adam hastened 
 to assure him; "of course I wouldn't do that with a present 
 from the Marchesa della Venasalvatica : it was she gave it 
 to me, you know." 
 
 Herr Behre smiled grimly. "I know," said he, "it has for 
 a long time been her habitude." 
 
 "Oh," murmured Adam, almost crestfallen, "did she give 
 you one too?" 
 
 "Me? No," said the musician, "or why should I covet 
 your copy?" 
 
 Adam was unprepared to answer this, so he asked a ques- 
 tion instead: "You have never read them, then?" 
 
 "Yes and no," said the musician ; "I have taken the book 
 up here and there, but I have never done so with the respect 
 that one owes to a poet that is worth reading at all." 
 
 "I suppose he was worth reading?" Adam asked. 
 
 "I think," said Herr Behre a little doubtfully, "I think 
 he may have been. It is all a question of time and oppor- 
 tunity ; I conceive that it would not be shameful to be found 
 dead reading these poems." 
 
 "Ah," said Adam, and drew a long breath. He sat down 
 at the opposite side of the fire and looked questioningly at 
 his visitor. "Then you don't think either that he need have 
 been ashamed to be found dead after writing one of them?" 
 
 The musician stroked his beard thoughtfully. "That 
 rather depends upon which one," he said. 
 
 "I was thinking," said Adam, "of the one he wrote the 
 night before he was killed. . . . It's on page 76," he added, 
 as he saw the musician turning to look for it. 
 
 Herr Behre read it gravely aloud, and Adam gradually 
 fo'und himself convulsed with laughter; for it sounded to 
 him merely ridiculous to hear the good man passionately 
 chanting such lines as "Leddem rite dare zelezdial hibbo-
 
 154 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 criffes ofer my gorse" and "I beck dee apshect do forkiff 
 him dat lice tett for de folly dat calt dee do liff." He was 
 sharply sobered when Herr Behre said reproachfully: 
 "What is there to laugh at in that ?" 
 
 So foolish did he feel himself for laughing at it that he 
 subconsciously covered his confusion with a lie. "I was 
 laughing," said he, "because Attracta was frightened by the 
 portrait of the author at the beginning of the book." 
 
 The musician turned to it. "I see," said he : "she was 
 frightened because it looked like you." 
 
 "Looked at me," Adam corrected him ; "Attracta said she 
 saw him looking at me and trying to speak." 
 
 "Humph !" said Herr Behre ; "I had not thought the good 
 Attracta would have psychic power ; but who am I to judge 
 Attracta?" 
 
 Adam asked breathlessly: "You think, then, that she 
 really saw something I could not see ?" 
 
 The musician smiled. "I would not go so far as to say 
 that, but I can imagine that even in death the gallant baronet 
 would find it less trouble to manifest himself to a woman 
 than to a man." 
 
 "But," said Adam, "she said he was trying to look at me 
 and trying to speak to me?" 
 
 Herr Behre's look was inscrutable. He only said : "That 
 may have been Attracta's modesty." 
 
 Adam laughed; for he could not but be pleased at the 
 notion of the whilom lover of the Marchesa, the father of 
 Mrs. Burns and grandfather of Barbara, attempting to pay 
 court in this roundabout manner to poor Attracta. 
 
 "Why do you laugh now?" asked Herr Behre. 
 
 ''At your joke about the baronet making love to Attracta." 
 
 Said Herr Behre grimly: "If the baronet, even through 
 the medium of a bad reproduction of a faulty portrait, made 
 love to Attracta, I imagine it would be no joke for her."
 
 155 
 
 Adam unexpectedly felt the chill down his spine again. 
 "But do you think that possible?" he asked. 
 
 Herr Behre shrugged his shoulders. "Has not Mr. Mac- 
 arthy taught you that no wise man ever says what is pos- 
 sible or impossible?" 
 
 Adam confessed that Mr. Macarthy appeared to believe 
 almost everything was possible except what other people 
 believed in. "But do you think," he suggested eagerly, "that 
 the baronet could really be trying to talk to me ?" 
 
 Herr Behre looked from the portrait to page 76 and back 
 again to the portrait. "That last poem does appear to be 
 addressed to somebody, doesn't it?" he asked. "What do 
 you understand by it yourself?" 
 
 Adam looked at the words over Herr Behre's shoulder. 
 Conscientiously he paraphrased the whole sonnet, and said 
 at last: It's addressed to him who comes after him, who- 
 ever that may be." 
 
 "Presumably," said Herr Behre, "he is addressing himself 
 to his heir." 
 
 "His heir?" Adam repeated. "D'you mean his son?" 
 
 "His son," said Herr Behre, nodding, "or it might be his 
 grandson." 
 
 As Herr Behre expressed the opinion that the baronet's 
 last poem might have been addressed not merely to his son 
 but to the son of that son, the bells of St. George's Church 
 were chiming the half hour; and, with the irresponsibility 
 of youth, Adam, hearing the clock strike, was reminded that 
 among his presents was a wrist-watch given him by Mr. 
 Macarthy, which he had not yet regarded with more than 
 a passing glance for Attracta had somehow banished the 
 thought of Christmas presents from his mind. Now the 
 thought of that watch distracted him from Herr Behre's 
 answer to his own question. . . . After all, Adam was not 
 the old gentleman's son, nor yet his grandson ; he might
 
 i 5 6 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 regret that he was not, for it would have been pleasant to 
 be a member of the aristocracy, but it was no use pretend- 
 ing that he was ; Adam had no pleasure in letting his mind 
 run on the subject of his parentage; so, saying by way of 
 excuse, "I wonder what the time is," he opened the parcel 
 containing his watch and put it on his wrist. "Fancy," he 
 said, "it's half past eleven." 
 
 "Half past eleven," said Herr Behre, and sighed. "Time 
 for little boys to be in bed." 
 
 Adam suppressed a yawn that he might say : "It's quite 
 early still"; then he noticed that Mr. Macarthy's card had 
 been enclosed in the parcel and that there were some lines 
 of writing on it. He carried them over to the gas jet by the 
 fireplace to read : "Do you remember the two quotations 
 from St. Matthew in the first lesson of the Catechism ?" 
 
 Herr Behre, hearing him mumble, asked him what it was, 
 and he replied that his guardian asked him if he remem- 
 bered two quotations from the Catechism. Herr Behre 
 knitted his brows with a puzzled air. "What has Mr. Mac- 
 arthy to do with the Catechism?" he asked. 
 
 Adam in his turn was puzzled. "He's a Catholic," said 
 he, "and every Catholic has to know the Catechism." 
 
 Herr Behre smiled. "I think I know a few Catholics," 
 said he, "but not a great many who know the Ten Com- 
 mandments." 
 
 Adam was shocked, and made no attempt to conceal it. 
 "I don't know many who know it better than myself," said 
 he, "but they're all taught it, and Mr. Macarthy knows it 
 better than I do." 
 
 Herr Behre admitted that Mr. Macarthy knew most things 
 better than other people. "But this is the first time," said 
 he, "that I have heard of him referring to the Catechism. 
 What are the two quotations?" 
 
 Adam answered promptly: "The first is Matthew xii. 36, 
 and the second is also Matthew xix. 26."
 
 THE WITCHING HOUR 157 
 
 "That would say to me absolutely nothing," said Herr 
 Behre, then before Adam could reply he put up his hand, 
 "Wait a moment." For a moment he sat buried in thought : 
 then, with both hands pressed to his forehead, his eyes 
 closed and thumbs upon his ears he chanted : "Ich sage euch 
 aber, das die Menschen miissen Rechenschaft geben am 
 Jiingsten Gericht von einem jeglichen unniitzen Wort, das 
 sie geredet haben." He looked up : "Is that it, eh ? He's 
 cautioning you against idle words?" 
 
 "That's it," said Adam. " 'And every idle word that 
 men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the 
 day of judgment.' ''' 
 
 "Good," said Herr Behre, "and now what's the number 
 of the other one?" 
 
 "Matthew xix., 26," Adam told him, his interest roused 
 by the musician's exhibition of the latent powers of memory. 
 
 Herr Behre muttered under his breath: "Matthai Neun- 
 zehn, Sechsundzwanzig," then he said aloud : "Es ist leich- 
 
 ter, das ein Kameel durch ein Nadelohr gehe " he broke 
 
 off, "Nein, nein, das ist es nicht," and tried again. "Jesus 
 aber sahe sie an, und sprach zu ihnen: 'Bei den Menschen 
 ist es unmoglich, aber bei Gott sind alle Dinge moglich.' " 
 
 The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Adam, 
 anxious to air his little knowledge of German, cried out: 
 "That's it, you got it again. 'With God all things are 
 possible.' " 
 
 "Ha !" said Herr Behre between pride and weariness 
 drawing a deep breath, "So I knew Mr. Macarthy's two 
 quotations after all, at any rate as I read them once in grand 
 old Martin Luther's Bible." 
 
 "Grand old Martin Luther?" Adam repeated aghast, "Do 
 
 you really mean 'grand old ' " he stopped dead, he was 
 
 too astonished to repeat the name again. 
 
 "That's what Robert Browning calls him," Herr Behre 
 informed him, "though I don't know that I quite agree with
 
 158 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 him. He was a sycophant of princes and a time-server and 
 as bigoted himself as the worst of the bigots he fought 
 against, but he did do something to make German a real 
 language and for that I feel grateful to him." 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, "I thought he was just a bad priest." 
 
 Herr Behre looked at him and grunted : "The worse the 
 better." Then he added in a milder tone : "No, you must not 
 take me to mean that ; there is nothing better perhaps of its 
 kind than a good priest, such as your friend Father Inno- 
 cent. But," he added gravely, "to be a priest at all is a 
 great temptation to be bad." 
 
 "How is it a temptation to be bad ?" Adam asked, for no 
 one had put this view of Sacerdotalism before him. He 
 knew that priests could be bad, but he thought they would 
 have been still worse if they had not been priests. 
 
 Herr Behre told him : "Because the priest represents him- 
 self as an agent appointed directly by God to exercise His 
 will on those who are not priests." 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, "and you think that their being ap- 
 pointed by God is all imaginary?" 
 
 "I think that God himself is imaginary," said Herr Behre. 
 
 It seemed to Adam that the room was swimming round 
 him. "God . . . imaginary !" he ejaculated. 
 
 Herr Behre smiled at him reassuringly. "Don't be 
 alarmed, I do not blaspheme. There is a God, I well believe, 
 and not a God made of protoplasm." 
 
 "What's protoplasm?" Adam broke in, anxious even at 
 this moment of dread to add a new word of such interest- 
 ing purport to his vocabulary. 
 
 But Herr Behre declined to be drawn into a definition of 
 the word. "It is too late for that," he alleged. "Both of 
 us little boys must go to bed, but I would have you under- 
 stand that when I say God is imaginary, I only mean that 
 our conception of God is arrived at through our imagina- 
 tion, I mean the imaginations of our great poets, such as
 
 THE. WITCHING HOUR 159 
 
 that Jewish gentleman who was content to write under the 
 pseudonym of 'Moses.' " 
 
 The Dustman, called Morpheus, added to the mystifica- 
 tion with which even at the best of times this speech would 
 have overwhelmed Adam. He murmured rather drowsily: 
 "I suppose the baronet was not such a great poet as all 
 that?" 
 
 Said Herr Behre : "He was poet enough to have his own 
 conception of God, but not poet enough, it would seem, to 
 have a great conception of Him ; and yet, who knows ?" he 
 fell silent then, looking in the fire, repeated : "Who knows, 
 who knows ?" There was again silence, and, still looking in 
 the fire, Adam thought, as if he saw Sir David burning in 
 the heart of hell, "His last thought of God was a bitter one, 
 but not so bitter as his thought of himself . . . his case no 
 man must judge." He turned to the book of verses again, 
 and read in a tone in which Adam now found nothing to 
 laugh : 
 
 "Only of him who may follow me am I afraid. . . . 
 If thou art he, I beg thee abject to forgive 
 Him that lies dead, for the folly that called thee to live." 
 
 There was a long silence, and Adam's head was drooping 
 on his breast, and he was wondering whether he had not 
 heard himself snore, when he felt the musician take him on 
 his knee. "Say now to me," said he, "if you were the poet's 
 son or grandson, would you forgive him for bringing you 
 into the world?" 
 
 Adam rubbed his eyes and looked up, startled, into his 
 questioner's face. "There's nothing to forgive," said he; 
 "I'm jolly glad to be alive." He yawned. "But I don't 
 understand; what's it all about?" Then he fell asleep in 
 Herr Behre's arms, lulled by the distant bells ringing their 
 first joyous peal for the coming of Christmas Day. Then
 
 160 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 the heavier bells of St. George's, so near at hand, roused 
 him enough for him to undress himself, with the aid of 
 Herr Behre, who kissed his forehead and his hands, and, 
 blowing out the candle, wished him a Happy Christmas and 
 Good-night. He had no bad dreams.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 OF DEATH AND BURIAL 
 
 THAT Christmas morning of his fourteenth year Adam 
 awoke at the agreeable hour, for that time of the season, 
 of a quarter to eight o'clock, so that, without jumping out 
 of bed at once, he could, nevertheless, be up and doing 
 before the sun. Owing, however, to his feeling particularly 
 well-satisfied with himself, he allowed the sun to beat him 
 by twenty minutes, and he was still dressing at a quarter 
 to nine. Still, he enjoyed his breakfast, for he felt his 
 virtue to be so great as to cover his unpunctuality. He did 
 not remember everything that had passed the day before, 
 but he recollected that he had forgiven Father Tudor (or 
 at any rate he said to himself that he had), and he had also 
 offered to forgive Sir David Byron-Quinn, in the event, 
 admittedly improbable, of there being anything to forgive. 
 There as something peculiarly gratifying in the thought 
 that he might be privileged to forgive a baronet for being his 
 grandfather. . . . Then he had the sense to laugh at him- 
 self as he recalled the impossibility of that baronet being 
 his grandfather. Baronets do not have grandchildren born 
 in the slums. . . . The recollection that he had been born in 
 the slums sobered, and even saddened him, until, looking 
 round the room, he was cheered again, particularly when he 
 saw the pile of his presents, to reflect upon the difference 
 between the hideous past and the cozy present. He de- 
 termined to dismiss from his mind all hankerings after 
 gentility of pedigree, and to show his gratitude to those 
 who were good to him by gentility of conduct. Attracta had 
 brought him his breakfast, and they had exchanged greet- 
 
 161
 
 162 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 ings. He now went downstairs to wish Miss Gannon herself 
 a Happy Christmas. She was almost moved to kiss him, 
 but, fortunately, the saints said "No." She suggested that 
 Adam should likewise carry his salutations to Mr. Murphy, 
 on the first floor, but this was asking too much of him ; the 
 odor that hung about that whiskified scion of the law was 
 loathsome to him; pretending to think that he was asleep, 
 he went upstairs past his door, and on to Herr Behre's. 
 
 Herr Behre was at his piano, pensively harmonizing an 
 ancient French carol, while he whispered rather than sang 
 the words to himself. 
 
 Adam, sitting there warming his hands by the fire, realized 
 that, as he played, this whispered chant had an extraordi- 
 nary quality of emotion: he wondered that Herr Behre, who 
 apparently did not believe in Christianity, could be so 
 affected by a song about Christ . . . should be willing, in- 
 deed, to have any truck with Christ at all. But, somehow, 
 he did not ask Mr. Behre any question on this subject, but 
 presently stole away so quietly that the musician, not hear- 
 ing his movement, played on his unbroken melody. 
 
 Returning to his room, Adam dressed himself with par- 
 ticular care, and at half past eleven, rather earlier than 
 usual, started out to pick up Mr. Macarthy at Mountjoy 
 Square. In Gardiner's Place he was fortunate to encounter 
 Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde, not too belated to stop to shake his 
 hand and wish him a Happy Christmas. "You look," said 
 the big man, "as if you were happy. Thank God!" 
 
 Adam certainly had the intention of thanking God, but he 
 felt it would be only fair to thank Herr Behre and several 
 others too : it was an intricate matter, this proper allocation 
 of thanks between mortals and immortals, but he supposed 
 that God should have the lion's share. ... At any rate, it 
 would be on the safe side to give it to Him. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled to see Adam. "I think I know," 
 said he, "who is a happy boy this morning." And Adam
 
 OF DEATH AND BURIAL 163 
 
 blushed and would have liked to tell him of the virtuous 
 acts which made him happy, but decided that he had better 
 leave well alone ; so to Gardiner Street Church they went, 
 silently, arm in arm, and had the good fortune to hear an 
 excellent sermon from Father Ignatius Steele. 
 
 The mood of Christmas was essentially the mood for 
 Father Steele : it best inspired his pellucid and benevolent 
 intelligence. "My brethren," he said in effect, "he that 
 speaks to you is not a scholar the higher domains of the- 
 ology are closed to him; he may not roam there, plucking 
 out the finest flower of the convincing arguments which 
 have sufficed to convince all but those whom pride has 
 swept beyond the possibility of conviction, or, better let me 
 say, the immediate probability of conviction, of the truth of 
 the Christian religion as it has been expounded through the 
 unbroken tradition of our Holy Church. ... I am no 
 scholiast. . . . But this I say to you : that for me it is 
 enough to believe that God himself came into the world to 
 manifest Himself to us as a little child, and it is for us to 
 go forth to meet Him by becoming again little children in 
 His Holy Name, the name of Jesus Christ. . . ." 
 
 That was just how Adam felt as he sat there listening to 
 his admired preacher's persuasive tone, seemingly harmon- 
 ized with the Adeste Fidelis still echoing in his ears ; there 
 was something pasionately cheerful in the whole atmosphere 
 of the Church : he seemed that moment to understand what 
 had so often puzzled him, and found nothing unnatural in 
 rejoicing that a God had been born into the world to be 
 tormented and harried out of it by men. . . . After all, 
 what could it matter to a God the worst that men could do 
 to Him? He remembered that one part of God had ex- 
 plained to the other, and, he supposed, less intelligent parts 
 (anyhow, the more old-fashioned parts) that men knew not 
 what they did. ... It occurred to him that men knew very 
 little more about it now, nineteen hundred years afterwards.
 
 164 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 . . . Look at the way Father Tudor had tormented him, 
 but he wasn't going back on that: he had forgiven Father 
 Tudor. 
 
 Coming out of Church, Mr. Macarthy said that before 
 their early dinner he had a call to pay, and after looking in 
 at Alountjoy Square, where he found a parcel, which Adam 
 judged to contain toys, he led him down Fitzgibbon Street 
 to a shabby little house in the Circular Road, which, bidding 
 Adam to wait outside a moment, he entered, the door being 
 opened for him by a little girl who, if only because it was 
 Christmas time, looked less shabby than the house. Behind 
 the closed door Adam could hear the rapturous squeaking 
 of other children, which told him that Mr. Macarthy's parcel 
 was being opened. Enjoying a sort of semi-proprietorial 
 interest in the ecstasies of the unseen children, Adam stepped 
 out in the direction of Drumcondra to keep himself warm 
 while waiting. His exultant feeling was dismally checked 
 as, at the end of twenty feet, he swung round to return, 
 and his eye caught sight, curling into the perspective that 
 closed that segment of the road, of the slow approach of a 
 funeral: funerals had always seemed to him more terrible 
 than death. To die was a natural thing, but to have a 
 funeral seemed something purely artificial an invention 
 to disgust you with Nature. Usually he turned his back on 
 funerals until the hearse was actually passing, when, of 
 course, he stood to attention to salute the corpse; but this 
 particular funeral, catching him when he was unprepared 
 for it, was not to be ignored. Slowly, very slowly, it ad- 
 vanced down that long perspective towards him, the white 
 plumes on the horses' heads told him that it was a burial 
 of youth. His mind reverted at once to his vision, real or 
 fanciful, of Caroline Brady twenty hours before. . . . Any- 
 how, whatever it was, it was not her funeral. . . . He 
 wished that Mr. Macarthy would hurry up, so that they 
 might get safely away up Fitzgibbon Street before the
 
 OF DEATH AND BURIAL 165 
 
 sordid, gloomy, fascinating thing got any nearer. He stood 
 at the bottom of the steps and strained his ears for a signal 
 that his guardian was coming, but he heard no more than 
 vague reverberations of the mirth of romping children. . . . 
 The funeral came on and on; it was not a long funeral, not 
 as long even as Mr. Macfadden's the hearse, two mourning 
 coaches, a cab and a car. Adam doffed his hat as the hearse 
 passed. A small coffin, not a child's, but small ; he imagined 
 a hobbledehoy inside it. In the mourning coach he saw 
 only the leading one sat a woman whose appearance he did 
 not like, and a man he cared for even less : the woman oddly 
 reminded him of the lady who lived on the first floor at 
 Pleasant Street, and desired Mr. Moore to play "Love's 
 Dream," but she was older and wearier looking. The man 
 was dressed like a gentleman, in a tall hat, and a hand in a 
 black kid glove rested on the frame of the window. He 
 looked at Adam as if he would say to him : "This funeral 
 belongs to me; it is not the first I have had the honor of 
 owning, and it will not be the last." Adam, disconcerted 
 by the perverse pride of this gentleman's glance, which 
 seemed to his own joy of life immoral, looked away from 
 him to the opposite seat, and saw there, sitting all alone, 
 with her back to the coachman, Caroline Brady. . . . Their 
 eyes met ; he snatched off his hat, which had barely returned 
 to his head from its salute to the corpse, and she, whether 
 or not recognizing him, bowed and smiled with obvious 
 gratification. . . . Then the door behind him banged, and 
 he and Mr. Macarthy, dodging behind the tail of the funeral, 
 marched up Fitzgibbon Street. 
 
 To Mr. Macarthy Adam said nothing of what he had 
 seen; he had never mentioned Caroline's name to his guar- 
 dian, and an odd feeling came over him as they climbed 
 the hill to the square that perhaps he might never do so now. 
 Of Josephine O'Meagher he felt he might talk to him 
 indeed, had done so and of Barbara Burns he had no diffi-
 
 166 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 culty in talking, but Caroline Brady was a secret to be kept 
 to himself; true, Herr Behre knew of her, but he thought 
 that by this time he had forgotten her name. Mr. Mac- 
 arthy's voice fell on his ear: "You weren't cold waiting 
 there, I hope?" 
 
 "N-no," said Adam with hesitation, and added, as if it 
 were in answer to the question: "Funerals are queer old 
 things." 
 
 "They are," said Mr. Macarthy, almost savagely. 
 "Damned things. I detest them." 
 
 Now that they were up in the square again, Adam was 
 cheerier and could talk of funerals with detachment. "Why 
 do people have them ?" he asked. 
 
 "Because they cling to abominations of all kinds," Mr. 
 Macarthy answered; and their arrival at his house closed 
 the conversation. 
 
 The only one at dinner was Herr Behre, and after dinner, 
 which was jolly enough, Mr. Macarthy turned to him and 
 said : "Adam shares my dislike for funerals." 
 
 "Ach," said Herr Behre, "why should you dislike a poor 
 funeral? We have all got to die, and it is insanitary not 
 to be buried." 
 
 "It's morally insanitary," Mr. Macarthy returned, "to 
 have a funeral." 
 
 "You must have something," Herr Behre argued. 
 
 "Certainly," said Mr. Macarthy ; "you can have the dust- 
 man." 
 
 Adam pricked his ears. "That reminds me of something 
 Father Innocent said," he declared. "He thought an empty 
 hearse was no more than a dustcart, or even a full hearse." 
 
 "If Father Innocent had been Pope," Mr. Macarthy said, 
 "I should have been a good Catholic." 
 
 "Bah!" said Herr Behre, "you are always joking." 
 
 **If Father Innocent had been Pope," Mr. Macarthy in-
 
 OF DEATH AND BURIAL 167 
 
 sisted, "all people who joke would have been good Catholics." 
 
 Herr Behre put on a pair of pince-nez and looked at him 
 gravely. "Is it you who have warned Adam Macfadden 
 against idle words?" he demanded. 
 
 "I have," Mr. Macarthy avowed. "Idle words lead, more 
 than anything else does, to damnation; they are the intel- 
 lectual source of all misery." 
 
 "What, exactly, do you mean by idle words ?" Herr Behre 
 asked. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy looked at him with real or affected aston- 
 ishment. "I mean," said he, "the language, public and 
 private, of those people commonly described by themselves 
 as the governing classes." 
 
 "But," Herr Behre protested, "what need is there to warn 
 Adam against the language of the governing classes?" 
 
 "Think," said Mr. Macarthy. "Why, even I, but for the 
 merciful interposition of Providence, might now be govern- 
 ing a part of India." 
 
 "So far as government is to be tolerated at all," said Herr 
 Behre, "you would have done it better than another." 
 
 "Just so," smiled Mr. Macarthy ; "my superb brain would 
 have been used to assist in the perpetuation of an iniquity." 
 
 "I don't understand," Adam broke in; "is it wrong to 
 govern India?" 
 
 "It is wrong to govern anything," Mr. Macarthy an- 
 swered firmly, "against the consent of that thing." 
 
 "Hear, hear," said Herr Behre. "Now I take your mean- 
 ing that the laws of such governments are idle words." 
 
 "Their laws," Mr. Macarthy said with unusual gravity, 
 "and their prayers, and what they call their words of honor, 
 are all equally idle. . . . Idler than the poorest of the poems 
 of David Byron-Quinn; for even his false sentiments were 
 an effort to get-away from the sentiments of greater falsity 
 which inspired his brothers in arms."
 
 168 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Adam, he knew not why, was glad to hear his guardian 
 speak well of the slain baronet. Seeing there was a chance 
 for him to say something which appeared appropriate to 
 the general tenor of the discussion, he spoke up, addressing 
 himself to Mr. Macarthy: "Do you think, sir," said he, 
 "that the baronet was glad to think that he wasn't going to 
 have a funeral?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy and Herr Behre broke into laughter, and 
 Mr. Macarthy had to pull himself together to say: "Lucky 
 dog! He had no time to think about it." 
 
 "Lucky dog?" Adam echoed; "do you really mean he was 
 a lucky dog?" 
 
 "He was generally thought so," said Mr. Macarthy grimly, 
 "whatever he may have thought about it himself." 
 
 "But," Adam protested, "that last poem of his was des- 
 perately sad." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy answered : "David Byron-Quinn was a man 
 of moods. He may have been depressed the night before 
 his death, but his death itself you may be sure that he en- 
 joyed, perhaps almost as much as those who killed him." 
 
 Adam shuddered. "He must have been a queer man," 
 said he. 
 
 "He was," Mr. Macarthy agreed, "as queer as you, as 
 queer as I." His voice fell, and Adam was thinking of this 
 queerness, that seemed all the queerer for the gloom falling 
 in the room, as the Christmas sun went down behind Find- 
 later's Church. There was a long silence ere anyone spoke 
 again; then Mr. Macarthy, standing with his back to the 
 fire, was thrown into ruddy silhouette by a sudden blaze of 
 flame from the coals behind him, and he recited dreamily : 
 
 "And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine 
 High-piping Pehlevi, with 'Wine ! Wine ! Wine ! 
 
 Red Wine !' the Nightingale cries to the Rose 
 That sallow cheek of hers t' incarnadine."
 
 OF DEATH AND BURIAL 169 
 
 In his cursory glance through the poems of Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn, Adam had not noticed any lines resembling 
 these. "Did the baronet write that too?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smilingly shook his head. "No, the baronet 
 wrote nothing so good as that," he said, "but he had the 
 sense to see the goodness of it before lesser men realized 
 that the man who wrote it was a great poet." 
 
 "Who was he ?" asked Adam eagerly. "I never heard of 
 him." 
 
 "He was Edward Fitzgerald," Mr. Macarthy said, "or, 
 if you like, he was Omar Khayyam." Without leaving his 
 place, he reached a little book from the shelves above his 
 head, and tossed it over to his youthful guest. "Take them 
 home with you," he said, "but not to Clongowes, or they 
 will share the fate of the Boy's Oivn Paper" 
 
 And that night, by the light of the bull's eye lantern (for 
 although there was no reason now why he should not have 
 kept the gas burning, Adam was temperamentally conserva- 
 tive), he departed from Greece into Persia.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 ADAM IS ADVISED TO READ THE BIBLE 
 
 ENTHUSIASM roused Adam early on St. Stephen's Day, and, 
 with his new literary treasure in his hand, he addressed 
 himself from his bed to the spire of St. George's Church 
 in these terms: 
 
 "Wake ! For the Sun, who scattered into flight 
 The Stars before him from the Field of Night, 
 
 Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes 
 The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light." 
 
 The second quatrain appealed to him less ; the allusions 
 in that and those immediately following were too recondite 
 for him, and so was the sixth, commencing with "And 
 David's Lips are lock't," which had seemed so full of mean- 
 ing when spoken by Mr. Macarthy yesterday; but the sev- 
 enth clear enough : 
 
 "Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring 
 Your Winter Garment of Repentance fling: 
 
 The Bird of Time has but a little way 
 To nutter and the Bird is on the Wing." 
 
 And only too clear was the eighth : 
 
 "Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, 
 
 Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, 
 
 The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, 
 The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one." 
 170
 
 ADAM IS ADVISED TO READ THE BIBLE 171 
 
 Too clear was the eighth. The book still in his hand, 
 Adam's eyes wandered off the page to see again the funeral 
 that had wended its way along the North Circular Road 
 into his vision yesterday. It seemed to him uncanny that 
 he, who had so often thought of Caroline Brady as being 
 dead, should see her at last, for the first time that he was 
 sure of her, going to the funeral of someone else. . . . And 
 that someone probably a near relative he recalled the 
 smallness of the coffin probably a brother or a sister. . . - 
 And some day surely his own coffin would be carrying him 
 to Glasnevin. He flung down the book. Nonsense ! What- 
 ever was going to happen to him, he simply would not sub- 
 mit to being carried in a coffin to Glasnevin or any other 
 cemetery. Better, like that baronet, to meet his death 
 amidst the pride of life and be scattered to the four winds. 
 . . . And yet, if Mr. Macarthy himself had died of that 
 cold he had, how could he prevent himself being boxed away 
 and carted off to some cemetery or other ? 
 
 Later in the day he put the question to his guardian, 
 frankly, in schoolboy style. 
 
 "If Dr. Ahern hadn't cured you of that cold, and you'd 
 died," he put it to him, "what would you have done to 
 prevent yourself being buried?" When the words were 
 spoken, he thought them a little harshly expressed, and 
 would have apologized for them. 
 
 But Mr. Macarthy accepted them in the spirit in which 
 they were offered. "If I'd died," said he, "I should have 
 done nothing, but my executor would have seen, I trust, 
 that my body was burnt." 
 
 "Oh," said Adam, "burnt. ... In a fire?" 
 
 "Not exactly in a fire," said Mr. Macarthy, "but in an 
 arrangement heated by fire called a crematorium." 
 
 "Oh," Adam repeated, "a crematorium; I know. That's 
 what you call being cremated." Mr. Macarthy bowed his 
 head in acknowledgment of the truth of this observation,
 
 172 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 and Adam, his mind traveling fast, asked: "Where can I 
 be cremated?" 
 
 "There is no place handy," Mr. Macarthy confessed. "I 
 take it you are in no hurry ?" 
 
 "No, no, not at all," Adam assured him. "I'd as soon as 
 not live for ever." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy shook his head. "No, Adam, you would 
 not; a time would come when you would pray and long for 
 death." 
 
 Adam was sure that Mr. Macarthy was wrong on this 
 point, but he was too polite to say so. "The Holy Fathers 
 lived to be very old," he said. 
 
 "Much too old," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 "Do you believe they did really?" Adam asked inconse- 
 quently. 
 
 "No," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 "Why," said Adam, "is everyone younger in the New 
 Testament than in the Old?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy answered question with question. "Why is 
 everything different in the New Testament from the Old?" 
 
 Adam answered readily : "Because the Old Testament 
 was written by Jews and the New Testament by Christians." 
 
 "And what is the difference," Mr. Macarthy put it to 
 him, "between a Christian and a Jew?" 
 
 Adam was on the point of replying to this with equal 
 readiness when he realized that he did not know the answer ; 
 so he said: "There is a difference between them, isn't 
 there?" 
 
 "There would seem to be," said Mr. Macarthy, "if there 
 is a difference between the Old Testament and the New." 
 
 Adam reflected on this for a long time, until his mind 
 wandered back to his early question, "Where could I get 
 cremated?" Then, recalling that he had had an answer to 
 this which was not very satisfactory, he asked: "Where 
 were you thinking of getting cremated?"
 
 ADAM IS ADVISED TO READ THE BIBLE 173 
 
 "It would have been a toss-up," Mr. Macarthy said, "be- 
 tween Woking and Golders Green." 
 
 "That would be in England," said Adam, jealously. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy bowed apologetically. "The nearest place 
 where I can have it done," said he. 
 
 "Can't you be cremated in Ireland?" Adam asked. 
 
 "Not by any recognized scientific process," Mr. Macarthy 
 said. 
 
 Adam reflected a little while, and then broke forth again. 
 "You'll excuse me saying it, sir, won't you?" he asked, "but 
 it sometimes seems to me, from the way you say things, 
 that you don't think much of Ireland?" 
 
 Their conversation was taking place in the sitting-room 
 at Mountjoy Square, and Mr. Macarthy, his back turned to 
 Adam, appeared to be looking for a book. He wheeled 
 round and came over to him, as one perplexed by a fresh 
 proposition. "Don't I," said he, rather distractedly for him, 
 "Don't I seem to think much of Ireland ? That's odd." He 
 added, as one who offers an apology : "It seems to me that, 
 directly or indirectly, I am thinking of Ireland all the time." 
 
 Adam said : "I meant to say that you didn't think Ireland 
 was up to much." 
 
 "It's not up to much in the matter of funeral arrange- 
 ments," Mr. Macarthy said, and immediately corrected him- 
 self : "At least, it's first rate on the old-fashioned side. . . . 
 If I wanted to get buried I can't imagine anything pleasanter 
 in the way of a burial-place than, say, a corner of Kilcrea 
 Abbey." 
 
 "Where's that?" Adam promptly asked. 
 
 "Between Cork and Macroom, in my own Muskerry," Mr. 
 Macarthy said, with something that seemed to Adam almost 
 to approach sentiment. "It's just the ruin of a Franciscan 
 Abbey, built, I suppose, about a generation before Poyning's 
 Act. Did you ever hear of Poyning's Act?" 
 
 "1492," said Adam, with a chirp of self -approbation. He
 
 174 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 did not add that that was all he knew, or very nearly. 
 Things that happened before his own time were of scanty 
 interest. "Why," said he, "would you like to be buried in 
 that Abbey?" 
 
 "I wouldn't like to be buried there," Mr. Macarthy said, 
 "but if I had to be buried I'd prefer that to a necropolis." 
 
 "What's a necropolis?" Adam asked. 
 
 "Haven't you enough Greek to realize that it means a city 
 of the dead, or, in other words, a sort of municipality of 
 corpses crowded together in rotten streets ?" His face wore 
 an expression of disgust. 
 
 Adam shuddered. "I suppose Glasnevin is a necropolis?" 
 
 "More or less," said Mr. Macarthy, "but not a bad ex- 
 ample of one." 
 
 "There are worse, necropolises ?" Adam put this question 
 with difficulty. 
 
 "Decidedly worse," Mr. Macarthy assured him. "At 
 Glasgow, for example." He broke off. "Everything in 
 Scotland is either worse or better than anywhere else." 
 
 Adam questioned gloomily: "I suppose if you're dead it 
 doesn't hurt to be burnt?" He saw his guardian smiling in 
 spite of himself. "I don't, of course, mean in hell," he ex- 
 plained : "that would hurt, of course, if you were dead or 
 alive." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy said gravely : "It is agreed that to be burnt 
 alive hurts. I have no information as to what it feels like 
 when you're dead." 
 
 "D'you mean the fire of hell, now," Adam asked, "or 
 what?" 
 
 "Any old fire," said Mr. Macarthy, which Adam recog- 
 nized as a form of speech terminating an interrogation. 
 
 Yet he could not resist one question more. "Please," he 
 said, with a note of appeal in his voice, "d'you think that 
 baronet is in hell?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy looked grave. "If you mean by that do I
 
 ADAM IS ADVISED TO READ THE BIBLE 175 
 
 think that David Byron-Quinn is being tossed from a red- 
 hot gridiron into an ice-chest and back again, or being put 
 to some other form of imbecile torment, 1 do not. Hell, in 
 that sense of the word, is too obviously the conception of 
 vulgar and paltry minds to appeal to anything but my sense 
 of the ridiculous, but whether the mind of David Byron- 
 Quinn may still be suffering in some way to which any tor- 
 ment his worst enemies could devise for his body would 
 appear to him a mere jest, is a question to which I do not 
 know the answer. Philosophically I see no probability of it, 
 but my imagination admits the possibility of such a thing." 
 
 Adam thought for a long while, and then asked in a rather 
 hushed voice : "What could he have done that would call for 
 such a terrible punishment as that?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy was slow in replying, and he glanced again 
 at his copy of the baronet's verses before he answered : "He 
 seems to me to accuse himself in his last poem of one of 
 the greatest of all crimes." 
 
 Adam's voice trembled: "I I didn't understand that," 
 he murmured. "What was the crime?" 
 
 There was a menacing thunder in his guardian's answer 
 that echoed through Adam's mind all the days of his life 
 as no inhibition spoken from the pulpit or in the confes- 
 sional echoed there: "He begot a child in lust." 
 
 Adam sat still with stunned and horrified ears. The word 
 "lust" spoken as a real word was strange to him: he had 
 read it time and again in his books, but he did not remem- 
 ber to have heard it. In the confessional it had been called 
 "impurity". ... He understood his guardian to convey that 
 the great sin committed by Sir David Byron-Quinn was that 
 by some outrageous act of impurity he had begotten a child. 
 ... A child begotten in impurity was he looked up at his 
 guardian : "You mean," said he, "that the baronet was the 
 father of a bastard?" 
 
 The rage had gone out of Mr. Macarthy's eyes, but his
 
 i 7 6 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 voice was harsh and vindictive : "I mean worse than that," 
 said he. "Perhaps on balance the world owes a debt of 
 gratitude to those who have brought bastards into it." 
 
 "But isn't it very wrong?" said Adam. "Isn't it a sin?" 
 
 "The historical answer to that," Mr. Macarthy said 
 thoughtfully, "would appear to be that its being right or 
 wrong depends upon place and time. . . . You know that 
 text from St. Matthew that hangs in my bedroom?" As 
 Adam looked at him blankly he said : "I see you don't." 
 
 "D'you mean in Greek?" Adam said, "Over the mantel- 
 piece? I remember puzzling over it, but I'd no idea what 
 it meant." He added frankly : "I didn't even know it was 
 the Bible." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy paused as though he were making up his 
 mind whether to enlighten Adam or not. At last he said 
 simply : "It is from the first chapter of St. Matthew, giving 
 that apostle's version of the genealogy of Christ which is 
 accepted as canonical by all Christianity. It is the sixth 
 verse, and in English runs thus: 'And Jesse begat David 
 the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had 
 been the wife of Unas.' " He looked straight at Adam, 
 "You know the story of David and the wife of Unas?" 
 
 Adam confessed that he did not, and as his guardian 
 briefly and reticently told it to him his golden vision of a 
 young David valiantly confronting Goliath, a transcendent 
 Jack the Giant Killer, was rendered down into a base picture 
 of a crime for the Police News. He beat Mr. Macarthy's 
 table with his young fists in his rage at the lecherous king's 
 perfidy and cried with tears of vengeance for the murdered 
 soldier in his eyes : "I hope David is burning in hell for 
 doing the like of that !" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled grimly, and in a soft but clear voice 
 said : "If David hadn't done the like of that, does it occur 
 to you that St. Matthew would have had nothing to write 
 about?"
 
 ADAM IS ADVISED TO READ THE BIBLE 177 
 
 Adam looked up at him in blank amazement. "Go on!" 
 said he. 
 
 To Adam's callow imagination Mr. Macarthy appeared to 
 be posing the suggestion that if David had not caught Bath- 
 sheba in a state of undress there would have been no such 
 thing as Christianity. And Mr. Macarthy, glancing in his 
 eyes, saw that idea latent in them. He went on to say : "I 
 think it a pity that you do not read the Bible for yourself. 
 I would advise you to read it and to ask Father Steele, or 
 whoever your confessor may be, to tell you what he under- 
 stands from such passages as may puzzle you." He seemed 
 to think a moment, and then went on again: "Tell Father 
 Steele what I said to you ; it may be that he will forbid you 
 to read the Bible, but I don't think that he will try con- 
 sciously to tell you any lies about it." 
 
 "Of course he wouldn't tell me lies !" said Adam indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled at him and answered mildly: "I'm 
 glad to hear you say that, that is my own feeling about 
 him." He added : "But it would not surprise me if he for- 
 bade you to read it." 
 
 "Has he any right to forbid me?" Adam asked. 
 
 "That is a question for your conscience," Mr. Macarthy 
 declared. 
 
 "But," said Adam frankly, "isn't it he who tells me what 
 ought to be against my conscience ?" 
 
 "Is it?" Mr. Macarthy simply answered, "I didn't know 
 that." 
 
 Adam was silent a moment. "After all I'm not sure my- 
 self," he said at last. 
 
 "Sooner or later," Mr. Macarthy advised him, "you will 
 come to the conclusion that the best keeper of your con- 
 science is yourself." He looked at Adam wistfully : "Mind 
 you, I am far from saying that you are necessarily old 
 enough to take complete charge of it already. ... I hon-
 
 178 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 estly think that for the present you would do well to allow 
 Father Steele to help you." 
 
 "At Clongowes," Adam volunteered, "I went to confes- 
 sion to Father Bernard James." As his guardian refrained 
 from any comment he put the question to him directly : "Do 
 you think would he be all right ?" 
 
 "Father Bernard James," Mr. Macarthy shrugged his 
 shoulders, "who am I to be judge? I should think he was a 
 decent man, and so far as I know him I like him well enough. 
 If you are content with him I would not come between you, 
 but I think I can do no harm in saying that I believe him 
 to be intellectually and therefore morally," he repeated : 
 "yes, therefore morally, inferior to Father Steele. But re- 
 member, I do not ask you to weigh my opinion against that 
 of either of them. . . . More than that, I wish to impress 
 upon you that if I have spoken severely of David Byron- 
 Quinn you must not understand from that that harsher judg- 
 ments might not in my own opinion be passed upon myself."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 FATHER STEELE'S VICTORY 
 
 WHEN the shops reopened after Christmas, Adam betook 
 himself to Graf ton Street, and from the same authoritative 
 bookseller who had sold him his copy of Keats he bought a 
 copy of the Bible. Remembering his misleading advice in 
 the world of poetry, he had some misgiving as to whether 
 the Bible with which he provided him could be the genuine 
 article. He had three kinds, he mentioned in reply to 
 Adam's inquiry: a Catholic, a Protestant, and a Revised. 
 Adam, who was nothing if not thorough, would have liked 
 to purchase all three, but smooth-faced commodity bade him 
 to be content with one at a time; so he plumped for the 
 Catholic, and carried it home, notwithstanding its sober and 
 unattractive appearance, with a pride which forbade him to 
 accept of a paper wrapping for it. 
 
 But, arrived home, he found it dull work trying to read 
 it: the Old Testament being squashed into seven hundred 
 and fifty odd pages of minute print, and the New Testament 
 into a couple of hundred. He turned first to the chapter 
 from St. Matthew which had provided Mr. Macarthy with 
 the text for his bedroom, and therein he read : 
 
 "The Genealogy of Christ: He is conceived and born of 
 a Virgin. 
 
 The Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ, the son of 
 David, the son of Abraham : 
 
 2. Abraham begot Isaac. And Isaac begot Jacob. And 
 Jacob begot Judas and his brethren. 
 
 3. And Judas begot Phares and Zara of Thamar. And 
 Phares begot Esron. And Esron begot Aram.
 
 i8o ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 4. And Aram begot Aminadab. And Aminadab begot 
 Naasson. And Naasson begot Salmon. 
 
 5. And Salmon begot Booz of Rahab. And Booz begot 
 Obed of Ruth. And Obed begot Jesse. 
 
 6. And Jesse begot David the king. And David the king 
 begot Solomon, of her that had been the wife of Urias. 
 
 7. And Solomon begot Roboam. And Roboam begot 
 Abia. And Abia begot Aza. . . ." 
 
 At this point Adam found himself yawning, and, incon- 
 tinently thinking of the House that Jack Built, ran his eye 
 down several verses until he came to : 
 
 16. "And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of 
 whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. 
 
 17. So all the generation, from Abraham to David, are 
 fourteen generations. And from David to the transmigra- 
 tion of Babylon, are fourteen generations, and from the 
 transmigration of Babylon to Christ, are fourteen genera- 
 tions. 
 
 18. Now the generation of Christ was in this wise. When 
 as His Mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they 
 came together, she was found with child, of the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 19. Whereupon Joseph her husband, being a just man, 
 and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put 
 her away privately. 
 
 20. But while he thought on these things, behold the Angel 
 of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying: Joseph, 
 son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for 
 that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 21. And she shall bring forth a son: and thou shalt call 
 his name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their 
 sins. 
 
 22. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which 
 the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying : 
 
 23. Behold a Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring
 
 FATHER STEELE'S VICTORY 181 
 
 forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which 
 being interpreted is, God with us. 
 
 24. And Joseph rising up from sleep, did as the Angel of . 
 the Lord had commanded him, and took unto him his wife. 
 
 25. And he knew her not till she brought forth her first- 
 born son: and he called his name Jesus." 
 
 Appended to this was an exegetical foot-note stating that 
 "Helvidius and other heretics most impiously infer that the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary had other children besides Christ." 
 But that St. Jerome had triumphantly argued to the con- 
 trary. Adam was not impressed by the cogency of St. 
 Jerome's argument: even this single chapter from St. Mat- 
 thew made an entirely different impression on his mind than 
 the story of the birth of Christ which he had perhaps imag- 
 ined for himself from the embryo planted in his youthful 
 fancy by Father Innocent and not removed by the Catechism. 
 He had an odd feeling that the Christ presented to him by 
 Father Innocent was the real one, and that either St. 
 Matthew was misinformed upon the subject, or else that in 
 the copy of the Bible which that pretentious book-seller had 
 sold him, he was wrongly reported. 
 
 With an uneasy feeling, he turned back to the title-page, 
 and found that the Old Testament was as first published by 
 the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609, and the New Testa- 
 ment as first published by the English College at Rheims, 
 A.D. 1582. That they should have been produced by English 
 colleges anywhere strengthened his suspicion of them. . . . 
 In the other scale was the assertion that the whole had been 
 revised and diligently compared with the Latin Vulgate, and 
 published by the approbation of a Bishop of Down and Con- 
 nor more than sixty years before; also there was a letter 
 of his Holiness Pius VI. to the most Reverend Anthony 
 Martini, Archbishop of Florence, congratulating him on his 
 translation of the Bible into Italian, and remarking that 
 "At a time that a vast number of bad books, which grossly
 
 t82 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 attacked the Catholic religion, are circulated, even among 
 the unlearned, to the great destruction of souls, you judge 
 exceedingly well, that the faithful should be excited to the 
 reading of the Holy Scriptures; for these are the most 
 abundant sources, which ought to be left open to everyone, 
 to draw from them purity of morals and of doctrine, to 
 eradicate the errors which are so widely disseminated in 
 those corrupt times," and so on. So it seemed to Adam that 
 the book must be genuine enough; he told himself that he 
 must try to like it, and turned the pages in hope of finding 
 something that would restore to him the Holy Family, with 
 which he had believed himself to be more familiar than his 
 own. Chancing on the information that St. Luke was "By 
 profession a physician; and some ancient writers say, that 
 he was very skilful in painting," he started to read him, and 
 was better held by his narrative than by Matthew's. Until 
 he came to his genealogical table: "And Jesus Himself was 
 beginning about the age of thirty years; being (as it was 
 supposed) the son of Joseph, who was of Heli, who was of 
 Mathat, who was of Levi, who was of Melchi, who was of 
 Janne, who was of Joseph. . . ." 
 
 With an unaccountable feeling of mystification, Adam 
 read on names that were but obscurely familiar until the 
 came to the thirty-first verse : "Who was of Melea, who was 
 of Menna, who was of Mathatha, who was of Nathan, who 
 was of David. 
 
 32. Who was of Jesse, who was of Obed, who was of 
 Booz, who was of Salmon. . . ." 
 
 "Salmon, Salmon," Adam repeated under his breath, 
 "where does Solomon come in ?" and his mind ran feverishly 
 up and down the page to find the name of David's son by 
 her who had been the wife of Urias. Then the whole world 
 seemed to go gray, and he longed with an intensity as great 
 as he had ever felt for Father Innocent to guide him. His 
 instinct told him that all the learning of the Jesuits would
 
 FATHER STEELE'S VICTORY 183 
 
 not help him: he almost dreaded the wisdom of the wise; 
 he felt that the Christianity of Matthew and Luke was 
 spurious compared with the Christianity of Innocent. 
 
 He wished he had not wasted money on this book, merely 
 to confuse and sadden his mind; he closed it and put it 
 away among his school prizes and such other books as he 
 was not likely to read again, or had never ventured to read 
 at all. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, 
 frowning at his library, when the bells of St. George's 
 Church ringing the three quarters called him to the window 
 to look at that edifice : he had a double curiosity, to see what 
 the time was and to see the church itself ; the time was a 
 quarter to three in another hour the sun would have set 
 upon one more day of his life. . . . The thoughts that had 
 come to him on his thirteenth birthday came back, some 
 of them, in a graver, more insistent form : he was growing 
 old: he was almost done with childhood: he was on the 
 verge of manhood: from manhood to second childhood was 
 but a step: he visualized himself as an old man of fifty, 
 possibly even more, but fifty was old age, and he had trav- 
 eled more than a quarter of the way to fifty. . . . Soon he 
 would have traveled half, soon three quarters, soon he would 
 be at his journey's end, a journey along roads the map of 
 which he had lost. . . . Had he ever possessed it ? A year 
 ago he had thought it, particularly in class at Belvedere, 
 a dreary and rather futile journey, but had no doubt what- 
 ever of his way (if only Father Tudor would suffer him to 
 keep on his way). Since then the journey itself had become 
 a joy, until he had been wakened to-day to the knowledge 
 that he had lost all sense of direction and almost all faith 
 in the ability of anyone to give it back to him. The Bible 
 was supposed by him to be the road-book of the Catholic's 
 progress through this vale of tears. . . . His instinct had 
 always repudiated the notion of its being a vale of tears, but 
 the phrase came back to him now, throwing a baleful look
 
 i8.4 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 over his shoulder at the shelf where his new acquisition low- 
 ered gloomily back upon him: he deemed that meanly 
 printed, incomprehensible, self-stultifying epitome of gloom 
 to be a vade-mecum to the Slough of Despond, and, turning 
 his gaze upon St. George's Church, he marveled that that 
 pleasantly graceful tabernacle should have been built by men 
 who preferred the ugly dreariness and unintelligibility of 
 the Bible to the agreeable (on the whole, agreeable) romance 
 the Catholic Fathers had grafted on it. ... Then the bells 
 of St. George's Church rang three, and Adam, remembering 
 in what circumstances he had heard them ring three on his 
 last day at Belvedere, wondered whether, after all, the 
 Protestant reading of Christianity could produce anything 
 more un-Christian than Father Tudor. 
 
 Suddenly he turned from the window, seized his cap, and, 
 forgetful of his overcoat, ran downstairs, banged the door 
 behind him, flung round the corner into Temple Street, and 
 round again into Gardiner's Place, and, still running, into 
 Gardiner Street, up the steps into the church. There he 
 knelt down and prayed. . . . Perhaps he rather thought and 
 imagined than prayed, but, anyhow, he communed with that 
 something of which every man is conscious as being within 
 himself and yet not of himself, credibly his interpreter to 
 the Absolute, which Adam visualized as a quintessential 
 Father Innocent. At such a moment as this the beatified see 
 visions, but Adam was not of them. Presently he rose and, 
 outwardly calm, passed up into the sanctuary, and tried the 
 handle of one of the doors, built flush with the masonry, 
 and so not noticeable to all, which give upon the presbytery 
 gallery. He closed it behind him, and turned to see a priestly 
 form pass down the gallery in the direction of the hall door. 
 The figure carried a tall hat and an umbrella, and moved 
 with the gait of a young body prematurely aged: Adam 
 recognized Father Steele, and sprang forward to overtake 
 him ere he could reach the hall door.
 
 FATHER STEELE'S VICTORY 185 
 
 The clatter of heavily booted young feet in that quiet 
 place startled the priest so that he wheeled round to see by 
 whom he was pursued. He did not at once recognize the 
 figure of the boy rushing headlong towards him. 
 
 "Father Ignatius !" cried Adam frantically, "Father Igna- 
 tius Steele, sir: may I just ask you a question?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Father Ignatius, glancing at his watch, 
 "but you must be quick; what is it?" 
 
 Adam was quick, quicker than Father Steele anticipated. 
 "Is it possible to prove," he cried, "that Jesus Christ ever 
 really existed?" 
 
 "Tut, tut," said Father Steele, much taken aback and very 
 red, "Of course it is, of course." His watch slipped back 
 into his pocket and Time was forgotten. "Come in here," 
 he said, and opened the door of the room in which Adam 
 made his first acquaintance with the power and the glory 
 of the Jesuits. It looked precisely the same as when Adam 
 saw it first, and the eyes of the holy men who are with God 
 focused on him as sharply as ever. Father Ignatius laid his 
 hat on the table, also he laid there his umbrella. Then he 
 said: "Sit down," but he himself did not sit down. It 
 seemed to Adam that before he spoke again he said a prayer, 
 then his expression, which had passed from the startled and 
 indignant to the merely perplexed, grew gentle and kindly 
 and sweetly reasonable again. At last he spoke: "Perhaps 
 I answered you too quickly just now," he said, "when I told 
 you that of course the reality of the existence of Christ can 
 be proved. I believe that it can be proved, but, to be per- 
 fectly frank, I cannot prove it even to myself." He looked 
 at Adam : "Do you hear that ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Adam, wondering what would follow this 
 appalling admission. 
 
 "Now, hear this," said Father Steele: "with me it is 
 purely a matter of faith that Christ really existed, true man 
 and true God, but that faith in me is so strong that I should
 
 i86 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 account it the greatest happiness that could be afforded me 
 that I might perish in its defense." He smiled. "Don't 
 think I mean as a crusader or anything romantic, Adam ; I 
 only mean that I should think myself most happy to suffer 
 as St. Stephen did, whose feast, you know, was yesterday. 
 You know how he died?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Adam glibly: "he was stoned to death," 
 and his mind ran instantly to a question : "Is it a fact that 
 St. Paul helped to stone him?" 
 
 Father Steele waved an amiable hand : "Don't ask me for 
 facts, Adam," he protested ; "I am concerned only with ques- 
 tions of faith; if you have nothing further to put to me con- 
 cerning questions of faith, I must go." He took up his hat 
 and umbrella. 
 
 Adam rose. "I think that's all, sir," he submitted. Then 
 burst out: "I'm glad you feel like that about Jesus; that's 
 just how I feel myself." 
 
 Father Steele patted him affectionately on the shoulder. 
 "How charming, my dear boy, how delightful. That is the 
 real feeling to have, I am convinced." And so they parted, 
 well pleased with one another. 
 
 Father Steele walked with Adam as far as the corner of 
 Temple Street, but tactfully spoke only of secular things. 
 His mind was full of the thought of Labor troubles, and 
 he said the coming year was full of the presage of distress. 
 "Your sympathy, like mine," said he, "will be with the poor 
 people, but I am afraid that, morally, they are not always 
 in the right." 
 
 Well as Adam liked him, he did not hesitate to answer 
 stoutly: "It's hard to be always in the right if you're poor." 
 
 Father Steele looked at him with interest. "Only too 
 true," said he. "In the world we know, this world, ruled, 
 if I may say so without offense, by Protestants, the poor 
 have all the punishments of sin, but few, if any, of the re- 
 wards of virtue ; but I fear I am right in saying that many
 
 FATHER STEELE'S VICTORY 187 
 
 of the miseries of the poor are brought about by the poor 
 themselves. I don't mean through drink or laziness or even 
 unthrift, for certainly the poor are not so luxurious nor so 
 lazy nor so unthrifty as the rich, but I mean that in their 
 efforts to better their condition they fall into excesses which 
 ultimately recoil upon themselves. For instance, these 
 strikes : in nine cases out of ten the evil of the strike falls 
 not on the employer but on the employed." 
 
 "Then why do they strike?" Adam asked point blank. 
 "Why indeed?" sighed Father Steele; "sometimes, no 
 doubt, reasonably and legitimately ; more often, perhaps, be- 
 cause the memory of a legitimate victory gives the hope of 
 another less legitimate; but I believe I am right in saying 
 that, take the victories with the defeats, strikes mean a dead 
 loss to everyone." 
 
 "Then you think, sir," said Adam, "there ought to be no 
 strikes?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Father Steele, "there ought to be no 
 strikes." But, as they stopped at the corner of Temple 
 Street to say good-by, he added : "That is not to say that I 
 am blaming the men, even for such strikes as seem to be 
 provoked entirely by them. Whether, humanly speaking, 
 they be sinning or sinned against, my sympathy, and, I hope, 
 your sympathy, will be always with the poor." 
 
 "But supposing," Adam returned, "the poor should be in 
 the wrong? Why should one sympathize with them then?" 
 "Because," said Father Steele, "they have the most need 
 of it." 
 
 Something in his tone held Adam, cap in hand, gazing 
 wistfully after him as he passed on down Denmark Street. 
 Then a sneeze recalled the boy to the discovery that he was 
 standing in the cold without an overcoat, and he ran home 
 to his cozy fire.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 OF FLIGHT AND A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 
 
 THE third week of the New Year found Adam back at 
 Clongowes. He was not the same Adam who had come 
 there as a new boy four months before: nor was he even 
 the Adam who had sat beside Father Bernard James on the 
 car bowling down to Sallins Station two days before Christ- 
 mas. He had returned to Clongowes with an odd mingling 
 of hope and fear : all that part of him that was reasonable 
 told him that he was going to do well this term at school; 
 the imagination attached to his reason showed him his name 
 bulking proudly in the Intermediate reports, his portrait 
 blazoned in The Clongownian as an exhibitioner, and 
 the Lord knows what besides. . . . Yet his instinct was full 
 of dread; he had no idea of what he was afraid, but afraid 
 he was. . . . This grew. During the day time, and more 
 particularly when in class, he was happy enough; but with 
 the falling off of night came apprehension; each happy day 
 ended with the anticipation of a disastrous to-morrow. 
 
 He struggled with this feeling, and one night, several 
 weeks since his return to school, convinced himself that he 
 had got the better of it; for the most careful examination 
 of his position showed to him no opening through which he 
 could be assailed : at Clongowes, so far as he was aware, he 
 had no enemy : certainly none among the masters, and none 
 avowedly among the boys. In Dublin he had in his day 
 memories only friends, and of their friendship he felt surer 
 than ever. That night he slept well, and in the morning 
 cheerily arose. He had taken to washing himself carefully 
 
 188
 
 OF FLIGHT AND A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 189 
 
 again, and the other boys had passed on down to the chapel 
 before he left the dormitory. He descended alone : it was 
 a cold, raw morning, and all was starkly gray in the gas- 
 light. . . . He had a feeling, suddenly, that fear was wait- 
 ing for him somewhere in the depth below: foolish, unac- 
 countable fear. At the bottom of the staircase he heard it 
 pacing towards him, as though coming up the Lower Line 
 gallery. He stopped to listen; yes, he surely heard foot- 
 steps . . . Obscurely familiar footsteps ; they came on and 
 on, and then, as he expected them to mount and meet him, 
 they paused by the Higher Line Library and again retreated. 
 
 Pulling himself together, he swung round past the library 
 door and hurried down to the gallery ; in front of him he 
 saw that he had allowed himself to be terrified by one of 
 the priests, patrolling the gallery between him and the 
 chapel, presumably reading his office. Knowing himself to 
 be late for prayers, Adam hurried on behind him, on tiptoe, 
 not to attract his attention. But as he hastened the priest 
 slackened his pace, perhaps purposely stepped short, and, 
 just as Adam thought to slip in at the chapel door behind 
 him, swung round and stopped him with an outstretched 
 arm, while a terrible voice boomed: "What's this? What's 
 this? Who can this be? Ah, ha! Ah, ha! So we meet 
 again." 
 
 A sweat broke out on Adam's brow. He did not answer ; 
 for he thought himself dreaming. . . . He must be still in 
 bed dreaming what he often dreamt, that Father Tudor had 
 caught him in his clutches once again. He stared at the 
 white cuff, the red and hairy hand; he knew them so well; 
 he saw them so often in his dreams. . . . 
 
 Again the voice boomed in his ear : "What's this ? What's 
 this? . . . Why don't you answer me?" 
 
 In all innocence he gave the answer most fortunate for 
 himself : "I feel sick." 
 
 Father Tudor 's grasp not so much released as rejected
 
 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 him, and his despotic voice boomed : "Oh ... I will see 
 you later." 
 
 Without answer, Adam passed on into the chapel. He 
 was not so sick but to have it clearly in his mind that not 
 of his own free will would he see Father Tudor again. If 
 Father Tudor was come to Clongowes, he must go. Now 
 he understood the premonition of evil which had haunted 
 him day and night. . . . He did not pray that morning in 
 chapel: he planned. 
 
 Why Father Tudor was there he did not ask himself ; the 
 thought that it might be a flying visit never entered his 
 head. It was enough for Adam that he was there and that 
 he had heard once again his voice addressing him as one in 
 authority, one of that cohort of the despicably hateful who 
 had, or pretended to have, the Castle behind them. . . . He 
 felt that even if Mr. Macarthy and all his friends had sped 
 to his rescue and driven this enemy headlong in flight, still 
 there could be no happiness more for him, no possible life 
 at all, within the walls that had to-day been polluted by his 
 presence. . . . Mr. Macarthy had won from him the under- 
 taking to forgive this man, and he had forgiven him : he 
 wished him no evil, his feeling for him was not one of hate, 
 but the dread and loathing aroused by a foul and terrible 
 beast, the beast that, in the Catholic religion, symbolizes all 
 evil, that is imaged as trodden upon by the conquering feet 
 of her who carried God in her womb : the snake. The brain 
 that burnt behind Adam's sweating temples planned no 
 hurt to Father Tudor, but only the means to escape, he 
 cared not whither, provided it should be where he would 
 never fear that bestial menace again. 
 
 Leaving the chapel with the other boys, he fell out of his 
 place in the file ascending to the study, as one who has for- 
 gotten something, and returned to it unquestioned. There 
 he knelt down before the statue of the Virgin and said the 
 prayer of St. Bernard; then, as it seemed to himself, quite
 
 OF FLIGHT AND A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 191 
 
 calmly, he quitted the chapel and passed into the now empty 
 gallery, put on his cap and a muffler, and tried the play- 
 ground door in the Third Line gallery ; but failed to open it. 
 But his mind was quite clear : he was not to be baffled. 
 Taking off his cap and muffler, he walked back quietly in 
 the direction of the class-rooms and dormitories, and, still 
 meeting no one, tried the door towards the infirmary. That, 
 too, was locked, but a class-room door close by was open, 
 and in that class-room one window was unfastened. . . . 
 In a moment he was out in the grounds, trotting softly 
 tli rough the misty dawn towards the bicycle house, puzzling 
 his brains how he should find means to burgle it. But For- 
 tune favored him ; for the lock, when examined, proved to 
 be un-shot. In the gloom it was hard to get out his bicycle, 
 but, silently and with patience, he disentangled it, silently 
 and with patience he steered it through and lifted it over 
 all obstacles between him and the avenue ; and then at last, 
 not waiting to blow up the tyres, he clambered into his 
 saddle and swung off swiftly down the byway to the road. 
 Within twenty minutes from the moment of leaving the 
 chapel, the trees had swallowed him from the sight of any 
 watcher at Clongowes. He was not very sure of his way, 
 but that it was north and east ; and so, with a warm wind 
 sweeping him on, he flew to meet the sun. . . . To plunge, 
 as it seemed to him, into the arms of Liberty. 
 
 Without a map, and unwilling to ask his way, he tacked 
 up and down upon a wavering course between the baronies 
 of North Salt and South, conscious of nothing so much as 
 the joy of being free, of leaving behind him the only 
 tyranny before which he had quailed. It had been a hard, 
 cold night, and there was frost on the meadows and hedge- 
 rows, even ice here and there on those quiet roads he was 
 the first that day to traverse ; but the south-west wind that 
 followed him was already moistening the earth ; and the 
 sun, within a week of entering Aries, by eight o'clock was
 
 I 9 2 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 high enough above the world to warm it. Somewhere a 
 lark was singing, and Adam felt himself in harmony with 
 the birds and the calves and the lambs and all the other 
 young things that, unthinking of the night so close upon 
 them, welcomed the morn. Once he sat down to rest beside 
 a stream, charmed by the inviting murmur of its waters : 
 a boy bringing horses to it, the first he had spoken to since 
 Father Tudor's voice had thundered panic in his ear, told 
 him it was the Liffey, and his mind's eye pursued it through 
 the foliage on its winding way to Dublin, where it would 
 join that tinier rivulet which had bewitched him at Killakee ; 
 together they would fall into the sea, the sea that was the 
 common ground of all the peoples of the teeming earth. 
 . . . He pined again to look upon the sea, to travel on it, 
 maybe, in the Bristol boat. The thought of the Bristol boat 
 conjured up the thought of Caroline Brady; he knew not 
 clearly why, unless it was that he had been thinking of her 
 when his father had caught him lingering by Butt Bridge 
 watching the Bristol boat so many years ago. ... A doubt 
 arose in his mind whether the Bristol boat lay any longer 
 in that berth by the Custom House, where, when he was a 
 little boy, he used to sit on the steps to watch her; but, 
 whether the Bristol boat still ran or not, he knew that Caro- 
 line Brady was really alive; for he had seen her twice, or 
 at any rate once for certain sure. A longing to see her 
 again became urgent as he watched the Liffey water swoop- 
 ing down to the sea. 
 
 He mounted his bicycle and rode on. So easily had he 
 taken things, so lightly wandered off from any probable 
 high-road, that it was already noon when he found himself 
 outside the factory chimneys of Celbridge, and another hour 
 was gone ere he crossed the Dublin border. At Lucan he 
 stopped to feed, modestly enough, on tea and bread and 
 butter. It was two o'clock when he mounted again, con- 
 scious of weariness in his head and limbs. He rode beside
 
 OF FLIGHT AND A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 193 
 
 the tram line until Chapelisod, where he turned into the 
 Phoenix Park. Here it was dark, misty, and mysterious 
 amidst the great trees : it seemed lonely, too, turning off the 
 high-road, with all its traffic, into the aristocratic solitudes 
 that embosomed the residence of the Viceroy and that Chief 
 Secretary, nominally his servant, but, as Adam was poli- 
 tician enough to know, actually his master. Pedalling up 
 the rising gradient that he guessed should lead him out 
 somewhere between the Wellington Obelisk and the Zoologi- 
 cal Gardens, whence he knew well his way into the town, 
 he fell a-thinking on the mystery of government and why 
 it was that the nominal master of Ireland should be paid 
 20,000 a year while the real master had less than a quarter 
 of that sum, when out of the quiet of the trees came the 
 cry of a woman's voice, a cry for help. 
 
 It startled him by the remembrance it roused of the 
 clamant scream of his mother when the late Mr. Macfadden 
 laid violent hands upon her for the last time in that hero's 
 life. . . . Not so shrill, not so compelling, not so convincing 
 a cry was it ... yet was it credibly, undeniably, the cry of 
 a female, and a young female, in distress. And Adam knew 
 it to be directed to him ; he looked around, he saw no one, 
 nothing beyond a lonely perspective ahead of him, and an 
 equally lonely curve behind, so far as he could see behind 
 without dismounting from his bicycle. . . . Instinct bade 
 him put all his strength into his feet to carry that bicycle 
 faster towards civilization. . . . Then the scream came 
 again, quite unmistakably ; "Help ! Help !" 
 
 Dismounting, he faced about to see a young woman 
 emerge from the gloom of a copse, running swiftly towards 
 him. . . . She had the air of being pursued, and he thought 
 he saw a further movement in the foliage behind her. He 
 could not say what caused the movement ; his mind's eye 
 presented to him at once the images of a drunken tinker and 
 a mad bull. . . . He had often thought of what he would
 
 194 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 do if he encountered a drunken tinker or a mad bull, and 
 was not without a certain preparedness for meeting either 
 of these contingencies. . . . But the uncertainty as to 
 whether he was now about to confront the inebriated crafts- 
 man or the insane head of cattle unnerved him, and he found 
 it hard indeed not to spring on his bicycle again while there 
 was yet time. ... As the distressed damsel drew near him 
 she slackened her pace almost to stopping, but, seeing him 
 as though in doubt whether to flee, she cried out again for 
 help and accelerated her movement. 
 
 Partly because she cried to him, and partly because the 
 enemy seemed loth to break cover, Adam gathered courage 
 to stand his ground. . . . Near enough for him to see her 
 eyes, he felt that it would be cowardly to desert her. 
 Though a little draggled from her run, he deemed her too 
 fair a lady to be left by him to the mercies of tinker or bull, 
 if such, indeed, was the nature of her persecutor. A few 
 feet from him she panted: "You'll excuse me, won't you? 
 ... I thought you wouldn't mind." 
 
 Adam touched his cap, would have lifted it, but it seemed 
 somehow to have stuck to his forehead: "Not at all," he 
 assured her, "not at all. I don't mind in the very least," 
 and waited to learn what he was expected to mind. 
 
 "I knew you wouldn't mind," she said, and beamed on 
 him with pretty and coaxing brown eyes that held no great 
 fear in them. "It's a fearful lonely road, this." 
 
 "I suppose it is lonely," said Adam carelessly. ""What 
 frightened you? Was it cattle or deer?" 
 
 She seemed to him to blush. "Frightened you may well 
 say I was, but don't let me keep you standing talking." As 
 Adam hesitated, she suggested : "Let's just walk on together, 
 if you please." Mystified, Adam obeyed, and began to push 
 the bicycle somewhat drearily towards the east side of the 
 park. "Unless," she suggested, "you prefer to sit down 
 and rest."
 
 OF FLIGHT AND A DAM3EL IN DISTRESS 195 
 
 Adam stared at her. "I thought you said you were fright- 
 ened ?" he protested. 
 
 "I should just think I was," she assured him; "you feel 
 my heart beat," and she obligingly assisted him to do so. 
 Adam thought two things. Firstly, that her heart beat 
 very nicely, and secondly, that it was odd that she should 
 be so very frightened and so indifferent in the face of 
 danger. "What happened to you?" he asked. 
 
 She looked at him, and then dropped her eyes. "What 
 happened ? ... It wasn't so much what happened as what 
 was going to happen." She looked at him again, and again 
 dropped her eyes. "You'd never guess what was going to 
 happen." 
 
 Adam was disconcerted at the suggestion that he was 
 unable to guess such a simple thing. "It was a bull ?" he 
 hazarded. 
 
 Their eyes met, and he saw there were tears in hers, but 
 she did not speak. He could not make up his mind whether 
 it was a bull or not. "If it was a bull," said he, "we'd better 
 not be standing here." 
 
 Without enlightening him as to what it was, she an- 
 swered: "No; do let's be getting on." She looked at his 
 bicycle. "I suppose you're too young to take me on the 
 carrier?" 
 
 Adam was not used to taking people on his carrier, but 
 he did not like to say "No." "We might try," he admitted. 
 "But how would you hold on?" 
 
 "With my arms round your waist, dear," she said win- 
 ningly. 
 
 Adam looked from her to his bicycle, .scratched his head, 
 and then pinched his back tyre. "I'm afraid," he said at 
 last, "the weight would be too much." 
 
 Her tone in rejoinder was ironical : "I knew you were 
 too young. Would you like me to walk beside and push 
 you?"
 
 196 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Adam glared at her resentfully. "I am thirteen," said 
 Adam, "I will be fourteen before long." 
 
 Her face fell and then lit up again. "Is that all? . . . 
 Then perhaps we'd better be getting on the way home. 
 Your Da'll be angry if you're late for tea." 
 
 "I have no Da," Adam rejoined, and nearly claimed that 
 he had never had one, but broke off to say once again: 
 "What was it frightened you?" 
 
 "Didn't you tell me it was a bull?" said she. 
 
 Adam thought her a baffling lady. "I thought it was a 
 bull, but " 
 
 "Wonders will never cease," said she. "I thought it was 
 a soldier." 
 
 "A soldier?" Adam cried. "A soldier, was it? Where 
 is he?" He stopped and looked round defiantly. 
 
 The young lady took him by the arm. "Never mind 
 where he is now," she said, "sure, maybe when he saw the 
 bicycle he ran away." 
 
 Adam looked at her questioningly. "Why should he be 
 afraid of the bicycle?" 
 
 "In fear you might go and call the polis," she answered, 
 and hurried on. "It was well for me you came, or I don't 
 know what would have happened." 
 
 Adam blushed to hear himself ask: "What do you think 
 might have happened?" 
 
 She looked at him defiantly : "Oh, indeed, and nothing at 
 all," she said. "L'd rather die than let a scrubby little snot 
 of an English soldier kiss me holy toe." 
 
 Adam looked at her with great interest and some admira- 
 tion. "D'you think he would have tried to do that?" he 
 asked, adding a thoughtful: "But why?" 
 
 She laughed a bitter but a taking laugh. "You never 
 know what a khaki cut-throat will be after if he meets a 
 girl on a lonely road."
 
 OF FLIGHT AND A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 197 
 
 "But," said Adam, "to kiss your toe ? There could be no 
 great harm in that." 
 
 "Not if he left off at the heel of me stocking," she re- 
 joined, "but sure it's no use telling me you're only thirteen." 
 
 "Nearly fourteen," Adam said, "I told you nearly four- 
 teen." 
 
 She eyed him quizzingly : "You're the queer lad for your 
 age," she said, "I think we'll part beyond at the cross road, 
 for you wouldn't be liking to see me home, would you?" 
 
 "If you think there's any danger " Adam began. 
 
 She cut in with : "I see no bulls about, do you ?" 
 
 "But there are soldiers," Adam pointed out. There were 
 two approaching swinging penny canes. 
 
 The lady looked at them. "Oh, I wouldn't be afraid of 
 that pair," said she, "and I see you don't want to bring me 
 home." 
 
 Adam reddened. He certainly did not want to bring her 
 home, but he hated to say point blank that it was impossible, 
 nor was he willing to betray the suspicion of her character 
 forming in his mind. "I have to go to Mountjoy Square," 
 he said, "do you know where that is?" 
 
 She laughed. "Who doesn't know where Mountjoy 
 Square is, that knows anything about Dublin at all? Sure 
 I live within a stone's throw of it myself." 
 
 Of course, Adam could not refrain from the question: 
 "Where do you live ?" 
 
 "I wondered how long ye'd be before you'd ask me that," 
 she returned. "I live in Pleasant Street, and that's a fact, 
 No. 10 and it's second next door but two from that grand 
 house of Mrs. O'Toole's." 
 
 Adam's face and ears burned. "Who is Mrs. O'Toole?" 
 he asked. 
 
 The rescued damsel stared at him. "Well, it's easy to 
 see you don't know much about Pleasant Street, or you
 
 i 9 8 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 wouldn't need to be told that Mrs. O'Toole's real name is 
 Mrs. Macfadden." 
 
 Adam did not stay to argue this point : suddenly he was 
 in his saddle, pressing the pace to leave the lady behind. 
 Turning a corner he glimpsed her over his shoulder talking 
 to the two soldiers. Feverishly he rode on, plunging madly 
 between the motor-cars sweeping up and down the main 
 road by the Gough Statue. Soon he was whizzing through 
 the park gates on to North Circular Road. He had no 
 thought now but to get home and quickly, or rather to flee 
 into that one certain harbor of refuge, his guardian Mr. 
 Macarthy's room. Pedalling ever faster, he hummed along 
 the straight line to the Abattoir. In front of him he saw 
 nothing but an electric tram outpacing him by very little up 
 the road. He doubled his body in his effort to overtake it. 
 then suddenly there was a shout, the roar of what he said 
 to himself was that mad bull, a shock, horns and fiery eyes, 
 a flying through space and nothingness.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 THE MIRACLE OF THE TRAMS 
 
 IN after years Adam perceived two marked lacunae in the 
 history of his life which he carried in his memory, adding 
 a paragraph day by day. The first was when the police spy, 
 known to him by the sobriquet of Old Comet, frightened 
 him to death's door outside the Gresham Hotel, and as 
 chance would have it gave him his first glimpse of happiness. 
 The second was when in full career from the renewed 
 menace of Father Tudor, he dashed at the highest speed to 
 which his young legs could urge his bicycle into a bullock 
 proceeding to his own funeral outside the cattle market, 
 whose last act ere passing over to the happy grounds where 
 no drovers hunt, was to knock him senseless. Each break 
 was the occasion of his waking and wondering to find him- 
 self in a hospital, but the second time his stay was short 
 and his homecoming an event of joy. His fractures were 
 simple and soon set, but the shock to spine and brain were 
 serious, and it was full summer before Dr. Ahern, once 
 again in charge of him, pronounced him to be as sound as 
 he was likely ever more to be. 
 
 This was the most luxurious spring of Adam's life. His 
 fourteenth birthday, the happiest of all birthdays, for the 
 simple reason that absolutely nothing happened on it: he 
 simply lay most cozily in bed, read The Three Musketeers, 
 and convinced himself that he was d'Artagnan, or would 
 be as soon as he got up. For it was quite settled with his 
 guardian that his school days were over. Even Father Mul- 
 doon was content that this should be so: he was satisfied 
 with the knowledge that Adam was firmly bound to a Jesuit 
 
 199
 
 200 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 confessor . . . had advertised the wisdom and piety of 
 Father Ignatius Steele with a tongue energized by an un- 
 balanced brain : also he had proclaimed the idiosyncrasies of 
 Father Tudor . . . but this Father Muldoon pooh-poohed 
 as beside the point, though he let Father Tudor know of it. 
 To Mr. Macarthy he expressed it as his wish that Adam, 
 when his brain should be sufficiently recovered to climb 
 Parnassus' higher slopes, should read with coaches (whom 
 he should select for him) with a view to matriculation at 
 the National University. To this Mr. Macarthy did not 
 say, "no," and Father Muldoon avoided the impolicy of ask- 
 ing him to say "yes." 
 
 If Mr. Macarthy's religious ideas were unlike Father In- 
 nocent's, his educational methods were wholly remote from 
 those obtaining not only at Belvedere but at Clongowes : he 
 never used the word "work" in any sense in which Father 
 Tudor or his disciples would have used it. He said no word 
 implying that Adam's formal education was unfinished. 
 Mr. O'Meagher agreed with him that nothing more could 
 be done in the boy's present nervous condition, but harped 
 on the subject of preparing him for the National University, 
 with a view to his winning distinction in Gaelic. As for the 
 other guardian, the judicious Mr. O'Toole, he desired en- 
 tirely to be guided by Mr. Macarthy. He actually called 
 at St. George's Place, neatly attired in flannels, with a straw 
 hat, the M.C.C. ribbon on which made an effective contrast 
 to his black bow tie (to which he was more faithful than 
 to anything else) to exhort his godson to regard Mr. Mac- 
 arthy as one possessing infallibility. "There's nothing that 
 queer fellow doesn't know," he assured him. "You can't 
 go wrong if you follow him." And Adam was aware that 
 he himself was addressed with a growing respect, as one in 
 whom the potent Macarthy had condescended to be inter- 
 ested. 
 
 As a corollary to this Adam looked upon his godfather
 
 THE MIRACLE OF THE TRAMS 201 
 
 with a less critical eye : the flannel suit pleased him as well 
 cut, which indeed it was, though not for Mr. O'Toole, and 
 as he had never heard of the M.C.C., he was not troubled 
 by the unauthorized flaunting of their favor : only the black 
 tie connected this improved godfather with him of unre- 
 generate days. He was going to inquire for his mother 
 when there percolated into his mind an echo of what he 
 had learnt in the Phoenix Park immediately before his catas- 
 trophe: he was unable to resolve whether he had really 
 heard it, and perhaps bias suggested that it was told him in 
 his fever. He was startled that Mr. O'Toole, looking in 
 his eyes, should say : "You haven't asked after your mother. 
 And why, indeed, should you? Sure, what does it matter? 
 But she told me to say that she sends you her compliments 
 and would bring them herself if it wasn't for her feet." 
 
 "Feet ?" Adam echoed. "What about her feet ?" 
 
 "Gout in the big toe," said Mr. O'Toole, describing, in 
 what he believed to be a fashionable manner, that malady 
 commonly called a bunion. 
 
 Adam's reply went near to surprising his godfather: 
 "What sort of a street is Pleasant Street?" 
 
 Mr. O'Toole studied his expression before answering: "I 
 don't wonder at your asking that, now ; for I'm sorry to say 
 it's not at all the sort of street it was. I'd be thinking of 
 moving now if I hadn't bought two more houses in it." He 
 added with a sigh : "That's the trouble about house property, 
 but I've got it in the blood" ; and he went away on this, leav- 
 ing Adam wondering what he meant by having house prop- 
 erty in the blood, finally deciding, from the way in which 
 Mr. O'Toole had said it, that it was a more agreeable com- 
 plaint than gout in the big toe. 
 
 It pleased Adam that Miss Gannon and Attracta both ap- 
 proved of Mr. O'Toole : he was surprised that he should be 
 pleased, for he could not bring himself to approve of Mr. 
 O'Toole: the black tie reminded him that he had seen him
 
 202 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 behave in a less courtly manner than that which won the 
 heart of the innocent women of St. George's Place. He 
 came to the conclusion that he was pleased at their approval 
 of him, because on hearing him announced he had felt so 
 ashamed of what they might think of him. And it is a 
 ticklish thing to be ashamed of your godfather, particularly 
 if ... If what? He was too weary to pursue the question. 
 It was best not to think about Pleasant Street at all and 
 growing daily more easy to forget it. Mr. O'Toole's visit 
 was not repeated, and would have passed from his mind 
 had not Attracta fished out The Young Gentleman's 
 Guide from its hiding-place and decoratively arranged it 
 under his Prayer Book on the side table of misbegotten 
 bamboo, hitherto exclusively reserved for works of piety. 
 Adam was always meaning to expel it thence, but never 
 quite succeeded in summoning up the decision to do so: 
 there was no denying that it was handsomely bound, if you 
 liked that sort of thing : violet plush, with, as inset, a piece 
 of glass encircled by the legend, in Gothic characters, "The 
 Mirror of Knighthood." In idle moments Adam sought to 
 use this as a burning-glass with which to turn the sun's beam 
 on passers-by; but the glass was too inferior for that. . . . 
 Even Attracta found it useless for her toilet. 
 
 Meanwhile the summer drifted idly by. He had a feeling 
 sometimes that that morning he had fled from Father Tudor 
 into the silvery dawn he had left all the harsher reality of 
 life behind: even his dreams, and he was always dreaming, 
 little less when awake, were soft, the objects in them having 
 no palpable outline. . . . The sun reached Cancer and 
 swung down to Libra, midway to Capricornus ; he was four- 
 teen and a half. . . . Then a fantastical thing happened. 
 Going one morning to take the tram at the corner of Hard- 
 wicke Street and Frederick Street, he waited for it to come, 
 waited with growing impatience until one at last appeared, 
 but would not stop at his signal, being, as he noticed, full.
 
 THE MIRACLE OF THE TRAMS 203 
 
 He waited for another, half an hour by St. George's Church : 
 no other came. Supposing that that part of the system was 
 held up through breakage; he walked up to Dorset Street 
 to try the alternative route to the city, and waited there; 
 and so an hour and a half went by, and yet he saw no tram. 
 Overcoming his repugnance to the police, he inquired of a 
 constable the wherefore of this failure. 
 
 "Why there's no tram, is it ?" said the constable. "Faith, 
 you'd better ask them at Liberty Hall." 
 
 Adam frowned. "D'you mean there's a strike?" he asked. 
 
 "A strike and a half," said the constable moodily. He 
 was a fattish man with melancholy eyes, obviously not born 
 to be a policeman, but rather a philosopher; and in a phi- 
 losophic tone he said : "You might call it the beginning of 
 the bloody end." 
 
 Perceiving him not to be as other constables, but one who 
 would stay question, Adam asked: "How can an end have 
 a beginning?" 
 
 The constable did not resent the question : he merely said : 
 "True for ye," and passed on. He was manifestly very de- 
 pressed. Adam, abandoning his idea of going into town, 
 turned his steps towards Mountjoy Square, and, finding 
 Mr. Macarthy, recounted to him his conversation with the 
 policeman. Mr. Macarthy said he was glad to know that 
 there was an intelligent man in the Dublin Metropolitan 
 Police. 
 
 "Then," said Adam, "things are going to be lively, are 
 they?" 
 
 "They're going to be deadly," Mr. Macarthy said, but 
 did not pursue the subject. 
 
 And after that for months there were few trams, and, the 
 strike spreading from calling to trade and trade to calling, 
 there was not a great deal of anything, and that dear; and 
 many died, chiefly among the poor; and some that lived 
 wished they were dead. But Adam kept cheerful, and was
 
 204 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 glad to be alive, for the realities of life had ceased to trouble 
 him; he lived now in a world of his own, begotten of 
 dreams by books. Even when he was knocked down in a 
 riot and picked himself up just in time to see a policeman 
 slay a man with a blow from his baton on the back of his 
 head, it seemed to him little more than an exciting detail in 
 the pageantry of life. . . . It only made him hate and de- 
 spise policemen a very little more. After all, it was less 
 cowardly to kill a man, even with a blow from behind, than 
 to twist the arm off a woman, as he had seen policemen do 
 a dozen times when he was an urchin playing in Marlbor- 
 ough Street or selling papers outside the Gresham Hotel. 
 
 What impressed him most was the growing ascendancy 
 of Mr. Macarthy, whose sitting-room in Mountjoy Square 
 was now so constantly used by various committees that 
 Adam was permitted to take his books into the bedroom, 
 where, sitting by the fire, his eyes would travel from the 
 printed page to the portrait of Erasmus, and that queer 
 advertisement of Mr. Oswald Onsin's achievement, and the 
 ugly old crucifix, and the odd Greek text meaning that 
 David the king begot Solomon of her who had been the 
 wife of Urias. He found himself pondering of whom that 
 other David, called Byron-Quinn, had begotten the child to 
 whom his last poem was addressed. He was pondering this 
 one day when he heard the voice of Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde 
 saying to Mr. Macarthy, in the hall between the two doors : 
 "I think it very wise of you; but, then, what you do is 
 always wise." 
 
 Adam knew that most people thought his guardian wise ; 
 he himself thought him as wise as Solomon. And yet Adam 
 might have passed him a hundred times in the street and 
 never noticed him. It was only when he spoke that he 
 roused attention, and he did not waste words. Words. . . . 
 Was there anything that could not be expressed in words? 
 .So far as words went, Air. Macarthy seemed to know
 
 THE MIRACLE OF THE TRAMS 205 
 
 everything. He never seemed to want a word; he com- 
 manded them like a king. But did that prove anything? 
 On Adam's lap lay a book by a fellow called Oscar Wilde, 
 interesting to Adam because someone had shown him the 
 house where he was born in Westland Row : he claimed to 
 be a lord of words. That did not prevent the English send- 
 ing him to jail for some queer reason. But, then, he 
 was an Irishman, and the English never troubled about 
 reasons for sending Irishmen to jail. When Adam first 
 noticed that Mr. Macarthy had the books of Oscar Wilde, 
 he asked his guardian whether they were worth reading, 
 and Mr. Macarthy had answered dubiously: "Perhaps The 
 Cantcrville Ghost," and added thoughtfully : "Of course, 
 every book is worth reading really if one were alone with it 
 on a desert island. . . . Even Tinkler's." 
 
 "His poems or his plays?" Adam asked. 
 
 "It's an awful choice," Mr. Macarthy said; "perhaps I 
 ought to say a delicate choice. But you've heard him read 
 his poems, haven't you?" 
 
 "That was a long time ago," Adam said. "I was only 
 twelve, not old enough to judge." 
 
 "Perhaps not," Mr. Macarthy agreed, and said brightly: 
 "I'm not sure that I'm old enough to appreciate Tinkler's 
 plays. You'd better hear him read one himself." 
 
 "That would be jolly," said Adam. "D'you think he'd 
 read one to us ?" 
 
 "One or more," Mr. Macarthy answered gloomily. 
 
 Adam's enthusiasm was just a little shaken. "What are 
 they all about?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy turned to him in sorrow rather than in 
 anger, and said in a carefully modulated voice : "Adam, my 
 dear boy, I am always charmed to answer your questions, 
 but we really must draw the line somewhere." 
 
 "Are they very bad?" Adam asked, and was astounded 
 by the simplicity of Mr. Macarthy's reply:
 
 206 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "I have written worse." Ere Adam could question him 
 about it, he volunteered : "Some day I will tell you all about 
 it, but not until you are old enough to appreciate its de- 
 merits."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 JOSEPHINE PUTS HER HAIR UP 
 
 ERE the second year had passed since Adam made Mr. 
 Macarthy's acquaintance at the tea-shop in College Street, 
 he felt as if he had spent his whole life in his company. 
 Not even with Father Innocent had he been on such familiar 
 terms; for many questions now presented themselves to his 
 mind that he knew it had been vain to ask Father Innocent 
 even had he dared to shock him with them : there was none 
 he could not, and few he did not, put to Mr. Macarthy. 
 And the more serious questions were always answered on 
 the spot, without attempt to evade the meaning that lay be- 
 hind the form of the query. And yet, though it was Adam 
 who questioned and Mr. Macarthy who responded, Adam 
 felt that he really knew the mere fringe of his guardian's 
 intellectual, or, as Father Innocent would have said, spir- 
 itual life: his open and ready answer often suggested that 
 even fuller information couched in the mind that gave so 
 much while it volunteered so little. He came to think of 
 his guardian as one who knew everything, almost as one 
 who could do everything. And he often wondered why he 
 was content to say little and do less; for his spontaneous 
 talk was banter, and his activities of the kind that the late 
 Mr. Macfadden had dismissed as womanish. Had he not 
 seen him to be a gentleman and heard him so spoken of even 
 by the exacting Mr. O'Toole, Adam would have thought of 
 him as a lady. 
 
 This impression was deepened by the fact that Mr. Mac- 
 arthy had many women visitors, of all ages and wellnigh 
 aH sorts, plain and pretty, dowdy and modish : but they were 
 
 207
 
 208 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 quite unlike the women among whom his infancy had been 
 passed, or even the prettiest lady to be met in Pleasant 
 Street. The only persons from his earlier portrait gallery 
 whom he could think of as worthy of their company were 
 Josephine O'Meagher and her mother : and he considered, 
 with an emotion strange and bitter-sweet, what Josephine 
 would make of Mr. Macarthy if she met him now, and 
 whether she would still want to be a nun, or want to sit 
 again in his lap, after she had dined, or lunched, or supped, 
 or breakfasted with him at Mountjoy Square. A notable 
 thing that ladies should find Mr. Macarthy's conversation 
 so wise that they would get up early enough in the morning 
 to share his breakfast with him. 
 
 "They must think a lot of you," said Adam to Mr. 
 Macarthy. 
 
 "Pure kindness of heart," said Mr. Macarthy to Adam. 
 "Women are always kind to anyone who appreciates them, 
 and I do: I always did." 
 
 "And so do I," Adam heartily returned, "and always 
 will." 
 
 "In time," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy never went to Sandycove: Adam knew, 
 somehow, that Mrs. O'Meagher did not approve of Mr. 
 Macarthy ; and, although Mr. O'Meagher brought from time 
 to time a formal invitation, no one expected it to be ac- 
 cepted. He did not fail to notice that even himself was 
 never asked there when Josephine was at home, and so he 
 ceased to go. If Josephine didn't want to see him, what 
 was the use of his wanting to see her? . . . Yet she haunted 
 his dreams, and more particularly on Friday nights, when 
 the cornet player hung about St. George's Church playing 
 "When other lips" with notably increasing quavers. 
 
 But it was startling when, one night after Mr. O'Meagher 
 and Herr Behre had dined with Mr. Macarthy at Mountjoy 
 Square, the former, nervous and distraught, had turned
 
 JOSEPHINE PUTS HER HAIR UP 209 
 
 bloodshot eyes on Adam and said: "You wouldn't know 
 Josephine now: she's got her hair up." 
 
 Adam's tongue failed him. . . . There was a dead silence, 
 until Herr Behre broke it, saying politely : "You mean your 
 daughter, sir?" 
 
 "If you like to call her so/' Mr. O'Meagher mumbled, on 
 the verge of tears. 
 
 Mr. Behre, not understanding the nature of his emotion, 
 went on: "From your age, she could not be too old for 
 Adam." 
 
 "No woman could be too old for Adam," said Mr. Mac- 
 arthy, with an air of great indifference; "he simply dotes 
 on the Marchesa." 
 
 Herr Behre growled laughingly. "The Church says a man 
 must not love his grandmother." 
 
 Adam saw Mr. Macarthy smile, but he had ears for none 
 but Mr. O'Meagher, being eager to hear what he might say 
 about himself and Josephine. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher took up his theme gruffly. "I don't know 
 about my daughter being too old for Adam, but I do know 
 that it's a damned shame to persuade her that she's old 
 enough for Christ." 
 
 "Hear, hear," cried Herr Behre with enthusiasm. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy asked coldly : "Why do you allow anyone 
 to persuade her?" 
 
 "Hear, hear," Mr. Behre echoed ; "why do you allow any- 
 one to persuade her?" 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher turned sulky. "All damn well for you 
 fellows to talk ! The girl has a mother." 
 
 Adam looked to Mr. Macarthy to say something here, but 
 he held his peace, smiling, though not cheerfully. 
 
 But it was Herr Behre who insisted: "She has a father 
 too." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher's temper rose. "Bachelors cannot pos- 
 sibly understand what it is to have a wife and family."
 
 210 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled icily. "Bachelors can perfectly un- 
 derstand what it is to be afraid of a woman." 
 
 And again Mr. Behre said : "Hear, hear." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher shrugged his shoulders. "You fellows 
 don't believe in anything," he muttered. 
 
 "Excuse me, sir," the German returned; "I believe in 
 music and the social revolution." 
 
 "That's something," Mr. O'Meagher declared, "though 
 you couldn't call it a real belief." He flung out a denuncia- 
 tory hand : "But Macarthy there, with all his cleverness, 
 which I'd be the last to deny, doesn't even believe as much 
 as that." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy 's smile was more genial as he returned : 
 "What if I said I believed in cleverness?" 
 
 "You wouldn't call cleverness a religion," said Mr. 
 O'Meagher. 
 
 "By cleverness and goodness I understand the same 
 thing," said Mr. Macarthy, "and you won't easily make- me 
 believe that you share your wife's faith in the infinite 
 stupidity of God." 
 
 "You're very very harsh now," Mr. O'Meagher protested 
 feebly. 
 
 "Not harsh enough," his host retorted, "when I think of 
 her urging you to let that child, not half grown up, swear to 
 fritter her life away in the most paltering of all selfish 
 follies." 
 
 Adam was a little shocked by this expression of his guar- 
 dian's opinion of the calling of a nun : he suspected it to be 
 an intentional over-statement made to excite Mr. O'Meag- 
 her's wrath. So he was perplexed to the verge of laughter 
 when Josephine's father cried : "That's what it is !" and, 
 pouring out a stiff whisky, banged his hand on the table to 
 emphasize the words : "To Hell with the Pope !" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy filled up his guest's glass with soda-water 
 while he said: "The Pope has enough troubles of his own;
 
 JOSEPHINE PUTS HER HAIR UP 211 
 
 why should we visit ours upon him? No one can compel 
 you to send your daughter into a convent if you want to 
 keep her out. She can't even enter of her own accord for 
 years to come if you refuse your consent." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher shook his head pitifully. "You don't 
 know my wife," said he. 
 
 Adam noticed that at this point Mr. Macarthy and Mr. 
 O'Meagher were looking in each other's eyes, and that Mr. 
 O'Meagher's eyes were the first to give way as Mr. Mac- 
 arthy went on smoothly but firmly: "I know she is your 
 wife, and I know the law." 
 
 Mr. Behre said "Hear, hear" more than once, and Mr. 
 O'Meagher took his departure, promising that he would 
 see what could be done. But Adam had a dismal feeling 
 that no good could come of it all, and that Josephine was 
 lost to him for evermore. 
 
 She might haunt his slumbers, but only as one, albeit the 
 most distinguished, of a motley and increasing company. 
 Not long before Adam had had an extraordinary dream 
 about the Marchesa herself. Young and radiant as Anadyo- 
 mene, she was traveling with him in a railway carriage 
 through Dalkey tunnel. . . . He woke ecstatically to find a 
 full St. John's moon throwing the shadow of St. George's 
 steeple on his bed : the bells within were ringing midnight. 
 . . . With daylight sad reason had returned to him with 
 the thought that the frowsy old Marchesa had once been 
 young, if not so radiant as in his dream, and, conversely, he 
 who had clothed her in dream youth would ere long be old 
 and perhaps frowsy. The thought startled him so that he 
 washed himself with a great particularity, and vowed that 
 he would so wash to his dying day. 
 
 This was the easier, for Mr. Macarthy had had a full- 
 sized bath, with a geyser, fitted in his bedroom while he 
 was at the hospital, and no self-denial was called for by his 
 ablutions. But he really had come to love cleanliness for
 
 212 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 cleanliness' sake, apart from the gratification of his vanity, 
 or even from his sensual pleasure in odoriferous soap-suds. 
 Even it added to the glamor of his love for Josephine that 
 he thought of her always as on the night he had kissed her, 
 going to her bath and yet smelling as fresh and clean and 
 fragrant as though she were coming from it. It troubled 
 him greatly, on the other hand, that the Marchesa was so 
 sparing with soap and water ; he had seen her looking clean, 
 but so seldom that he recalled the occasions without diffi- 
 culty. He had the same feeling about her as about Mr. 
 O'Toole : that they washed on grand occasions, but not from 
 force of habit. He had believed dirtiness to be one of the 
 few privileges of the lower classes, and he resented the 
 Marchesa's claim to enjoy it: nay, more, he thought it 
 morally wrong of her to give way to it. ... But then, of 
 course, the Marchesa, though a perfect lady, would not 
 have been deemed by one even so charitable as Father Inno- 
 cent a virtuous woman: she was, in fact, a ... He could 
 not hit upon any word to define, morally, the Marchesa. 
 He took pains to find out, and one day said in a modest 
 voice to Mr. Macarthy: "Would I be right, now, in saying 
 that the Marchesa was a harlot ?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy, who was reading a calf -bound book with 
 the title Encomium Moria, which Adam took to mean 
 Moore's Encomium, looked up pensively to murmur : "That 
 depends on whom you said it to," which puzzled Adam so 
 much that he had difficulty in pursuing the subject, holding 
 the simple rule that if a thing was true it could not be too 
 often said. 
 
 At last Adam ventured to remark: "I thought she was a 
 bit too old." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy closed his book with a bang, saying: "What 
 on earth are you talking about?" 
 
 "The question is," said Adam, faltering a little, "whether
 
 JOSEPHINE PUTS HER HAIR UP 213 
 
 the Marchesa isn't too old, and even, perhaps, a bit plain, 
 to be ... to be ... what you said she was." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy knitted his brows: "What did I say the 
 Marchesa was?" 
 
 "I don't mean you actually said it," Adam struggled to 
 explain, "but you said that it was all right for me to say it 
 if I said it to the right person." 
 
 "What the deuce was it?" Mr. Macarthy inquired. 
 
 Adam blushed. "I wouldn't like to repeat it," he said; 
 "it began with a ' W . . . No, an 'H.' " 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled grimly : "Not a word you learnt at 
 Clongowes ?" 
 
 "Oh, it's a religious word right enough," Adam reassured 
 him; "I got it in the Bible, and it was used of a lady of 
 title, so I thought it'd be right." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy reflected a moment. "I'll tell you what to 
 do," said he : "ask the Marchesa herself." 
 
 Adam shrank from the suggestion. "I don't suppose 
 she'd know what it was," he blurted. 
 
 "Do you?" Mr. Macarthy asked point blank. 
 
 Adam's first impulse was to say "Yes," but actually he 
 said : "I don't know what it is if she isn't it." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy nodded approvingly. "I'll put it to you 
 this way. The word is a term of reproach, but what it 
 connotes does not necessarily call for reproach. You know 
 Lady Bland, you know the Marchesa: they were at school 
 together. Lady Bland, if she had sufficient command of 
 the language, would probably call the Marchesa a harlot. 
 . . . What the Marchesa would call Lady Bland baffles my 
 imagination." 
 
 "What would I be right in calling her?" Adam asked. 
 
 "Why not go on calling her 'Marchesa'?" Mr. Macarthy 
 suggested. 
 
 Adam looked at him doubtfully. "You think I ought to
 
 214 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 call her that?" But he was not really satisfied, and he 
 broke out in a fresh place. "Do you think the Marchesi 
 thinks she could ever have been called anything else ?" 
 
 "What the Marchesi thinks," Mr. Macarthy gravely de- 
 clared, "I do not know, and I greatly doubt if he knows 
 himself." 
 
 "Is it true," said Adam, "what they tell me, that he's 
 always drunk?" 
 
 "Not perhaps always," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 Adam was very grave as he dropped his voice to ask: 
 "Do you think it was she that made him take to drink?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy shook his head. "It was more likely that 
 drink made him take to the Marchesa." 
 
 Adam noticed that these words had hardly passed Mr. 
 Macarthy's lips when he seemed sorry to have said them, 
 and, in fact, he added: "That was a silly joke of mine; pay 
 no attention to it. It was just one of those idle words 
 which, I agree with St. Matthew, call for repentance ... if 
 anything does." 
 
 A light broke in on Adam's brain. "Is it," he asked, pre- 
 paring his lips for an unusually long word, and one he had 
 never thought to use before, "is it unchivalrous of us to 
 talk about the Marchesa?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy's reply came slowly. "It would be un- 
 chivalrous of me to discuss her unnecessarily. ... I don't 
 know that I can blame you for asking questions about her 
 that you put in good faith." He took up Sir David Byron- 
 Quinn's poems and turned the pages. "Really, I know very 
 little about the Marchesa, except what she tells everybody, 
 that she was the mistress of the author of this book. That 
 would justify Lady Bland, from her point of view, in call- 
 ing her a harlot; it would not justify me." 
 
 Adam pondered a long time, and then said : "It must be a 
 terrible thing for a woman like that to be old and ugly." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy looked at him with a fresh interest. "Have
 
 JOSEPHINE PUTS HER HAIR UP 215 
 
 you any reason to suppose," he said, "that the Marchesa 
 thinks herself old and ugly?" 
 
 Adam stared back at him. "Sure, she must see it for 
 herself," he ejaculated. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy smiled. "Don't be too sure," he begged 
 him. And then, after another short silence, went on : "The 
 ageing of the body is pathetic, but not necessarily ugly: 
 what is repellent is the enfeeblement or debasement of the 
 mind. That is why drunkenness is the most detestable of 
 all vices : it debauches the mind." 
 
 Several minutes passed before Adam asked: "Does the 
 Marchesa drink?" 
 
 To which his guardian urbanely replied : "If you have 
 never seen her do it, perhaps she does not." 
 
 "I've sometimes thought " Adam began. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy broke in: "Thoughts of some kinds are 
 best kept to oneself." 
 
 To which Adam responded, in a tone of protest: "I'm 
 very fond of the Marchesa all the same." 
 
 "So am I," said Mr. Macarthy, "though it may be for a 
 different reason." And then, as though to drop the con- 
 versation, he went on : "This is a capital little book to read 
 when you are ill." 
 
 Said Adam with puzzled eyes: "Isn't it rather depress- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Quite so," said Mr. Macarthy ; "it illustrates admirably 
 the futility of wishing to be alive." 
 
 Adam looked up aghast: "Is it futile to be alive?" he 
 cried. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy did not move. "I spoke of the futility of 
 wishing to be alive," he said ; "if it were futile to be alive, 
 you may take it for granted that we should all be dead."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 APPROACHING THE RUBICON 
 
 "!F it were futile to be alive, we should all be dead." Adam 
 had not infrequent occasion throughout his existence to 
 ponder this apophthegm, but never more than in the days 
 of his crescent adolescence in the year that followed his 
 leaving Clongowes; for he felt the will to life and to death 
 surging like alternate currents through his nerves, and exist- 
 ence took a somber glory quite unlike the mere dismal 
 melancholy and rank pleasure of infancy. He was at last 
 envisaging life from the standpoint of the gently born and 
 with the advantages of mixing with a society rarely open 
 to one so young: and he knew more about the world already 
 than many whom he met would ever know. And he was 
 now to pass the most guarded gate of youth's experience: 
 to find, as he thought, that there was nothing on the other 
 side. 
 
 This event was ever after linked in his memory with 
 Grafton Street: he will never walk up or down that street 
 without looking for something that he may not find. Dur- 
 ing that winter he would sometimes go on a Saturday by 
 himself to a matinee at the Gaiety Theater; and one early 
 March afternoon he was returning down Grafton Street 
 that he might dine with his guardian, who would send him 
 home to bed at ten ; for Mr. Macarthy did not approve of 
 boys of Adam's age being out alone in the Dublin streets 
 at night. 
 
 As Adam descended the western pavement, passing Hol- 
 lander's, which, being one of the more fashionable shops, 
 had closed its doors for the week-end, a bright little figure 
 
 216
 
 APPROACHING THE RUBICON 217 
 
 flashed through the doorway cut in the lowered roller shut- 
 ters, and jostled him so forcibly that he might have fallen 
 had she not thrown her arms round him. . . . He felt the 
 tiny bag she carried on her left arm strike his back with a 
 chink of copper. 
 
 "My sweet little man," she cried, her pretty face, with 
 its brilliant coloring, despite the sallow skin, and ardent 
 young eyes alive with an apprehension that held, perhaps, 
 a salt of mockery : "There now, I nearly killed you. And 
 I wouldn't hurt anything so pretty for all the world." She 
 released him, adding: "But, sure, there's no harm done, is 
 there ? And you must excuse me, for I've a friend waiting." 
 
 She disappeared as abruptly as she had entered Adam's 
 ken. He stared into vacancy, long and eagerly, desirous to 
 follow her; for she was something even more wonderful 
 than that which in the first shock of encounter she seemed. 
 She was not only a pretty and fascinating and flattering 
 young lady, who had held him momentarily in a tender em- 
 brace, from which he would long have tingled even had he 
 not seen her face: but she was Caroline Brady, his first 
 love, who had kissed him on the lips in Dalkey tunnel. 
 
 Adam stood awhile, galvanized : then moved on slowly 
 down past the Provost's house to College Green, where he 
 took a tram for Findlater's Church, and walked up Gar- 
 diner's Row still glamorously dazed. It was only as he 
 passed Belvedere that he fell gloomy again ; for he remem- 
 bered how once he had associated the school with the 
 happiest promise, and, later, with the most acute and shame- 
 ful misery, of his life. He wondered, too, how it was that 
 he felt himself no longer to be the same boy that went to 
 Belvedere and was proud of it (for that boy was done to 
 death by Father Tudor), yet did feel quite conscious of 
 being that apparently more remote character who had been 
 so deliciously alive in the train that hurtled down Killiney 
 Hill to Bray ever so many years ago. Why, there were
 
 218 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 boys selling papers outside the Gresham Hotel this evening 
 who had not been born when Caroline Brady had nestled 
 so close to him in Dalkey tunnel, yet he felt now as he did 
 then, only more so and without being kissed, without even 
 being recognized. 
 
 He tried to summon up courage to consult his guardian 
 about this, the subtlest of all mysteries he could imagine on 
 this side of the grave : but he talked in vain about it and 
 about: ending with a flat assertion that he had run into 
 the arms of someone that he thought he recognized. 
 
 "Do you wish," Mr. Macarthy asked, "that you had been 
 recognized ?" a question which, while it forced not the small- 
 est confidence, opened a road for the fullest; yet Adam 
 answered only that he did not know : which appeared to 
 him to be true, if not the whole truth. So his guardian was 
 left in doubt even as to the sex of the body that had met 
 Adam's in Grafton Street. 
 
 His guardian had given him, not so long ago, a brief rule 
 of the road to be followed when alone. If a lady, not cer- 
 tainly and avowedly elderly, or accompanied by children, 
 should accost him in the street, he was to stop at once and 
 answer, to the best of his ability, any one question she 
 might put to him: and, that done, doff his hat, by way of 
 closing the conversation, and go his way. If she offered to 
 prolong the interview, he was politely but firmly to insist 
 on his inability to stay questioning. On no account was he 
 to originate a conversation, even with old ladies. 
 
 Adam, temperamentally shy and at a shy age, happily 
 obeyed his guardian's request : though he found it whimsical 
 of Mr. Macarthy that he himself listened to the blandish- 
 ments of painted women with as patient punctilio as to 
 those of the brilliant Mrs. Burns, or even Babs herself. It 
 is true that nothing came of it but Mr. Macarthy saying 
 "No" in a hundred ingeniously varied circumlocutions and 
 in a tone more strictly paternal than even that of Herr
 
 APPROACHING THE RUBICON 219 
 
 Behre, whom Adam suspected of a frivolous side not to be 
 detected in his guardian. Mr. O'Meagher, when so held 
 up in the street, was sometimes betrayed into rudeness, or 
 at least crude and discourteous agitation : "Go away now, 
 go away now, will ye?" he would groan. "I don't want to 
 be seen talking to you, much less anything else." Assuredly 
 he was not seen to the best advantage in the role of St. 
 Anthony ; though Adam felt his trepidation to be very nat- 
 ural and easier to understand than the detachment of Herr 
 Behre and his guardian. 
 
 After all, resistance to temptation was a serious matter; 
 Father Innocent had told him so : and perhaps Mr. O'Meag- 
 her was tempted the same as he might be himself if over- 
 tures were made to him which did not frighten him out of 
 his wits, or, as in the case of the lady in the park, too suc- 
 cessfully dissemble themselves. He thought a woman with 
 paint on her face as terrifying as a demon in a pantomime : 
 though, to be sure, it was more of the paint than of what 
 lay beneath it that he was afraid. Of the clean and comely 
 ladies he met in his guardian's society he had no awe what- 
 ever. . . . But, then, it was unthinkable that they should 
 offer themselves to him. . . . Did the female ever offer her- 
 self to the male? . . . quite of her own accord? He re- 
 membered once at the Zoo the tigress had bit the tiger's 
 tail, as a kitten might bite its own, and then assumed the 
 attitude of one of the supposititious Italian nymphs at the 
 National Gallery. . . . Was that just fun, or what? . . . 
 Father Innocent had not been with him on that occasion. 
 He remembered now that Father Innocent, after all, had 
 never brought him to the Zoo : only to the Botanic Gardens. 
 . . . But even flowers made love to each other. Even the 
 lilies the boys were encouraged to bring in May to the 
 shrine of the Blessed Virgin : faith, when you came to think 
 of it, the lilies, for all their cold whiteness, had a saucy- 
 looking heart to them. . . . He wondered why they were
 
 220 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 chosen the special flower of the Blessed Virgin. . . . And 
 the Rosa Mystica: wasn't there some legend about that? 
 
 Mr. Macarthy had many books of reference: The Golden 
 Bough was a queer sort of book. . . . The Blessed Virgin 
 was the mother of Christ: that was what Father Innocent 
 called a mystery : a great many things were mysteries to 
 Father Innocent . . . Probably Father Innocent had never 
 even heard of The Golden Bough : He thought Darwin worse 
 than Luther : what would he think of Haeckel . . . ? Lady 
 Bland said the Blessed Virgin was a common woman, as 
 common as Adam's mother. Was Lady Bland nearer the 
 truth, after all, than Father Innocent? He had called her 
 "the worst woman in Dublin". Was that because he was 
 afraid of her cleverness? . . . Mr. Macarthy said clever- 
 ness was a sort of religion. But Adam knew no one so 
 unmistakably religious as Father Innocent, and he was not 
 at all clever. He had killed himself in a mad fit. Madness 
 was a sort of stupidity. ... Or was it too great cleverness ? 
 . . . Perhaps it was your cleverness and your stupidity 
 meeting with a crash and upsetting you. . . . He had met 
 Caroline Brady with a crash, there in Grafton Street. That 
 had upset him, but she didn't seem upset in the least. 
 
 Caroline Brady had said that she had a friend waiting 
 for her. . . . He wondered if it was Miss Fallon, her name 
 came back to him now, the other little girl in the train who 
 ate all the sweets, and he used to think pretty. . . . He 
 wouldn't think her pretty now. Caroline had grown up very 
 pretty, as pretty as Josephine herself, almost as pretty as 
 Barbara Burns, but quite different. She hadn't Barbara's 
 well-cut features, nor Josephine's red hair, nor that some- 
 thing about Josephine which made her Josephine. . . . He 
 thought about them all quite differently. . . . But he did 
 think about them all. Bluebeard was a bad man : Father 
 Innocent had said so, and there seemed no doubt about it. 
 . . . He must have been a fascinating man too, or else very
 
 APPROACHING THE RUBICON 221 
 
 rich. If you were rich you could do anything, and even 
 the most beautiful and aristocratic and virtuous ladies 
 would give themselves to you, just as if you were a sort of 
 god. You could do exactly as you liked if only you were 
 rich enough. Bernard Shaw, who was a Dublin man him- 
 self, and, therefore, to be depended on, advised everybody 
 to get rich as soon as they could, without being too scrupu- 
 lous as to how they did it. 
 
 Yet Mr. Macarthy told him that Shaw himself was the 
 most scrupulous man he knew about what he did, though 
 he thought him unscrupulous about what he said. Too 
 whimsical, and with a blind spot of Puritanism, whatever 
 that meant. But he was better than Oscar Wilde, better 
 than all the other Irish writers put together, saving only 
 A.E., the one whose hands were steady enough to speed the 
 plow. . . . Shaw was a fine fellow, and ''Caesar and 
 Cleopatra" the sort of play that Adam would like to see: 
 but even Shaw's Caesar would not quite understand what 
 Adam felt about Josephine O'Meagher and Caroline Brady, 
 and perhaps Barbara Burns and some others. Nor could 
 Mr. Macarthy help him; for, under his cavalier laugh, he 
 was an austere man, and never kissed more than a lady's 
 hand. 
 
 The impact with Caroline Brady woke Adam with a shock 
 to the knowledge that, for all his great and wise and kindly 
 friends, he was, after all, a lonely lad. And why lonely, if 
 not for his lass? . . . And had not Fate and Nature too 
 decreed his lass to be Caroline Brady? . . . True, she was 
 older than he, but Josephine O'Meagher was older still, and 
 consecrated to a vestal life, while Caroline was in the world, 
 and warm, and still to be enjoyed ... By him? . . . Who 
 was the friend she said was waiting for her? . . . Next 
 Saturday, at the same hour, he would be there to see. 
 
 So, a fortnight from their first meeting, when the Gaiety 
 Theater was emptying its matinee audience, he found an
 
 222 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 excuse to be wandering up and down Grafton Street, from 
 King to Suffolk Street, but mainly outside the closing shut- 
 ters of Hollander's. And, just about a quarter past five, 
 as Caroline Brady pranced out through the forbidding bar- 
 rier, looking straight at him with recognition in her smile, 
 a spick and span and lithe Hussar, all frogged blue tunic, 
 cherry breeches, and jingling spurs, whisked her away be- 
 fore Adam's eyes. And he, pursuing, saw them upon an 
 outside car, hailed at the corner of Stephen's Green, bowl 
 gaily out of sight. 
 
 Adam thought she looked back at him once and waved the 
 little bag : but he had the sense to tell himself that this was 
 fancy, and that the Hussar had got Caroline Brady clutched 
 as fast as his other rival had clipped Josephine O'Meagher. 
 . . . Something bitter scored his throat as he watched the 
 receding dust that followed their wheels, and he wished 
 suddenly that Caroline Brady was dead.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 VISITORS FOR MRS. MACFADDEN 
 
 THE thought of Josephine O'Meagher always enraged Adam 
 against the Church: the thought of Caroline Brady tem- 
 porarily turned him towards it. He told Mr. Macarthy that 
 he would like to be a priest, and Mr. Macarthy said, "Pray 
 do, by all means." Which was not the answer he expected. 
 Nor was he altogether pleased when his guardian offered 
 him every assistance. He was not yet prepared to take 
 any active step towards the novitiate. But, making his 
 Easter Duty at the eleventh hour that year, he did not go to 
 confession to Father Steele, being shy, he knew not exactly 
 why, of confiding to him his new sin. He carried this to 
 the Church beside Westland Row Station, and told his 
 thoughts of Caroline Brady within a biscuit throw of the 
 point whence the pair of them had started on their delect- 
 able journey to perdition. 
 
 Adam's story was hearkened to by a fervid young priest, 
 who asked him leading questions about his whole life, which 
 it strained Adam's vanity to answer truly. Ultimately this 
 sage young clerk admonished him, a little in the manner of 
 Father Ignatius, but less tactfully, that he should beware of 
 mere worldly wisdom, and remember that, after all, a boy's 
 best friend must be his mother: so long, of course, as his 
 mother was a communicant of the Catholic Church. So 
 Adam, though half perceptive of the absurdity of his con- 
 fessor's advice, paid his mother a visit on the afternoon of 
 the Sunday he had made his Easter Duty. 
 
 In order to go there it was necessary to mystify his guar- 
 dian ; for Mr. Macarthy, being one of the worldly-wise Adam 
 
 223
 
 224 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 was cautioned to beware of, did not approve of his going 
 to Pleasant Street, even to see his mother : though he never 
 referred to Mrs. Macfadden at all if not with respect. She 
 had, however, no place in their conversation, and very little 
 in her son's mind. If the good priest at St. Andrew's had 
 not counselled it, Adam might never have seen her again. 
 But on this particular Sunday he felt that it was his duty, 
 as a good little Catholic, to disobey his guardian and hum- 
 bug himself into a sort of tenderness for his mother. 
 
 Adam had lost all admiration for Pleasant Street : but he 
 was gratified to note that No. 7 was certainly the best-kept 
 house in it, with fresh paint and clean windows : though the 
 curtains were a trifle dark and gloomy, so that you could 
 not see the red papered walls from the street, nor could the 
 sun strike through to the mirrors that hung on them. Adam 
 thought mirrors looked well in a room, and so did Mr. 
 O'Meagher: but Mr. Macarthy did not: and Herr Behre 
 said they were only suited to a public-house. If you had 
 a lot of glasses in a room, that made the room look bigger : 
 and the bigger the room, the finer it looked : that was com- 
 mon sense. But Mr. Macarthy said that anything that de- 
 ceived the eye was false art. . . . Even the Ha-ha at Clon- 
 gowes was false art, but everyone else, even the Rector and 
 Father Bernard James, thought it beautiful. . . . He was 
 a very austere man, Mr. Macarthy, more like a Protestant 
 than a Catholic, and the only symbol of Christianity he had 
 on his own walls was that ugly little crucifix over the bed- 
 room mantelpiece. 
 
 Mr. O'Toole had furnished the house in Pleasant Street, 
 and even if he was a blackguard, which, despite his fine 
 clothes, Adam suspected, he really had an elegant if high- 
 pitched taste. The best rooms at No. 7 Pleasant Street, 
 were all red and gold, like a cigar divan . . . the sort of 
 thing you associated with the splendor of the East. Even 
 Mrs. Macfadden, promoted from the kitchen to the front
 
 VISITORS FOR MRS. MACFADDEN 225 
 
 parlor, had a red and gold setting to her now somewhat 
 obese charms. But her room, between the mirrors, was 
 hung with Holy pictures and brackets holding scarlet and 
 gold saints, supplied by an eminent firm of saint-makers to 
 the Pro-Cathedral, whose shop window round the corner 
 had, so long as Adam remembered, been a great attraction 
 to this good woman. 
 
 The widow lay in bed, suffering not only from her feet 
 but some other disorder which Adam could not identify by 
 her description of the symptoms: he understood that her 
 heart was affected, and so, while the medicine bottles beside 
 her bed were but lightly tapped, the whisky bottle under it 
 was empty. She wore a red dressing-gown, with a red shawl 
 over that, and another over her head, concealing any hair 
 she may have had on it : but there was plenty on the dressing- 
 table mixed up with candles, a greasy plate with knife and 
 fork clinging to it, a porter bottle, and various articles more 
 strictly appertaining to a lady's toilet. On the bed lay The 
 Police News, the Sunday Herald, and The Life of St. Kevin 
 of Glendalough by a Nun, modestly preserving her anonym- 
 ity. "A beautiful book," said Mrs. Macfadden: "he 
 was a lovely saint, St. Kevin. No one ever saw the like 
 of him." 
 
 "I should have thought Father Innocent was a bit like 
 him," Adam ventured. 
 
 His mother snorted indignantly. "Will you look at the 
 pictures!" she cried, pitching the book at him; "just look 
 at the pictures, and tell me whether a grand fellow like that 
 was like that worm of an Innocent Feeley. What woman 
 would go chasing Innocent Feeley, I'd like to know? Not 
 even Emily Robinson did that, though she was always 
 making a fool of herself over the clergy." She pulled her- 
 self up. "Kevin was much more like Macfadden, only he 
 had the advantage of him in not taking to drink, and so kept 
 his figure. . . . He was a great loss, poor dear. O'Toole
 
 226 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 was never a patch on him. And the one's as bad as the 
 other in every way but drink." 
 
 Adam was not edified by his mother's conversation, and 
 wondered what the good young priest of St. Andrew's West- 
 land Row, would have made of it. He rose to go : "I hope 
 you'll be better soon," he said mechanically. 
 
 "No thanks to anyone but Jesus and the Holy Saints if 
 I am," she retorted. "It's little anyone cares in this house 
 if I'm living or dead. And I wish I'd never seen O'Toole. 
 Macfadden was the finest man that ever stepped, except 
 St. Kevin, and it's hard to believe what they say about him, 
 though we went near Glendalough on our honeymoon to a 
 public I remember well. Macfadden swore at them for 
 being out of Guinness. He let great curses, did Macfadden. 
 It was grand to hear him." 
 
 "You didn't think it grand when he swore at you," said 
 Adam with sudden bitterness. 
 
 "He was worth two O'Tooles, anyhow," returned the 
 widow : "he was a man, every inch of him, not a crawling 
 snake with a soft tongue. No one cares a damn for me but 
 St. Kevin and the Holy Saints." 
 
 As Adam gazed at the form upon the bed, he shuddered 
 at the thought that he had been borne within it. And the 
 good priest at Westland Row counselled him that here was 
 his best friend; for she was his own mother and a com- 
 municant of the Holy Catholic Church: her bed was sur- 
 rounded by the saints that adorned it, her rosary beads were 
 festooned round one of the knobs, furtive scapulars peeped 
 through the rents in her red dressing-gown, and her Sunday 
 reading was of the Hageology. 
 
 His acrid thought was broken by an exclamation from 
 the sufferer. "Glory be to God, if there isn't a ring at the 
 door, and O'Toole and Mrs. Reddington both out, and me 
 not daring to put one foot out of bed, even if I didn't fall 
 with weakness."
 
 VISITORS FOR MRS. MACFADDEN 227 
 
 "Will I open it?" asked Adam, glad of the excuse to go. 
 
 The widow hesitated, as though fumbling through crossed 
 thoughts in her mind : "Sure, I suppose you might as well. 
 After all, what does it matter. . . . Ah, bad luck to your 
 dirty importunity !" This aside was called for by a peal of 
 the bell : "If it's a lady, you can show her in to me here. 
 If it's anyone else, tell them they're making a great mis- 
 take. No matter what they say, you can tell them that 
 . . . And that it's Sunday, and they've come to the wrong 
 house." Another peal at the bell "Oh, for God's sake, tell 
 them to go to hell !" 
 
 Adam closed his mother's door behind him and trod list- 
 lessly down the hall : there was a pungent smell in it, re- 
 minding him of the cat that had helped him to eat his raw 
 goose years ago in the attic up above. He had never had 
 the heart to revisit it. For the first time, in these few steps 
 between his mother's bedroom and the hall-door, he thought 
 of life as a merely sordid, ugly, and meaningless thing. How 
 futile to wish to be alive ! . . . Yet Mr. Macarthy held that 
 life was not futile: Mr. Macarthy had forbidden him to 
 come to Pleasant Street. . . . Well, he was leaving it now 
 for the last time. He wished he could leave Dublin alto- 
 gether. . . . There was another peal at the bell as he opened 
 the door. 
 
 Clinging tipsily to the bell was a handsome young Jew, in 
 the tartan and white summer tunic of the Seaforth High- 
 landers : his left hand clutched at the waist of a young and 
 pretty girl, who, as her eyes met Adam's, screamed, flung 
 off the soldier's hand, and fled down the steps, and away 
 from the direction of Maryborough Street, towards Summer 
 Hill. Across the street marched Mr. O'Toole, attired in the 
 height of fashion, as it had been prescribed for Punchestown 
 once upon a time. 
 
 Adam's cap was in his hand as he left his mother's room : 
 it was still in his hand as he sprang down the steps, between
 
 228 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 the soldier and his godfather, and set out also to run in the 
 direction of Summer Hill. Behind him he heard Mr. 
 O'Toole's voice raised in indignant expostulation. 
 
 "You're entirely mistaken. ... Of a Sunday itself. . . . 
 More shame to you. ... I seen her meself. ... A girl of 
 that age. ... A respectable house. ... A soldier in uni- 
 form. ... Be off now, me fine fellow, or I'll call the 
 police."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 LOVERS' MEETING 
 
 THE way to Summer Hill was also one of the ways to 
 Mountjoy Square, if you turned up Gardiner Street. But 
 Adam did not turn up Gardiner Street : he ran on and on, 
 so long as he saw a girlish form tripping in front of him, a 
 little bag swinging on the left arm. Suddenly the strap of 
 this burst, and the bag planed lightly down to earth. The 
 girl did not instantly notice her loss, and it was in Adam's 
 hand when she looked back for it. When she saw him he 
 thought she would go running off again ; but, as he held 
 it up reassuringly, she turned back slowly to meet him. He 
 studied her as she drew near. 
 
 "Aren't you Anastatia Fallen?" he demanded. 
 
 She tossed her head indignantly. "Whatever put such an 
 idea into your head?" 
 
 Confusion seized Adam once again, though he had shaken 
 it off as he ran after her: "I meant to say Caroline Brady." 
 
 "Why didn't you say what you meant?" she returned, 
 guilefully dissembling her own agitation. 
 
 "Don't you remember Anastatia Fallen?" asked Adam, 
 his way of asking if she remembered him. 
 
 "I do not," said Miss Brady, taking her purse, "unless she 
 was the greedy little beast that ate sweets when someone I 
 used to know was on for a bit of fun in Dalkey tunnel?" 
 
 "Was that fun ?" queried Adam solemnly. 
 
 "What else?" asked Miss Brady: "everything between 
 girls and boys is a bit of fun." 
 
 "And between men and women ?" Adam's tone was now 
 gloomy. 
 
 229
 
 23 o ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "It's a lovely day for this time of the year," was all the 
 answer he drew from Miss Brady. 
 
 There was a dead silence. Adam's eyes that wanted to 
 look into hers failed and wandered away to perceive that 
 they were on the canal bridge near the Dollymount road. 
 Miss Brady, seeing that she had the better of him, asked him 
 his name. 
 
 "Didn't you know?" he exclaimed; "Adam Macfadden." 
 
 "How would I know?" she answered. "You won't tell 
 me you've done anything anybody has ever heard of, at 
 your age." 
 
 Adam tried to think of something he could boast of, but 
 could recall nothing more thrilling than his encounter with 
 Father Tudor. "I've done things that would astonish you," 
 he said vaguely. 
 
 "D'you mean in Pleasant Street ?" she asked, and a goose 
 chose that moment to walk over Adam's grave. 
 
 "That was my mother's house. . . . What did you want 
 there?" he said. 
 
 "What does your mother do there?" she rejoined tartly. 
 
 It occurred to Adam for the first time that he really 
 did not know what his mother did there. "My mother 
 lives there," he said, and added explanatorily: "with Mr. 
 O'Toole." 
 
 Miss Brady smirked. "Go on ! You don't tell me. . . . 
 With Mr. O'Toole. . . . And you living there all the time?" 
 
 Adam broke in with undisguised snobbery: "I don't live 
 there. I live in Mountjoy Square." He was shocked to 
 hear himself tell this lie. 
 
 Miss Brady betrayed a livelier interest. "What part?** 
 and Adam had pleasure in giving her the very number. 
 
 "I know who lives there," said she, and described Mr. 
 Macarthy recognizably, though not as Adam had ever seen 
 him. "And he's your guardian ?" she said at length, adding 
 with a sigh : "And indeed isn't it well to be you."
 
 LOVERS' MEETING 231 
 
 "It is," said Adam, "but what makes you think so?" 
 
 "I just like the look of him," said Miss Brady. 
 
 "What do you like about it?" asked Adam jealously. "I 
 think he looks just ordinary." 
 
 "Not a bit of him," she returned, "he's quite different 
 from other fellows." 
 
 "You call him a fellow ?" Adam protested, "but I can tell 
 you he's getting on in years." 
 
 "I don't mind that," said Miss Brady, "I never cared for 
 hobbledehoys." 
 
 Adam's heart sank. "Would you call me a hobbledehoy ?" 
 
 "You will be in another year or two," was the intention- 
 ally crushing answer. 
 
 "I'm not a child," he claimed. 
 
 "Not in your talk, perhaps," she admitted. 
 
 "Not in any way," he urged. And their eyes met. 
 
 "You're a little like your guardian yourself in a small 
 way," she said thoughtfully. 
 
 "I've a handsomer nose," Adam claimed. 
 
 "I like his nose," she returned provokingly. 
 
 "And the nose of that boozy Scotch soldier," he snorted. 
 
 Miss Brady changed color, but answered calmly: "That 
 was only a bit of fun. . . . But he'd hold of my arm and 
 wouldn't let go." 
 
 "Why didn't you call the police," Adam insisted. 
 
 "Oh, what good are the police to anyone?" She swung 
 her bag pensively. "Besides, I couldn't get the poor lad 
 into trouble for a bit of fun." 
 
 "He wasn't a poor lad," snapped Adam, "he was a Scotch- 
 man, and a Jew into the bargain, and a soldier." 
 
 "What makes you think he was a Jew?" Miss Brady asked 
 with anxiety, real or affected. "I thought he was in the 
 Black Watch." 
 
 "He wasn't in the Black Watch," said Adam. "He was 
 a Seaforth Highlander. But there are very few Highlanders
 
 232 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 in the Highland regiments, and if he was Scotch at all, he 
 was likely a Glasgow Jew." 
 
 "What a lot you know," said Miss Brady with open- 
 mouthed admiration that seemed like an echo of the past. 
 "Where do you get it all ?" 
 
 "Mr. Macarthy," said Adam, "knows everything in the 
 world." 
 
 "Of course he does," said he, "but even when I met you 
 at Westland Row, you know, even then you knew a lot. 
 . . . And he wasn't your guardian then, was he ?" 
 
 "No," said Adam, "he was not." He blurted suddenly: 
 "If he had been I guess we would never have met." 
 
 "If Ifs and Ands were pots and cans," sang Miss Brady, 
 and looked at him. 
 
 "I ought to be getting home to my tea. . . . Come along, 
 will you?" 
 
 This was the first time in Adam's life that such an invi- 
 tation had been directly given him. Miss Brady noted and 
 perhaps misinterpreted his hesitation ; for she added queru- 
 lously: "You'll meet my Pa and Ma. It's quite . . ." 
 
 "Quite what ?" asked Adam. 
 
 "It's not like Pleasant Street." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "My father and mother are very good Catholics." She 
 seemed proud of this piece of information. 
 
 "So is my mother," said Adam grimly, "her bedroom's 
 full of holy pictures." 
 
 "Go on !" chirped Miss Brady, "what a queer family you 
 are." 
 
 "Oh, I don't hang holy pictures in my bedroom," Adam 
 hesitated to assert, "I think they're silly." 
 
 "Why ?" Miss Brady asked, somewhat disconcertingly. 
 
 "Well, they're not the sort of thing a man would have," 
 said Adam. "Mr. Macarthy has none in his bedroom." 
 
 "What does Mr. Macarthy have in his bedroom?" she
 
 LOVERS' MEETING 233 
 
 asked with open eagerness for the answer; but when in- 
 formed of the leading features she only remarked that she 
 found his taste somewhat gloomy. "He isn't any sort of a 
 priest?" she demanded. 
 
 Adam expressed his moral certainty that though he might 
 have been a priest he was not. "Nor married?" No, he 
 thought not. "Nor divorced ?" Almost certainly not. "You 
 won't tell me he has nothing to do with girls at all?" she 
 cried, rather more loudly than was discreet; for they were 
 walking now in a frequented part of the North Circular 
 Road, that part from which Adam had seen a certain funeral 
 approach. 
 
 He had forgotten that funeral as he unfolded his theory 
 and account of his guardian's several platonic friendships. 
 He found it necessary to explain to her the meaning of the 
 word platonic. The only thing I ever heard of Platonic," 
 she expostulated, "was that he and old Socrates didn't care 
 for girls at all. Though Socrates was married, of 
 course, wasn't he? To that scolding old frump, Elsie 
 Somebody ?" 
 
 "The name of Socrates's wife was Xantippe," said Adam. 
 
 Miss Brady shook her head: "That wasn't the name. I 
 tell you what . . . Elsie Somebody had a friend called 
 Aphasia, I've got that right anyhow." 
 
 Adam laughed with scholarly contempt. "Aphasia in- 
 deed ! Aphasia is a sort of disease of the brain. ... I sup- 
 pose you mean Aspasia?", 
 
 "Well, Aspasia, then," Miss Brady allowed with not too 
 good a grace. "Who was Aspasia ?" 
 
 Adam, who of late had taken to carrying a bamboo cane, 
 examined it critically, so that he might appear more like a 
 man of the world: "Aspasia," he said, 'Aspasia was an 
 Athenian lady." 
 
 "What sort of a lady is that ?" his companion asked, look- 
 ing down on him sideways.
 
 234 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "An Athenian lady means a lady of Athens," he said 
 gravely. 
 
 Miss Brady looked at him harder, and he looked harder 
 at his cane. She said: "Is that all?" 
 
 "That's all," said Adam. 
 
 "Then," Miss Brady suggested, "I suppose you'd call me 
 a Dublinian lady?" 
 
 Adam supposed a trifle dubiously that he would. 
 
 "Perhaps you wouldn't think me a lady?" said Miss 
 Brady, "because I work at Hollander's. But I'm in the 
 showroom where they have a baronet's daughter for a man- 
 nikin, and she treats me like a perfect lady, and kisses me 
 every time she sees me, and says I'm quite her equal if not 
 better. And she has the loveliest neck and shoulders, and 
 it makes me sick to think she's a Protestant." 
 
 "Why would that make you sick?" asked Adam. 
 
 "You wouldn't like to think that anyone kissing you was 
 going to hell!" she exclaimed hotly, adding: "Unless, of 
 course, it was just a bit of fun." 
 
 "No one goes to hell for a bit of fun," said Adam reassur- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Not if they've time to repent," Miss Brady agreed, "but 
 you do right enough if you're a Protestant. ... I was try- 
 ing to explain that to the fellow in the Black Watch. . . ." 
 
 "Seaforth Highlanders," Adam corrected her. 
 
 "Seaforth Highlanders," she said dutifully, "I was trying 
 to explain that to him when he got me by the arm and said 
 only Presbyterians could be saved, and as I wasn't a Pres- 
 byterian I might as well enjoy myself while I could." 
 
 "And I suppose," snorted Adam indignantly, whipping a 
 sardine tin off the pavement, "I suppose he thought you 
 could enjoy yourself with him?" 
 
 "I suppose he did," said Miss Brady, "and I suppose you 
 think I could enjoy myself with you?"
 
 LOVERS' MEETING 235 
 
 "If you don't think so," returned Adam, "why did you 
 ask me to see you home?" 
 
 "That was just a bit of fun," said the charmer, and Adam 
 found they were no longer in the Circular Road. "Here 
 we are." 
 
 She opened the creaking gate of a narrow-chested little 
 house, as respectable as an undertaker and drearier than a 
 mute; for, though facing south it was so beset by other 
 people's dead walls that no sun could strike below the 
 eaves. The street was called Spring Avenue, but it led 
 nowhere. 
 
 Adam's heart quailed, and Miss Brady did not fail to notice 
 the dullness in his eyes. "You don't want to come in ?" she 
 said. "My house isn't good enough for you. . . . It's better 
 than Pleasant Street. . . . Only I'm not kept by someone 
 living in Mountjoy Square. ... I wish I was." 
 
 "What do you mean?" Adam babbled. "I'm sure this is 
 a very nice house. I'd like to come in, only my guar- 
 dian. . . ." 
 
 "You'd think your guardian wore apron-strings," she 
 pouted, then whispered in his ear: "Come in now, and I'll 
 do something will make you think of Dalkey tunnel." 
 
 As though in obedience to the magic of a cabalistic word 
 Adam's legs, as thin as Miss Brady's own, passed through 
 her creaking gate-way, over the two slabs to her hall door. 
 Astonishing was the melancholy of that hall door, contrasted 
 with the triumph in Caroline Brady's brown eyes and tawny 
 cheeks as she knocked at it. 
 
 But the figure that opened it went with the door. She 
 was dark like Caroline but pale, and her brown eyes were 
 pale too, and dull like the paleness of puddled, rather chalky 
 clay : her hair, too, had chalky streaks in it : and she wore 
 clothes which made Adam take her to be recently widowed 
 and convinced him that it was she whom he had seen with
 
 236 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Caroline in the mourning coach. He felt unpleasantly cer- 
 tain that in some unaccountable way she was Caroline's 
 mother, and he wondered if her father should prove to be 
 the man he associated with the memory of a proprietorial 
 black glove. Caroline said her father lived also in that mean 
 sepulcher of a house. Even with Caroline's warm body 
 pressing against his in the rat-hole of a hall, he could not 
 think of Dalkey tunnel. He could not think of anything but 
 the beetles that used to crawl on the rocks at Sandycove 
 when he sat there long ago of a summer evening with 
 Josephine O'Meagher. He remembered that so long as she 
 held his hand he could pretend not to be afraid of the beetles : 
 but when she was called by her mother into the house, he 
 ran after her like mad. 
 
 Caroline Brady was not a bit like Josephine O'Meagher : 
 even her kiss, he could still remember, tasted quite different. 
 But Mrs. Brady reminded him of everything he disliked (not 
 a great deal) in Josephine's mother; and Mr. Brady, whom 
 they now discovered reading the Catholic Herald, in the 
 front parlor, the walls of which were covered with photo- 
 graphs of gravestones and memorial cards, did not live up 
 to the promise of his proprietorial black glove. He himself 
 was as one long dead but too insignificant to call for burial. 
 Adam could as little think of him as being Caroline's Pa as 
 he could think of the late Mr. Macfadden as being his own 
 father. 
 
 Caroline introduced Adam as "My little friend Macarthy. 
 Lives in Mountjoy Square. He was with me at the Nuns 
 at Bray when we were kids. I knew him at once when I 
 saw him after Twelve O'clock. We went for a walk and 
 missed lunch. So I brought him home to tea." 
 
 Caroline's parents asked no question : the mother provided 
 nasty tea and nastier thin bread and margarine. She seemed 
 very fond of Caroline. ^Mentioned that she was the only
 
 LOVERS' MEETING 237 
 
 survivor of twelve, and indicated the photographic Valhalla 
 on the walls. 
 
 "They were all insured," said Caroline; "weren't they, 
 Pa?" 
 
 Mr. Brady laid down the Catholic Herald to murmur sol- 
 emnly : "They were all insured. . . . They were all insured. 
 . . . Thank God, they were all insured." Then he resumed 
 his reading, leaving Adam more than content with his suc- 
 cinct contribution to the conversation. 
 
 At last Adam read in his ensorcerer's eye her leave to go, 
 and he rose hurriedly; for night was falling. He nerved 
 himself to shake Mrs. Brady and even Mr. Brady by the 
 hand. Then he found himself alone with Caroline Brady in 
 the hall, which was now pitch dark; for she had closed the 
 parlor door deliberately behind them. 
 
 "Does this remind you of Dalkey tunnel?" she whispered, 
 taking him in her arms and kissing him deliciously, incred- 
 ibly, overwhelmingly, as he had only dreamed that it might 
 be possible to be kissed. When she let him go, he passed 
 through the doorway, fierily and magically in love with her : 
 but his passage over the slabs was as across running water; 
 for at the creaking gate she said in valediction : "Will I tell 
 you who I could enjoy myself with?" 
 
 And when he nodded eagerly to hear his own name fall 
 from her lips, she whispered in his ear: "Your guardian, 
 Macarthy. . . . Will you tell him that?"
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 THE BRINK OF THE RUBICON 
 
 ADAM'S face was still on fire when he fronted his guardian, 
 very late for supper, that Sunday night. 
 
 "Why do you look at me as if you wanted to bite me?" 
 was the only question the latter put to him. And Adam 
 answered at once, with not only honesty but feeling self- 
 abandonment, that he did not want to bite him, and would 
 not injure him for all the world. But from the bottom of 
 the dead wall in Spring Avenue, even so far as the top of 
 Fitzgibbon Street, he had been smothering the shrieks of 
 Caroline and his guardian in boiling oil. And, despite his 
 fair words to his guardian that evening, as St. George's 
 bells were ringing three the next morning, he transfixed on 
 the one sharp dreamland blade the forms of both found 
 huddled together in the shed in Mountjoy Square : only in 
 this dream Mr. Macarthy was not really himself so much as 
 Father Tudor, and Caroline Brady filled his cup of bitter- 
 ness to overflowing by embodying the charms of Josephine 
 O'Meagher with her own. 
 
 Of one thing Adam was quite determined as he rose firmly 
 to take his cold bath on Monday: nothing on earth would 
 induce him to have anything more to do with Caroline 
 Brady. ... Of all the witches! La Belle Dame, sans 
 merci, was a fool compared to her. . . . Would he do any- 
 thing about that message . . . ? Do anything to betray his 
 kind old guardian into her clutches ? Perish the thought ! 
 
 As the day wore on he was conscious of a greater and 
 greater need for virtue to resist the temptation to walk up 
 Graf ton Street about closing time : but, assisted by the fact 
 
 238
 
 THE BRINK OF THE RUBICON 239 
 
 that Mr. Macarthy found reason for keeping him unusually 
 busy, his virtue was triumphant. And, as he left Mountjoy 
 Square at a quarter past ten to go home to bed, he was 
 felicitating himself upon his strength of character, when he 
 saw a white hand beckoning him from the dark side by the 
 square railings. 
 
 He was too frightened to obey : particularly lest his guar- 
 dian might be watching from the balcony above : but at the 
 corner of Gardiner Street he stopped and awaited develop- 
 ments. 
 
 A delightfully mysterious little dark figure danced across 
 to him : "Why did you run away ?" asked Caroline, her voice 
 soft and full of the most caressing reproaches. 
 
 "I didn't run," Adam said, even yet in a whisper. "You 
 didn't want him to see us, did you?" 
 
 "I didn't want him to see me if he didn't want to," said 
 Caroline loudly. "I don't want anyone to see me if they're 
 ashamed of it." 
 
 " I'm not ashamed of it," returned Adam, hotly, "I'll walk 
 past the house now if you dare me to." 
 
 She pressed his hand, but only said: "Did you give him 
 my message?" 
 
 "I did not," said Adam, "and I won't. ... I won't even 
 so much as mention your name to him." 
 
 Her voice hardened. "And why not, I'd like to know?" 
 
 His answer came quickly : "Because I want to keep you 
 all to myself." 
 
 Her voice softened. "You little silly. . . . As if you 
 could, at your age." 
 
 His answer came trembling: "Couldn't you wait till I 
 grow up ?" 
 
 Miss Brady laughed softly and caressingly, almost mu- 
 sically: but she only laughed, and Adam felt it was cruel 
 of her only to laugh. Against it he said : "I'm waiting for 
 you to answer my question."
 
 240 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Miss Brady's voice fell very low to say: "I thought you 
 only wanted a bit of fun." 
 
 "I never think of you," said Adam, "as being at all 
 funny." 
 
 Her voice trembled now as she said: "Don't let on you 
 ever think of me at all." 
 
 "Ever since Dalkey tunnel. Often." He spoke fervently. 
 
 "The same as I've thought of you?" the words fell like 
 kisses in his ears. 
 
 He did not touch her, but came so close that he was not 
 sure if he were touching her or not: "When do you think 
 of me?" 
 
 She seemed almost to advance towards him as she whis- 
 pered: "About this time. . . . Going to sleep." 
 
 Said Adam: "Do you ever dream?" 
 
 She answered: "If I'm not funny, you are. Everybody 
 dreams about all sorts of people. I often dream about. . . ." 
 She checked herself sharply, but Adam felt once again the 
 unspoken name pierce his heart. The momentary spell was 
 broken, and he noticed the moonlight playing on the steps of 
 the Jesuit Church. Over the roofs of the Gardiner Street 
 houses came the bells of St. George's ringing eleven. 
 
 "Time for respectable young ladies to be in bed," said 
 Miss Brady. "Do you think you're old enough to see me 
 home?" 
 
 This being, as it were, a challenge, Adam took it up and 
 said that, of course, he would see her home: but he ap- 
 preciated the delicacy which made her choose the west and 
 south sides of the square for their route, and so home down 
 Great Charles Street: something of a roundabout to Spring 
 Avenue. They spoke little as they walked, their shadows 
 preceding them, Caroline's humiliatingly the longer, so far 
 as the North Circular Road. In Spring Avenue there was 
 no moon : the dead walls forbade it to enter there.
 
 THE BRINK OF THE RUBICON 241 
 
 "It comes into my room at the back," said Caroline, "and 
 often keeps me awake all night." 
 
 "And it comes into mine," said Adam, "but it only makes 
 me dream." 
 
 "What a little dreamer you are, to be sure," she laughed, 
 like the wind rustling. "I believe you'd dream away your 
 whole life when you're not reading the dictionary." She 
 clapped her hands on his eyes and whispered : "Dream now 
 that I'm kissing you." He felt her lips rove dazzingly over 
 his. Then she said, still in a whisper: "Would you like to 
 see the moonlight in my room?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered huskily, clenching his hands. 
 
 Whereupon she replied, with a grim chuckle : "Well, you 
 can't. . . . Dreamers are no use to me." Then the gate 
 creaked, a latch-key clinked, and the door of her little tomb 
 snapped behind her, before the pressure of her hand had 
 passed from Adam's eyes. 
 
 Dizzily he scrambled out of the dark street, to be startled 
 in the moonlight at the corner of the Circular Road by the 
 shadow of a man : his guardian. Mr. Macarthy, saw him 
 home, their shadows pursuing them briskly up Fitzgibbon 
 Street to St. George's Place. There was no reproof 
 nor even question: but, bidding him good-night, he said 
 smoothly : "This must not occur again," and Adam answered 
 humbly : "No, sir." 
 
 For the next four days Adam's conduct, habitually good, 
 was irreproachable. But Saturday found him feverishly 
 watching for her outside Hollander's. And, joy of joys! 
 there was no trim Hussar, no tipsy Semitic Highlander, no 
 Macarthy-like civilian to claim her now. He had her to 
 himself for a little while. She seemed even to expect him; 
 for she said: "Why haven't you come all this long while?" 
 
 "Long while?" Adam ingenuously echoed: "Tuesday, 
 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday?"
 
 242 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "I do know the names of the days of the week, ignorant 
 as I am," she retorted, and went on sharply : "By the way, 
 I remembered last night in bed, the wife of Socrates was 
 called Elsie-buy-a-dress." 
 
 "Nonsense," said Adam : "I tell you her name was Xan- 
 tippe." 
 
 "It's no use your saying 'Nonsense,' " she retorted ; "I tell 
 you it's true." 
 
 "But who ever heard of such a name?" said Adam. 
 
 "I have, often and often," she declared; "I suppose it 
 was a sort of nick-name, like I know a fellow calls me 
 'Carrie-bit-of-fun.' " 
 
 Adam groaned and made no answer. 
 
 "I'll take the tram from College Green to the Rotunda," 
 she said with affected indifference: and Adam, waking up, 
 urged her to drink tea with him. She asked him whither 
 he proposed to take her, and when he mentioned the cafe 
 in College Street, shook her head : "Anarchists go there," 
 said she. 
 
 Adam foolishly said "Nonsense" once again. 
 
 "But I tell you they do," she insisted. "I know all about 
 it. It's a dreadful place I wouldn't be seen dead in." 
 
 "Have you ever been in it?" he said, with an obstinacy 
 equal to her own. 
 
 "As if I would! I'm told Sinn Feiners go there as well 
 as Anarchists. Even that old baggage, Marquisa Thingumy 
 they call her, Lord Garryhestie's aunt, who married the 
 Italian like a monkey on a barrel-organ: I've seen him at 
 Mooney's." 
 
 Adam answered smartly : "I can tell you, people go there 
 who wouldn't go to Mooney's." 
 
 "I dare say people go to hell who wouldn't go to heaven," 
 she rejoined. 
 
 And Adam, quite forgetting his caution, blurted: "Any- 
 how, Mr. Macarthy thinks it good enough for him."
 
 THE BRINK OF THE RUBICON 243 
 
 A change swept over Miss Brady's attitude, and she put 
 her best leg forward. "Come along," said she, and she 
 whirled past Tom Moore's statue in the twinkling of an eye. 
 . . . "Will we find him there now ?" she asked as they blew 
 in through the door. 
 
 "Perhaps," said Adam, knowing well that they would not ; 
 for Mr. Macarthy had for some months ceased to go there, 
 or Adam would not have ventured. He was, however, al- 
 most more distraught to find himself hailed by his other 
 guardian, Mr. O'Meagher. 
 
 "That's a queer thing, now, a very queer thing. It was 
 thinking of you, Adam, brought me in here to-day. And 
 talk of the devil, there you are. This young lady is not 
 with you, is she? ... If she is, introduce me. . . . And if 
 she isn't, sure, it doesn't matter : I'll talk to her all the same." 
 Such was the greeting of Mr. O'Meagher. 
 
 Adam murmured distractedly the name of Miss Brady, 
 and Mr. O'Meagher addressed himself to her: "Our friend 
 Mr. Macfadden has great taste in female beauty, Miss 
 O'Brady : not that I pretend to be a judge of it myself ; for 
 I've a grown-up daughter that might be older than yourself, 
 and what good would I be saying whether Juno or 
 Minerva or Venus herself was the loveliest lady of all the 
 goddesses ?" 
 
 "I'd have thought," said Miss Brady demurely, "that 
 you were not too old for a bit of fun." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher shuffled his feet and coughed. He seemed 
 to be making an effort to grow serious. "O'Brady," said 
 he, "is a Connacht name, and I'm what the poet calls 
 Nature's M.P. for that part of the world. So, whatever 
 you may be, Miss O'Brady, I'm the man to fight your 
 battles." 
 
 "Thanks awfully," said Miss Brady, her manner stiffen- 
 ing, and, perhaps, modeling itself on the baronet's daughter 
 in Hollander's showroom. "I've never been to these out-of-
 
 244 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 the- way places myself, but I'm sure it's very nice to know 
 that you come from there." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher sighed. "Oh, indeed, I'm sorry to say 
 I don't come from Connacht. I'd be proud to do so, but 
 I'm still prouder that I'm a Munster man, the same as 
 another friend of our friend here, Mr. Macarthy." 
 
 "Has he been in here to-day ?" she asked promptly. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher stared at her: "And is he a friend of 
 yours too?" he asked. 
 
 "You can hardly call him that," Miss Brady answered 
 coolly, pouring out Adam's tea for him with the gravity of 
 a honeymooning bride. "But Adam and I are always talk- 
 ing about him." 
 
 "Does Adam talk about him to you or you to Adam?" 
 Mr. O'Meagher sharply queried. "And how long has 
 'always' been going on?" 
 
 "How long have we known each other, dear?" Miss Brady 
 asked Adam, and Adam, with his mouth full, answered : 
 "Oh, years and years." 
 
 "Indeed, now," pursued Mr. O'Meagher; "and was that 
 before you came to Sandycove?" 
 
 Seeing Adam at an incomprehensible loss, Miss Brady 
 said sweetly: "We met through the Nuns at Bray, didn't 
 we, Adam?" 
 
 "The Nuns at Bray, yes," Adam gulped out, glad to be 
 fixed at last. 
 
 "The devil, you did," muttered Mr. O'Meagher, adding 
 gloomily: "That reminds me, Josephine is to be received on 
 Corpus Christi." Then he heavily asked: "How long is it 
 since you've seen Josephine?" 
 
 "Years and years," repeated Adam, borrowing his ques- 
 tioner's gloom. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher smiled grimly : "It seems the Nuns at Bray 
 gave you Miss Brady here, and took away Josephine."
 
 THE BRINK OF THE RUBICON 245 
 
 "They were different nuns," Adam thought it necessary 
 to explain. 
 
 "I should think they were," said Mr. O'Meagher, "and 
 dealt in very different goods. ... I won't deny that Miss 
 Brady is a pretty young lady." 
 
 "You're humbugging," Miss Brady giggled, to Adam's 
 extreme annoyance; "and who is Josephine, if it isn't rude?" 
 
 "Merely my daughter, ma'am," Mr. O'Meagher admitted, 
 bowing respectfully over his tea-cup. 
 
 "Go on !" cried Caroline. "You haven't a daughter going 
 to be a nun?" 
 
 "I have that," said Mr. O'Meagher. 
 
 "Well, I'm . . . surprised?" protested Miss Brady, "that 
 you of all men would send a girl where she'll never have a 
 bit of fun." 
 
 "I would, indeed, be the last to send her," Mr. O'Meagher 
 agreed, then eyed her askance : "But all the girls are not in 
 convents who have to go without any fun." 
 
 "Then they must be as ugly as sin or dotty in the crumpet," 
 said Caroline brazenly. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher glanced uneasily from her to Adam and 
 back again. "How old are you, my dear?" he asked. 
 
 Caroline answered, with her pleasant smile : "I suppose 
 you think I'm old enough to know better. That's what my 
 Pa says when he says anything, but generally always he says 
 nothing." 
 
 "He's a wise sort of fellow, your Pa," said Mr. O'Meag- 
 her. "I wish there were more like him." 
 
 "I've only the one I ever heard of," said Miss Brady. 
 And Mr. O'Meagher, staring at her again, asked Adam what 
 were his plans for the evening ; who explained that he was 
 on his way home when he met Miss Brady. 
 
 She interjected: "It's not often we meet, for such old 
 sweethearts."
 
 246 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "You went joy-rides in the same perambulator?" grunted 
 Mr. O'Meagher. 
 
 "You might say we did," said Miss Brady, "away there 
 under Killiney Hill." 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher pursed his lips: "Well, well," quoth he, 
 "this is an eye-opener to me. And I don't know what to 
 make of it. ... But, of course, if Mr. Macarthy thinks it 
 all right . . ." 
 
 "There's no one in the world like Mr. Macarthy," she 
 broke in eagerly. 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher rose, saying : "Faith, that's not Mr. Mac- 
 arthy's fault." And, with this mysterious epigram, he bade 
 them good-evening. 
 
 Caroline laid her hand on Adam's arm : "Did you hear 
 what he said about Macarthy ?" 
 
 "He's always joking," was Adam's extemporized apology ; 
 "I've never known him to be serious even about his daughter 
 entering a convent. . . . Though I know he hates it like 
 poison." 
 
 "Men are so selfish," Miss Brady declared. "I'm sure 
 she'll be happy until it's too late to be anything else." 
 Having given time for this to sink in, she added: "I often 
 think I have a vocation." 
 
 "You !" was all Adam could say to this. 
 
 "Don't stare as if I had smallpox," she admonished him ; 
 "it comes and goes. But the vocation's there right enough, 
 and some day it may come to stay." 
 
 "What sort of a convent would you enter?" asked Adam, 
 imagining that she demanded to be taken seriously. 
 
 "There you have me," said Miss Brady; "the head of it 
 would have to be pretty nippy ; for I never could bring my- 
 self to obey anybody." 
 
 Adam, gulping down his last fragment of toast, asked : 
 "How do you manage at the shop?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, I just let on and
 
 THE BRINK OF THE RUBICON 247 
 
 make myself pleasant, and Miss Smith-Pink says that if I 
 go she goes too." 
 
 "Who's Miss Smith-Pink?" 
 
 "The baronet's daughter. She is a lady and a half, and 
 she has the loveliest bust you ever saw. . . . Not that I 
 suppose you ever saw more than one, or may be two." 
 
 Adam gravely assured her that he had seen several at 
 the National Gallery, whereupon Miss Brady indulged her- 
 self in a peal of modulated laughter. "I don't mean busts 
 made of bricks and mortar, or sawdust, or whatever they 
 are but busts like my own or Josephine's." She turned her 
 eyes on him. "I suppose you've seen Josephine's: the old 
 fellow talked as if he thought you had." 
 
 For answer Adam reddened to the roots of his hair, and 
 his lips alternately quivered and were unnaturally firm. . . . 
 Miss Brady's color thereupon also heightened. "You and 
 your Josephine! She wasn't born in a convent, was she? 
 Did ye never bathe together when you were kids ?" her tone 
 sharpened, "Because she has a blessed vocation, which as 
 likely as not means stuff and nonsense, that ought to be 
 spanked out of her, if her Pa were a man worth talk- 
 ing to. D'you suppose she has different ribs from you 
 and me?" 
 
 Adam expressed in dumb show his annoyance at the sug- 
 gestion that Miss O'Meagher had ribs. 
 
 "Well, you are a little silly," said Miss Brady, "wasting 
 your money giving me tea and cakes and dreaming about 
 your Josephine all the time. . . . And she sticking her 
 fingers to her nose at you out of a convent window for ever 
 and ever, world without end, Amen." She rose to go. 
 
 Adam looked up wistfully in her face : "I can't help loving 
 Josephine O'Meagher," he said, "any more than I can help 
 loving you." 
 
 Caroline, holding his eyes with hers, sat down again, to 
 say in his ear : "You needn't help loving me ... I'm not a
 
 248 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 nun, and wouldn't be if I'd fifty vocations ; for I think it's 
 cowardly." 
 
 "It isn't cowardly," Adam protested, "or Josephine 
 wouldn't do it." 
 
 "Then it's cowardly of you to let her do it," she snapped. 
 
 Adam stared at her open-mouthed. "However could I 
 help it?" he expostulated. "I'm not old enough to do 
 anything." 
 
 "You're old enough to do a lot more than you think," he 
 was surprised to hear. 
 
 "How ? What do you mean ?" he gasped. 
 
 "I mean with your humbugging blue eyes." 
 
 She fired this compliment as it were point blank, and 
 brought down Adam's flag so that he mumbled : "I suppose 
 I don't really care for her as much as I care for you." 
 
 Miss Brady eyed him suspiciously. "Did you really mean 
 it when you told her father you hadn't seen her for years ?" 
 
 "Word of honor," said Adam, "and I don't suppose I'll 
 ever see her again." 
 
 "Well, then, I tell you what," said Miss Brady, and paused 
 to give an edge to Adam's curiosity. 
 
 "What?" repeated Adam. 
 
 "On Whit Monday Bank Holiday : that's Monday week : 
 you be at the corner of our street at ten past three" she 
 paused again. 
 
 "Yes," said Adam breathlessly, "the corner of your street 
 at ten past three, and what about it?" 
 
 She smiled at him. "What do you think about it ?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Adam; "what do you think?" 
 
 "Supposing," said Miss Brady, "supposing we go some- 
 where and maybe never come back?" 
 
 "Never come back?" Adam echoed, round-eyed at the 
 prospect of such wild romance. 
 
 "Maybe we'll not come back the way we went, anyhow," 
 said Miss Brady, and leaped to her feet. "I must hustle
 
 THE BRINK OF THE RUBICON 249 
 
 home now. Be good." She gave him her hand: "Don't 
 come with me : I've no time now for dilly dally, and I'll not 
 see you until Monday week; but it's the corner of Spring 
 Avenue, at ten past three, and don't you fail me, wet or 
 fine." 
 
 "Wet or fine," said Adam fervently, as if she had named 
 their wedding day. That moment he felt himself a man, but 
 he was humiliated five minutes later to find that she had 
 paid for their repast.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 
 
 THE days between that and Whitsuntide Adam passed in a 
 waking dream, vaguely conscious that his guardian watched 
 him all the while with an anxious air that, when Adam 
 plucked up courage to look at him, melted into his normal 
 Sphinx-like smile. He wondered if Mr. O'Meagher had 
 said anything of the encounter at the College Restaurant. 
 He almost wished that he had, and that Mr. Macarthy would 
 demand an explanation: but Mr. Macarthy seldom asked 
 other than abstract questions, unless they arose from some 
 topic of conversation on which Adam offered an improvisa- 
 tion. When Adam was on the verge of suspecting himself 
 of talking nonsense Mr. Macarthy would break in with a 
 cautionary inquiry. This served to clear the air and bring 
 Adam's view of facts into sharper focus. He had early 
 recognized as a difference between Mr. Macarthy and all 
 the others, save, perhaps, Father Innocent, that he avoided 
 that form of inquiry which tempted double-faced answers. 
 
 It was not fear that kept Adam from telling Mr. Mac- 
 arthy about Caroline Brady so much as the conviction that 
 if Mr. Macarthy were in Adam's place he would keep the 
 secret to himself. He tried to imagine a youthful Macarthy 
 in love with a pre- Adamite Caroline Brady: but he could 
 not imagine his guardian young or in love, and was only 
 irritably reminded of the actual Caroline's repeated confes- 
 sion of desire for him. 
 
 He felt it was perverse of Caroline to pretend to be in 
 love with a man old enough to be her father, and he knew 
 not whether to be glad or sorry that she never used her 
 
 250
 
 THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 251 
 
 favorite colloquialism with reference to him. But Adam's 
 mind during those days was not in a condition for pellucid 
 thinking. Josephine O'Meagher had always been to him a 
 distinct figure : but Caroline from the beginning of things 
 had a diffused identity. Even that first wonderful kiss she 
 had given him in Dalkey tunnel had been enjoyed under 
 the illusion that it came from someone else. And after that 
 he had for years believed her to be dead, and found full 
 satisfaction in life without her. And now that he had met 
 her again, he had wished more than once that she were 
 dead. . . . And yet felt it a tragedy of self-denial to pass 
 twenty-four hours without a caress from her. . . . And 
 yet, when he walked the streets, he constantly imagined that 
 this, or that, or the other girl must be she. He saw her 
 everywhere there was a petticoat draping thin legs : he never 
 mistook any passer-by for Josephine O'Meagher : though he 
 could not s\vear for a positive fact that Josephine's legs were 
 not of wood below the knees, and of bricks and mortar or 
 sawdust (as Miss Brady conceived Aphrodite's to be) above. 
 Caroline's view of life baffled him: a dreamer about him- 
 self, he demanded of others that they should be downright. 
 Every word she said to him he took to be seriously meant, 
 most of them he remembered, few he could reconcile, and 
 taxed his brain to make sense of the confused expressions 
 of her jig-saw mentality. He believed absolutely that she 
 did sometimes think that she had a vocation : he believed it 
 possible for her to have a vocation, just as he believed it 
 possible that he himself might have one. . . . He conceived 
 of a vocation as something that came to you unaccountably 
 in spite of yourself. . . . Why did Caroline think it cow- 
 ardly of Josephine O'Meagher to enter a convent? To hint 
 it seemed extraordinarily brave. The thought of it fright- 
 ened him, frightened him far worse than the thought o f 
 death, and the thought of death seemed to him one of the 
 most undesirable of all thoughts, except when he connected
 
 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 it with a romantic issue. Thus, he would have thought it 
 delightful to die for his country, though not quite clear as 
 to what he meant by this ; for no one seemed to know what 
 a country was. . . . The Intermediate Education Board had 
 succeeded in driving the possibility of discovering any real 
 meaning in the word patriotism out of his mind : to ask an 
 Irish boy to regard England as his country was to demand 
 of him the impossible, but, at the same time, to demonstrate 
 that he had no country of his own. He thought that when 
 he grew up he might travel all over the world in search of 
 a country that he might make his own, and then, if occasion 
 should arise, die for it. ... Meanwhile his wish to die for 
 his country was a mere form of piety impossible to put in 
 practice. 
 
 Nearer home was the other greater and more romantic 
 possibility, that of dying for his love. . . . Ere he had yet 
 learnt to swim he had saved Caroline Brady from drown- 
 ing: repeatedly he had done the same for Josephine 
 O'Meagher, and more than once for Barbara Burns, but 
 only from the high running seas of his conceit, so they never 
 thanked him. To do him justice, he was too humane to 
 wish them in peril that he might make sure whether he had 
 the courage to rescue them or not: he forgot that he had 
 not the strength ; for although since his bicycle accident he 
 had lost some of his activity, he swam pretty well, yet an 
 effort to support any of these comparatively large ladies in 
 the water would not have succeeded. . . . On the other 
 hand, how delicious to die with them. . . . With any one 
 of them: to die with all of them together he recognized as 
 something a little pretentious, what was the word, unchival- 
 rous. The knights of Christian chivalry had but one lady 
 love at tragic moments : he was less certain of the custom of 
 the Paynim palladins. West was west for him, and he 
 stuck to the Christian ideal, still, to die with Josephine 
 would be to enter heaven : failing that, to die with Caroline
 
 THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 253 
 
 would be exquisitely mysterious : to die with Barbara would 
 be vastly interesting, though, he feared, impossible, because 
 of her snobbery. . . . She could not forget that she was the 
 granddaughter of a baronet, and yet there was Caroline 
 Brady working in the same showroom with a baronet's 
 daughter, Miss Smith-Pink. He wondered if Miss Smith- 
 Pink were any relation of Mr. Porphyro Smith-Pink who 
 had recited "Who Fears to Speak of Ninety-Eight?" the 
 first night Adam had visited the Six Muses Club. That 
 Mr. Smith-Pink was a Sinn Feiner, he believed. ... It 
 was ignorant of Caroline Brady to suppose that Sinn 
 Feiners were worse than anarchists. Anarchists were the 
 dregs of society, except Mr. Behre, who called himself a 
 philosophical anarchist : philosophical anarchists were not 
 infrequently princes, like Prince Kropotkin, whose books 
 Mr. Macarthy had, and told Adam that he ought to read; 
 but Adam could not read economics. He wished he knew, 
 without the trouble of reading them, what was the differ- 
 ence between a philosophical anarchist and the common 
 variety; he wondered if it were possible that the philo- 
 sophical anarchists were people who would not do what they 
 thought they ought to do, and the other anarchists people 
 who did what they thought they ought not. He knew, any- 
 how, that the word anarchist meant one who was against 
 the law, but his experience of life showed him that every- 
 body was against the law when he found it interfered with 
 him. The Government itself that made the law made no 
 attempt to keep it ; as for the police, they seemed to him to 
 do as they liked. . . . There was Father Tudor again: 
 everyone agreed that he had no right to do as he did, yet 
 because he was a strong man no one had the courage to make 
 him stop it. 
 
 With such thoughts chasing through his brain, Adam lived 
 through the week before Whit Monday. He longed pas- 
 sionately for that day, and yet there was something innocent
 
 254 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 in it all, even in the very passion. Side by side with his 
 longing to enjoy his love went a counting and recounting of 
 the years that separated him from the possibility of mar- 
 riage. On the very Saturday morning it occurred to him 
 that he would go to confession once again to Father Ignatius 
 Steele. . . . He would, after all, seek his advice as to how 
 he might purge his soul of any shade of sensuality in his 
 thought of Caroline Brady. 
 
 At three o'clock down Gardiner Street he went, and up 
 the church steps, making reverently this time a sign of the 
 cross with the holy water in the font, and praying a little 
 while before the high altar ere he sought the Ignatian 
 chapel. As he approached Father Steele's box, he saw an 
 old lady come out, and a gray-haired man, whom he thought 
 he remembered to have seen there before, go in. Only one 
 other was waiting at that side of the box, so there Adam 
 knelt down to make his final preparation. He found him- 
 self reviewing not only the past weeks but his whole life ; 
 for he was determined to say all frankly to Father Steele 
 that could throw light upon the present. And, thinking of 
 how he had first come to meet Caroline Brady in that cab 
 outside the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, he thought of that 
 other meeting outside the Gresham Hotel which had driven 
 him into hospital. As he was thinking of this, visualizing 
 the horror of that meeting, he heard the shutter of the box 
 near him click, and the old man's voice muttering his sins. 
 It seemed to Adam that it was a whining tale, the whine of 
 a whipped mongrel. Adam felt it uncanny that a man 
 should be so sorry as all that even for his sins, and wondered 
 what vileness the old man was telling. After a long while 
 the side clicked again, the door opened, and the old man 
 came out. 
 
 Adam knew it was uncharitable to look at him, but could 
 not resist the temptation, and there he saw his face, drawn 
 with a caitiff's repentance, struggling against the easier line
 
 THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 255 
 
 of false benevolence, the face of Old Comet, the police spy. 
 With a sudden snap of the teeth, Adam sprang up and 
 walked out of the church. He could not share his God with 
 Old Comet.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 ON THE EVE 
 
 WITH a new and unrecognizable emotion, not even resem- 
 bling that in which he left the Pro-Cathedral, save only for 
 the purposes of his Easter Duty, for the last time, Adam 
 marched straight out of the church of St. Francis Xavier 
 and walked swiftly back to St. George's Place. Usually he 
 avoided touching on any religious subject with Herr Behre; 
 deeming this to be something about which he and the musi- 
 cian never could agree. But to-day he was in the mood to 
 talk with him about it. He went directly to his room, and, 
 finding him there, told of his meeting with the police spy. 
 
 Herr Behre chuckled grimly. "Has Mr. Macarthy never 
 made it clear to you," said he, "that a Jesuit is himself but 
 a police spy of the Pope?" 
 
 Adam shook his head. "I never heard Mr. Macarthy say 
 a word against any priest, not even Father Tudor." This 
 was not strictly true, but, as Adam had never heard Mr. 
 Macarthy say anything against Father Tudor which he 
 thought half bad enough, he was under the impression he 
 had said nothing at all. 
 
 Herr Behre shrugged his shoulders. "Mr. Macarthy," 
 said he, "is half a Jesuit himself." 
 
 Adam recalled what Father Clare had said to him at 
 Clongowes. "Was he ever in orders?" he asked. 
 
 Herr Behre walked up and down the room and again 
 shrugged his shoulders. "Does anyone know what Mr. Mac- 
 arthy has or has not been?" he murmured. 
 
 Adam protested: "He never seems to me to hide any- 
 thing." 
 
 256
 
 ON THE EVE 257 
 
 "I would not say he hides anything," the musician de- 
 clared; "to say that he hides anything would be to imply 
 that he has something to hide. Rather would I say of Mr. 
 Macarthy that he has so much to show that it can never all 
 be seen." Smiling at his own phrase, he concluded: "Mr. 
 Macarthy is not the man to open his mind as if it were an 
 exhibition. He keeps his treasures to himself, like the old- 
 fashioned gentleman that he is at heart." 
 
 Adam clung to this phrase. "He is old-fashioned, isn't 
 he?" he said, adding confusedly: "Not the sort of person a 
 girl would fall in love with." 
 
 Herr Behre knit his brows. "What is that, now?" said 
 he. "Has someone fallen in love with Mr. Macarthy?" 
 
 "No, no," said Adam hastily, "I was only thinking that 
 he was not the sort of person that a girl, not a young girl, 
 would fall in love with. . . . You don't think he is, do you?" 
 
 Herr Behre's brows lightened and he laughed. "Why ask 
 that of me ?" he protested. "Why not ask your friend, Miss 
 Barbara?" 
 
 A fresh twinge of jealousy caught Adam so sharply that 
 he rapped out : "I never thought of her." 
 
 The musician looked at him : "But you thought of some- 
 one, eh?" he cried rallyingly: "you thought of someone?" 
 He checked himself to add with unnatural gravity: "You 
 are too young to think of such things at all," and did not 
 encourage him further to pursue the subject. 
 
 Alone at dinner with Mr. Macarthy Adam told again of 
 his encounter with Old Comet. Mr. Macarthy took the 
 business more as a matter of course than he had expected. 
 He refused to blame Father Ignatius for suffering a police 
 spy to come to confession to him. "Old Comet's is a dirty 
 job," said he, "but your description of him gives one the 
 hope that he may possibly be ashamed of it." 
 
 "If he is ashamed of it," Adam returned, "why does he 
 go on doing it?"
 
 258 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Mr. Macarthy said: "I am glad to gather from what 
 you say that you never do anything of which you are 
 ashamed. . . ." 
 
 "I won't say that," Adam hastily put in. 
 
 "If you do things of which you are ashamed," Mr. Mac- 
 arthy returned, "why do you go on doing them?" 
 
 "I suppose," Adam said thoughtfully, "it's because I find 
 it hard to leave off." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Macarthy, "you may take it from me 
 that Old Comet, as they call him, finds it uncommonly hard 
 to leave off being a police spy. It must be one of the most 
 difficult of all trades to drop." 
 
 "But," Adam protested, "isn't Old Comet a traitor to his 
 country ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Macarthy, "and so am I, only I don't 
 make any money out of it." Having delivered this surpris- 
 ing statement, he made a still more startling one. "I do 
 make money by a worse betrayal than that of my country." 
 
 "You !" exclaimed Adam, much perturbed, for his guar- 
 dian denounced himself with the bitterness of an apostle 
 denouncing Judas. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Macarthy, "my chief source of income is 
 derived from debauching the public intellect." 
 
 "How?" asked Adam, all agape. 
 
 "Some day, perhaps, I may tell you, as a solemn warn- 
 ing," Mr. Macarthy said, "but this is not the time for a 
 painful confession which you are, perhaps, still too young 
 to be advantaged by." 
 
 The world seemed to Adam to be in the melting-pot that 
 afternoon and evening and night; for he dreamed that night 
 that he was drifting over the falls of a river that fell no- 
 where. His mind rang three changes so rapidly that they 
 blurred together in their recurrence. How could Old Comet 
 be forgiven for his sins: what was the secret of Mr. Mac- 
 arthy's shame : and did Caroline Brady love him, or some-
 
 ON THE EVE 259 
 
 body else, or everybody, or no one at all was she just hum- 
 bugging? ... If she was not humbugging, what was going 
 to happen on Monday? He dreamed of many different hap- 
 penings on Monday, and awoke restless on the Sunday 
 morning. 
 
 Restless he remained all day. Mr. Macarthy would be 
 away until Monday evening, so the last chance of opening 
 his mind to anyone was gone. Despite a temptation not to 
 do so, he went as usual to Long Mass and heard Father 
 Steele give one of his best discourses in which, touching on 
 the raising of the rival Orange and Green armies, he pleaded 
 for peace between man and man, between Irishman and 
 Irishman. Adam was touched but no more ... he felt 
 there could be no peace between him and that which Old 
 Comet served. 
 
 After playing with his early dinner, eaten alone at St. 
 George's Place, he took up the Byron-Quinn poems and 
 read the last sonnet again, feeling to-day that he understood 
 the sentiment that inspired it. ... To bring a child into 
 this world was a terrible thing, and he did not wonder at 
 the baronet's apology for it. He made up his mind that he 
 would never do the like of that : when you were alive it was 
 not easy to make up your mind to wish to be dead, but it 
 saved a lot of trouble and bitterness not to be born. . . . 
 He didn't complain of his own life, far from it, but he 
 would have done so had he not been rescued from the slums 
 in some unaccountable fashion, the wherefor of which, never 
 clear to him, he was fast forgetting. His attitude towards 
 Mr. Macarthy was virtually that of a son except that there 
 was a familiarity between them not common in Ireland, if 
 anywhere, between parents and children. . . . And yet 
 he had said nothing to Mr. Macarthy about Caroline 
 Brady. . . . He wondered if Mr. O'Meagher had said any- 
 thing. . . . Perhaps nothing had come into his mind to say ; 
 after all, why should not Adam bring a lady friend to tea at
 
 26o ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 College Street? . . . But if Caroline Brady and he were 
 married, might they not bring children into the world ? . . . 
 If men loved women, commonly they had children by them. 
 . . . That was something he would have to discuss with 
 Caroline, though he did not think he knew her well enough 
 to broach the subject yet. They could not get married for 
 years to come, they could only talk about it. It struck him 
 suddenly that it was a very pleasant thing to talk about, 
 and everyone agreed there was no harm in it when it was 
 quite settled you were going to be married. ... It was a 
 little hard to realize that he was going to be married to 
 Caroline Brady: he was not sure that she realized it. ... 
 Perhaps she had thought of marrying one of these soldiers ; 
 he remembered hearing his mother say that she had once 
 thought of marrying two soldiers. . . . No, one was a po- 
 liceman, he remembered his name, Sergeant Barlow. 
 
 He did not like the idea of Caroline's affections roving so 
 far as his mother's ; he shuddered to think that his mother 
 must after all have been very little, if at all, better than she 
 ought to be. Fortunately, Caroline Brady bore no resem- 
 blance, that he could trace, to his mother; he thought it 
 quite bad enough that she should resemble her own. . . . 
 It was queer, this resemblance between parents and children, 
 though perhaps not so queer as a likeness between those 
 who did not stand in any relationship to one another. For 
 instance, that people should think him like Mr. O'Toole, 
 while he himself found Mr. O'Toole resembled the late Sir 
 David Byron-Quinn. ... A queer feeling came over him : 
 had not the Marchesa once said to him : "I know now who 
 you remind me of." . . . Could she have meant Sir David 
 Byron-Quinn ? 
 
 An impulse seized him ; he looked at the clock and then 
 sat down and wrote these words very clearly on a small 
 sheet of paper: "If it's me you mean, that's all right." 
 Then, folding this paper he thrust it in his waistcoat pocket
 
 ON THE EVE a6i 
 
 and left the house. At the corner of Frederick Street he 
 took the tram to Merrion Square and entered the National 
 Gallery as it was opening for the afternoon. The first 
 visitor, he hastened to the room where hung the portrait 
 of Sir David Byron-Quinn: to find himself alone with it. 
 He thought the eyes welcomed him as he approached. And 
 he thought they thanked him as he departed. The custodian 
 at the door knew him by appearance as a friend of Mr. Mac- 
 arthy's, and perhaps did not wonder at his abrupt coming 
 and going: certainly he never thought to look for the tiny 
 rent in the backing of the canvas that was to carry to pos- 
 terity the face and figure of David Byron-Quinn as seen by 
 a once passionate mistress, through which Adam had slipped 
 his piece of paper. 
 
 There was something electric in the air that summer after- 
 noon. Adam stood a little while outside the gallery watch- 
 ing the sun light and mottle the great spaces of Merrion 
 Square. He wished he had his bicycle that he might flee 
 to the country, but that bullock in the Circular Road had 
 ended his bicycling days for a long time to come. It came 
 into his mind that first great ride of his when he had climbed 
 the Hills and looked down on Dublin from beneath the 
 thorn-tree at Killakee. He visualized that scene again and 
 felt an imperative need to revisit it. He looked at his 
 wrist-watch: after all, the thing was not impossible; at all 
 events he was of a mind to try to do it, so stepping out he 
 turned into Stephen's Green and taking the Terenure tram 
 to its journey's end, he changed there and went on to Rath- 
 farnham. It was hot as he strode through the village and 
 hotter still when, leaving Ballyboden behind, he pushed on 
 up the hill. Long before he reached Killakee he felt a deadly 
 languor and wished he had not embarked on this adventure, 
 particularly as the country roads were crowded with holiday 
 folk, and char-a-bancs passed him stifling him with dust.
 
 262 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Higher up, however, past Air Park, there were few ve- 
 hicles. Still higher up he believed himself to be momentarily 
 out of sight even of foot passengers, when brazen music 
 swelled rhythmically upon his hearing, and presently he met 
 some hundreds of men, not soldiers, yet marching with per- 
 fect discipline behind a brass band. The face of one young 
 man was familiar to him, though he gave no sign of recog- 
 nition. . . . The music had passed away before Adam real- 
 ized that it must have been Patsy Doyle, who once sold 
 papers with him outside the Gresham Hotel and had helped 
 him that night of the trouble with Old Comet. Something 
 told Adam that those young men with whom Patsy marched 
 could not be friendly to such old men as Old Comet. . . . 
 Yet he was too weary with walking to think much about it. 
 
 He had a notion of getting himself some tea at the Inn 
 that called itself after the Hell Fire Club, but, finding many 
 cars and motors outside it, decided that it might be beyond 
 his means, and, passing it by, turned into the meadow where 
 the thorn-tree was, and under the thorn-tree lay down. For- 
 getting even to glance at the prospect he had once admired, 
 he fell asleep. . . . Once he was wakened by some animal 
 smelling at his hand, and he looked up to find himself gazing 
 into the eyes of a horse, but his cry of surprise sent it 
 wheeling about to gallop away, and, though vaguely con- 
 scious that the sun was no longer to be seen, he went off 
 to sleep again. 
 
 When wakened again by he knew not what, it was pitch 
 dark, and he could see nothing, but he knew that something 
 alive was very near to him. All that he could see were the 
 lights out at sea and their glimmer on the water of Dublin 
 Bay, but he knew there was more than one live thing near 
 him, and, little as he could hear, he knew them to be male 
 and female. That knowledge kept him very still until they 
 rose and moved away. . . . Then he too rose and followed 
 them; silently they clambered up towards the style to the
 
 ON THE EVE 263 
 
 roadway, shuffling through brake and slipping over moss, 
 and silently he followed them. When he reached the fence 
 by the road he could hear their feet pattering at a brisk 
 pace away from him towards Dublin. Keeping the same 
 pace, he followed them: they were vaguely visible now, a 
 black patch like the shadow of Siamese twins on the white 
 road. So for the hour and more down to Rathfarnham he 
 followed them at an even pace. The lights of Ballyboden 
 village gave him a more definite glimpse of them, and he 
 thought he had seen both before ; particularly he thought he 
 had seen the male, and he stepped out, trying to draw 
 nearer. But, as though they suspected an eavesdropper, 
 they too stepped out, and, tired as he was, gained on him. 
 They reached the terminus at Rathfarnham a greater dis- 
 tance ahead of him than at Killakee : he could just see that 
 they were both pressing into an overcrowded tram, when the 
 conductor put his arm between them, and the tram growled 
 off with the female upon it and the male shaking his fist 
 in fantastic silhouette against the flashing electric light. 
 
 He disappeared in the crowd that surged round to storm 
 the next tram, which rapidly filled, and Adam, pressing his 
 pace to the double, dodged on to it just in time to get the 
 last seat outside. He did so at the cost of treading on his 
 neighbor's toe, who snapped out : "You bloody young muff ! 
 Why don't you look where you're going ?" Adam, who was 
 not quarrelsome, found himself apologizing to the male he 
 had pursued from the field at Killakee, recognizable now as 
 the youth who had forced him to ride his bicycle.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 THE PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON 
 
 THE Monday morning broke exquisitely fair, and Adam, 
 rising early from a sleepless couch, donned a spot-new suit 
 of white flannel which his guardian had ordered to his 
 measure from Kennedy and MacSharry's: and, although 
 Adam did not flatter himself that he was a beautiful youth, 
 he was confident that he looked comelier in this suit than 
 in any other. And so, although towards midday the sky 
 filled with clouds and it lightened and thundered a full 
 hour, and poured in torrents for nearly three, he could not 
 make up his mind to change ; but left St. George's Church 
 behind him in a smoking drizzle of rain that soon took the 
 novelty out of his garments and some of the black out of 
 the ribbon on his straw hat for Mr. Macarthy had checked 
 his desire to have one similar to Mr. O'Toole's. 
 
 By the time he reached the corner of Spring Avenue he 
 looked something between a drowned rat and Cupid masquer- 
 ading as a river-god: but the sun burst from the clouds 
 to show him his Caroline emerge from her dread fastness 
 fairly in time for her tryst with him. She was radiant, with 
 her own dark charm set off by a pink summer dress and 
 hat and parasol, all new as his own and unspoiled by rain. 
 Yet was it disappointing to hear her greeting: "Oh, my 
 dear! Did you fall down a drain?" 
 
 Adam answered sulkily: "You said I was to come, wet 
 or fine." 
 
 Amiably she protested: "But why ever didn't you bring 
 an umbrella?" 
 
 "Umbrella!" Adam snorted: "I never had an umbrella." 
 
 To which she, of course, said : "Why didn't you borrow 
 Mr. Macarthy's?" 
 
 264
 
 THE PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON 265 
 
 Adam pooh-poohed : "He never had such a thing no more 
 than me." 
 
 It was unwise of him to take that attitude with Caroline, 
 who said: "I noticed he never wore an overcoat. ... I 
 suppose you're trying to be like him?" 
 
 The corners of Adam's mouth lowered sulkily. 
 "I wouldn't mind being like him when I come to his 
 age." 
 
 "You'll never come to his age," she retorted, "if you go 
 on like this. You'd better be off home to change." 
 
 Adam looked her full in the face. "What did you say 
 on Saturday night?" said he. 
 
 "I was only talking," she answered : "just a bit of fun." 
 She drew her right arm through his. "Don't be cross with 
 me; come on." 
 
 They walked quite a long way in perfect silence, and the 
 exercise and the strong sun glare warmed Adam's feet and 
 dried the surface of his flannel suit. 
 
 "You look lovely in your new clothes," she volunteered 
 at last, and sent Adam's heart heaven-high, to fall again as 
 she added : "I dare say Macarthy looked like you when he 
 was a child." 
 
 "I don't see that I'm at all like Mr. Macarthy," he re- 
 turned : "I've hardly ever heard anyone say that before, and 
 I don't see why you say it." 
 
 "Why wouldn't I?" she expostulated, but with an air of 
 indifference. "Haven't you the same sort of eyes?" 
 
 Adam admitted : "They may be the same color." 
 
 Miss Brady shook her head. "It isn't that, for yours 
 are a strong, lovely blue, and his are faded and going gray. 
 It's the expression in them. Most fellows with blue eyes 
 look at you as if they'd like to humbug you if they could. 
 But your eyes, and much more Macarthy's, look as if they 
 could humbug you if they wanted to, but wouldn't do it for 
 all the world."
 
 266 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "Certainly," said Adam, after pause for reflection; "Mr. 
 Macarthy's no humbug." 
 
 "And are you?" she asked. 
 
 "No," said Adam. "I won't say I feel so strongly about 
 it as he does. For I've lived a harder life, maybe, that I 
 couldn't have lived at all without some humbug. It was 
 meat and drink to me when I first remember." 
 
 "Do you mean you were very poor ?" Miss Brady queried. 
 
 "Starving," he answered in a word. 
 
 "Lor!" said Miss Brady. "I never remember our being 
 so poor as not to be respectable." She enlarged on this 
 theme. "My mother was always a wonderful manager, and 
 when things were at their worst she could always poke out 
 another few shillings somewhere. . . . You wouldn't think, 
 to look at her now, what Ma could do a few years ago, be- 
 fore her hair and complexion went. . . . Having so many 
 children, you know. . . . Then she was nearly as gay as 
 me, in a heavier sort of way, mind you. Now she sits at 
 home all day and grizzles. She and Pa make me quite ill 
 between them. But he was never any use except for being 
 quick at figures when he was young. Now he's got some 
 sort of brain . . . leisure, do they call it?" 
 
 Adam suggested lesion. 
 
 "Whatever you say yourself," she smirked. "Don't let's 
 talk about Pa. It makes me sick to think of him. ... If I 
 was in that state I'd make a hole in the water." 
 
 "Don't talk like that," said Adam pressing closer to her. 
 "Life can be just lovely." 
 
 "Life's just lovely for you and me to-day," she said, "be- 
 cause we're young and healthy and out for a bit of fun. . . . 
 Don't pinch me so, and I won't call it a bit of fun if you 
 don't like, but that's what it is all the same, you know. And 
 I wouldn't have come if you were going to be too serious 
 about it." 
 
 "I wouldn't have come," said Adam, "if I'd thought you
 
 THE PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON 267 
 
 couldn't be serious about it." He stopped short with an 
 air of going no farther and found they had wandered, how 
 he knew not, so far as the canal bridge on the Drumcondra 
 Road. It was a difficult place to talk, with people passing, 
 and tram-cars grinding and groaning as they stopped and 
 went on again. Yet there they stood showing to each other 
 their inmost souls. 
 
 Miss Brady swung her little bag. "Serious, of course, but 
 not too serious. You can't expect a young lady of my age 
 to be so serious as all that about a boy of fourteen or 
 fifteen." 
 
 "I'm not so far from sixteen," said Adam. 
 
 "What's sixteen?" she returned. "You talk as if it were 
 twenty-one." 
 
 "Would you marry me if I was twenty-one?" he asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 She retorted : "I wouldn't marry you if you were a 
 hundred. . . . Not if you asked me a hundred times 
 a day." 
 
 Adam cried out against this cruel wrong. "Why not?" 
 
 She shook her bag and her head in unison slowly and 
 mysteriously, almost as if it were a ritual, and was a long 
 time saying: "I wouldn't marry any man except the one." 
 
 And Adam, bringing the movement of his stick subcon- 
 sciously into rhythm with the movement of her bag, was 
 even slower in asking: "Do I know his name?" 
 
 She stopped wagging her head to nod and then pretended 
 to be interested in a paper bag afloat in the canal. 
 
 Adam struck the ground with his bamboo cane. "But 
 you've never had anything to say or do with him," he pointed 
 out as if he suspected her of being unaware of it. 
 
 She only answered : "Perhaps that's why I fancy him so. 
 ... If once I had a bit of fun. . . ." 
 
 Adam groaned to hear it come out at last. 
 
 But Miss Brady was too lost in her own thoughts to hear
 
 268 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 the groan. She said: "It's a queer thing now, but I can't 
 even imagine that." 
 
 Adam's groan became articulate. "No more can I." 
 
 "Of course you can't," she laughed, "how could you?" 
 
 "I wouldn't if I could," said he, compressing his lips and 
 eyeing her wistfully. 
 
 "You look very like Macarthy now," she said, and per- 
 plexed him ; for he could not conceive that his guardian had 
 ever known the emotion filling him then. She went on: 
 "Would you marry me if you could?" 
 
 Snapping at the chance he cried eagerly: "Upon my 
 honor I would." 
 
 "Hush!" she insisted, dropping her hand on his mouth. 
 "What will people think we're talking about?" 
 
 "What does it matter," Adam blurted, "it's nothing to be 
 ashamed of." 
 
 Her hand still shadowing his mouth she answered in her 
 softer tone : "But it's silly to talk of on a stony old bridge 
 with trams and cars buzzing by all the time and people 
 nudging you out of their way." She looked round as though 
 forgetful where exactly they were. "Let's turn down on 
 the canal bank past Mount joy Prison, and if you're good 
 we'll maybe go farther still." 
 
 Adam said something about going to the Styx edge, which 
 allusion Miss Brady did not follow. Meanwhile he found 
 himself with her by the canal side ; on the bank away from 
 the prison, with the railway running below them on their 
 right. They walked silently a little way until she touched 
 again, to his surprised delight, on the topic nearest his 
 heart. "If I was willing to marry you and you were old 
 enough, which you never will be . . ." 
 
 "Why not?" he broke in. 
 
 She pressed his right wrist with her left hand and the 
 handle of the little bag hurt, but he pretended to enjoy it.
 
 THE PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON 269 
 
 "Never mind. Listen to me : even if we could get married 
 and we both wanted to ... which I don't . . ." 
 
 "Why not?" he asked again. 
 
 "Will you be quiet," she cried, "and listen to me." 
 
 "I'm listening like mad," he asserted sulkily. 
 
 "Well, suppose everything was arranged and I'd got my 
 trousseau and everything . . ." 
 
 "What's a trousseau ?" Adam asked. 
 
 She stopped and stamped her foot. "There you go inter- 
 rupting again, and what a little silly you are not to know 
 what a trousseau is. I'll show you some day." Then, look- 
 ing in Adam's eyes and finding the suggestion wakened no 
 light in them, she added : "In Walpole's window ... I wish 
 you wouldn't interrupt : I've forgotten what I was going to 
 say." 
 
 "About being married to me," said Adam trustingly. 
 
 Once again to be crushed; for she answered: "No, it 
 wasn't. It was about not being married to you." 
 
 "Caroline," whispered Adam piteously as she seemed to 
 turn away from him. "You're tormenting me. ... I can't 
 stand it. ... I'll throw myself into the canal." 
 
 "Why not the railway?" she said tauntingly, so that he 
 made a blind rush towards it and would have leaped the low 
 wall had she not caught him, saying even then mockingly: 
 "What's the use. . . . You'd only break your leg and maybe 
 starve to death before a train came. . . . What are vou 
 crying for?" 
 
 "You," sobbed Adam through a veil of tears. 
 
 The arm that restrained took a softer fold around him 
 so that it wellnigh melted into an embrace : "Don't cry," she 
 whispered, "remember we're out for a bit of fun." 
 
 "What's fun to you is death to me, as the frog said to the 
 boy," he stuttered half laughing, with the back of his hand 
 to one eye and his rain-crumpled handkerchief to his nose.
 
 270 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "It's not only frogs might say that to a boy," she de- 
 clared, "but it's the first I've heard of a boy saying it to 
 a girl." 
 
 "But you've been teasing me ever since we started out," 
 he protested. 
 
 "What do you want me to be doing with you ?" she asked 
 point blank. "If I knew what you wanted I might oblige." 
 Her mouth opened in a deliciously merry laugh : "I'll take 
 my oath you don't know yourself." 
 
 Infected by her mirth, he laughed loudly too, and cried 
 hysterically : "I want to be married to you." 
 
 "And I tell you you can't be married to me," she re- 
 turned; "for, even if you could, Macarthy wouldn't let 
 you." 
 
 "How would he prevent me?" asked Adam, a shade 
 doubtfully. 
 
 "He'd say I was an impudent baggage," she answered, 
 looking hard at him. 
 
 Adam met firmly her gaze as he declared : "Mr. Mac- 
 arthy'd never do the like of that. He'd never call a woman 
 names." 
 
 Miss Brady's face was wreathed with smiles : "The darl- 
 ing man !" she ejaculated. "The oftener you name him the 
 more I love him. . . . And I love you because I can talk 
 to you about him. . . . And I love you because you love 
 him. . . . And I love you because he loves you. . . . And 
 I love you because you're more than a little like him about 
 the eyes. . . . And I love you because you're reminding me 
 of him the whole time we spend together." 
 
 Her litany was bitter-sweet as a dream. "But," he an- 
 swered, "being loved like that is not like being loved for 
 myself." 
 
 "Oh, yes, it is," she insisted, "very like it. ... We never 
 love people for themselves, but only for the things we imag- 
 ine about them." She jumped from the philosophical ab-
 
 THE PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON 271 
 
 stract to the practical concrete, and took his hand, leading 
 him on away from the railway wall. "I'll tell you what 
 we'll do to-day for a bit of fun. . . . What was the name 
 of the old fellow's daughter?" 
 
 With an unaccountable reluctance, Adam named Josephine 
 O'Meagher. 
 
 "Josephine O'Meagher," she repeated : "I was telling you 
 what we'd do to-day for a bit of fun, wasn't I?" 
 
 "You were," said Adam faintly. 
 
 She went on. "I'll pretend to be your friend Josephine 
 O'Meagher and you pretend to be Macarthy." She amended 
 her proposition. "I mean to say, that I'll pretend that 
 you're Macarthy, and you can let on, if you like, that I'm 
 your friend the nun, or whatever she is. ... Mind you, 
 you'll have to pretend hard if she's a nun, for I'm not feeling 
 like one to-day." 
 
 "I'd rather not pretend anything of the kind," he mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "All right, then," Miss Brady answered with cool firm- 
 ness, "we'd better go home." 
 
 Adam, as usual, surrendered. "I'll pretend anything 
 rather than go home." 
 
 "Very well, then," she said: "you can let on I'm anyone 
 you like, but I'm going to try my best to pretend that you're 
 Macarthy, so mind now, don't spoil it." 
 
 "But what am I to do?" he asked pitifully. 
 
 She actually sighed. "Not much. ... I suppose you 
 needn't do anything except pretend not to like me." 
 
 Adam's face betrayed more bewilderment than he per- 
 haps really felt. "How can I pretend that you're someone 
 I love and someone I don't like at the same time ?" 
 
 Miss Brady scoffed at him with roguish contempt. "And 
 you educated by the Jesuits ! I am surprised at you." She 
 broke off to dance a step or two gleefully. "We'll have no 
 end of fun." She swung him round by an arm encircling
 
 272 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 his waist, that left its rosy imprint on the damp white flan- 
 nel. "Come along, Macarthy, there's a love." 
 
 She took his hand, and so they wandered on side by side, 
 very close together, to the end of that stretch of the canal 
 and along the tow-path under Westmoreland Bridge that 
 carries the hearses on the road to Glasnevin, and on past 
 the smelly flour mills to where, after a last burst of railway 
 track and slag heaps, the canal begins to leave the town be- 
 hind and pursue its straight way to the west. To the west, 
 whither, in its distant and palmier days, it floated handsome 
 embarkations bearing King's officers, with their genteel fami- 
 lies, safer and more comfortably, if a trifle slower, than 
 any road coach, to the fortress town of Athlone. 
 
 Adam, on whom the freedom of Mr. Macarthy's library 
 had not been utterly wasted, thought of these ghostly 
 barques that had once made proud those now dreary waters, 
 dismal now as the tumbledown grand houses in which those 
 King's officers and their kind had lodged and married and 
 given in marriage. Lord Queenstown wanted those days 
 back again : Mr. Macarthy laughed at him. Others, like the 
 Marchesa (herself so like one of those tumbledown 
 houses), wanted to return to ill-defined days dating from 
 the times ere brick was used to build a wall in Dublin city. 
 Mr. Macarthy laughed equally, if more gently, at her. Mr. 
 Macarthy regarded all trifling with the clock as folly, and 
 held that the most wilful could tread no measure that was 
 not Time's. Of these things Adam thought as he wan- 
 dered on and on by Caroline's side between the railway and 
 the canal. . . . And then he wondered of what was Caro- 
 line thinking: could she really be thinking of him as Mr. 
 Macarthy, while they walked along so silently, so steadily 
 together, as if there were no question that they should ever 
 come back? 
 
 Suddenly these words from her lips fell upon his ear: 
 "Are you happy?"
 
 THE PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON 273 
 
 "I am always happy with you," he answered : not that it 
 was true, but he wished to please her. 
 
 "Macarthy would never say a humbugging thing like 
 that," she answered vexedly : "you'd better say nothing even 
 when I speak to you. ... Or else you'll spoil everything 
 even now." 
 
 Adam did not see what there was to spoil, but he con- 
 veyed in dumb show his desire to kill no joy. 
 
 She paused, and they stood a moment arm in arm, close 
 together, looking around them. All was hushed except that 
 the wind, which had shifted from the south-west of the 
 morning to due east, and rippled the canal water, brought 
 them the chime of the city clocks striking five. Adam 
 thought he could distinguish the peal of St. George's above 
 the others : he would know St. George's bells anywhere, if 
 that church were transported to the ends of the earth or 
 whisked by a magician, like Aladdin's palace, to Africa. 
 He could still see the steeple from where they stood now, 
 on a part of the canal bank, deserted at this hour of a holi- 
 day by all the world, but interesting as of old to him ; for 
 here the railway line bifurcated, and one branch swooped 
 down beneath the other and beneath the canal, to lose itself 
 in the distance in the bowels of the Phoenix Park, under 
 the road where he recalled that strange adventure of his 
 with the lady and the soldiers, and reappeared ultimately 
 leaping the river Liffey at Kingsbridge : and on the other 
 side of the canal approached the Midland Great Western 
 line from Broadstone, which the line on their side jumped 
 the canal to join and be merged in as it sped on its way to 
 Athlone, and the ultimate Connacht, from which Mr. 
 O'Meagher supposed Caroline's ancestors to have come on 
 their triumphant march to that blind alley called Spring 
 Avenue. 
 
 In the sector of a circle between the canal and the con- 
 verging railway line, they stood on a squelching hillock of
 
 274 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 wet turf bathed in sunlight, and partly hidden from pass- 
 ers-by by a breastwork of moss-grown slag. It was, nor- 
 mally, so quiet a spot that Adam had seen men bathe there 
 naked without let or hindrance, and other sights which pro- 
 claimed it an established sanctuary. Miss Brady looked 
 round, north and south and east and west she gazed, then, 
 when he was wondering what she would say or do, she 
 seemed to catch sight of something through the arch of the 
 railway bridge across the canal. 
 
 Silently she moved forward again, taking him as it were 
 captive with her ; under the arch they passed until they com- 
 manded the prospect on the other side. There was not a 
 soul in sight, nor anything stirring but the smoke of a loco- 
 motive creeping puffily towards them from the western 
 horizon : even when the clocks had stilled and the east wind 
 fallen, you could barely hear the sound of it. Adam looked 
 up at Miss Brady as she again stood still. "What are you 
 thinking of?" he asked. For answer she put her finger to 
 her lips and then her lips on his, and then led him, all trem- 
 bling, back to the squelching hillock. 
 
 Full of the most romantic and indescribable emotion, 
 Adam was cut like a whip by her next words : "Now, Mac- 
 arthy, you've got to do what I tell you. Lie down." 
 
 Adam protested. "You talk to me as if I were a dog." 
 
 Miss Brady's eyes flashed disapproval. "I knew you'd 
 spoil everything by answering me back ! Will you lie down 
 or won't you ?" 
 
 "The grass is wringing wet," he objected. 
 
 "If you're afraid of rheumatism at your age," said Miss 
 Brady, "I'm going home to my tea." 
 
 "I'm thinking of you as much as myself," he honestly 
 claimed. 
 
 "I'm afraid of nothing," said Miss Brady, and plumped 
 down on the hillock. "Here's a bit of my petticoat for you 
 to sit on."
 
 THE PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON 275 
 
 Adam could not refuse this invitation. The earth on 
 which they lay gave off a warm vernal odor, like scent in 
 the atmosphere of a Turkish bath. 
 
 "Are you happy now?" asked Caroline, supporting his 
 head on her arm. 
 
 He answered, with his eyes in hers: "I mightn't be if I 
 were Macarthy." 
 
 "Then be yourself," she whispered, and put her other arm 
 around him. 
 
 He was lost now in a sort of ecstasy, blinded by her face 
 and arms and hair. Yet his ear told of the train in the 
 distance, audible now, and creeping nearer and nearer out 
 of the west from which Caroline's forbears were sprung, 
 until it was over the canal, over the spot where they had 
 kissed, and thundering by them, and slowly, slowly away, 
 puffing and groaning slowly, slowly, down the line by the 
 canal, under the bridge that carried the hearses to Glasnevin, 
 past the spot where he had offered to kill himself to-day, 
 past Newcomen Bridge, where he had overtaken Caroline 
 the day he chased her from Pleasant Street: into Amiens 
 Street, which had bounded his horizon when he was young, 
 out of it again over Beresford Place, past Liberty Hall and 
 the Custom House and the Bristol boat and the waters that 
 drowned Fan Tweedy, to Westland Row : past St. Andrew's 
 Church and out round the Bay by Sandycove, where had 
 sped the happiest moments of his life, through Dalkey tun- 
 nel, where he first felt the flame that was consuming him 
 now, and on to Bray, where she who had given him the 
 greatest happiness of his life had chosen to pass her own 
 life as a cloistered nun. . . . He was recalled to the fleeting 
 Now by Caroline's voice, gently reproachful. 
 
 She was whispering: "Adam, you little dreamer! Tell 
 me your dream." 
 
 He blushed as she released him to look in his face, yet 
 he answered glibly: "I was thinking of what the Playboy
 
 276 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 says to Pegeen Mike : 'Let you wait, to hear me talking, till 
 we're astray in Erris, when Good Friday's by, drinking a 
 sup from a well, and making mighty kisses with our wetted 
 mouths, or gaming in a gap of sunshine, with yourself 
 stretched back onto your necklace, in the flowers of the 
 earth.' " 
 
 She looked at him with a puzzled air. "What's all that 
 nonsense you're saying?" 
 
 Despite the glow that came from her to him, Adam was 
 shocked at her ignorance. "You've seen Synge's 'Playboy 
 of the Western World' at the Abbey Theater? . . . Caro- 
 line, you must have!" 
 
 She answered scornfully: "As if I'd go to a dirty hole 
 like that. . . . But I can tell you that this time yesterday I 
 was hearing a fellow read me bits of Shakespeare's 'Venus 
 and Adonis.' " 
 
 On the instant Adam's soul rose in jealous rage, and he 
 felt his fingers turn into claws. "Tell me the fellow's name," 
 he cried. 
 
 But she only answered as hotly, though with another heat 
 than his : "Never you mind. That was only a bit of fun. 
 . . . Let's pretend this is something different," and she bit 
 his lip and crushed him to her: and he felt all fury and 
 strength and sense of time and place, of past and present, 
 go out from him within the magic circle of her thin limbs. 
 She and he were no longer Adam and Caroline, nor boy and 
 girl. They were one idea, plunged in the immemorial seas 
 of creation, sinking or swimming, he knew not which. . . . 
 Knew nothing but that reality was less real than the least 
 real of his dreams. 
 
 Then he was conscious of rain falling, faster and faster, 
 upon the back of his neck : and he let it so fall for a while 
 till at last it streamed off him on to her, and she said: 
 "Adam . . . It's raining. . . . Are you asleep?"
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 ON THE FURTHER SHORE 
 
 THE Bank Holiday ended, as it had threatened, in storm 
 and rain. Its full evidence broke upon Adam and Caroline 
 as they left the canal at Drumcondra Bridge and turned into 
 the Circular Road. She begged him to go straight home, 
 but with the valiancy of young blood and a vibrant sense of 
 voyaging in a new world that was not, after all, a dream, 
 he brought her through the sheets of rain to her very door, 
 and, holding open the creaking gate, bade her farewell. 
 The rain ran off her parasol to join the rivers coursing down 
 his neck as she murmured : "It wasn't just fun, Adam ; was 
 it, dear?" 
 
 Taken aback by her wistful tone and an odd expression 
 on her no longer merry face, he could only for answer kiss 
 very humbly her hand : and, pressing his gratefully, she 
 whispered in his ear: "Adam, my little true love, it wasn't 
 fun for me. ... I was mad for once. . . . I've never done 
 such a thing before." She added fervently : "I hope to God 
 you've taken no harm by it. Run home as fast as you can 
 and get out of your wet things." 
 
 "You're wetter than I am," he chattered. 
 
 "Never mind that now," she insisted. "Nothing matters 
 to me but you ; come and see me again as soon as you can, 
 if it's only to tell me I've done you no harm." 
 
 He kissed her wet hand again, noticing, as it seemed to 
 him, that she shuddered as the gate creaked between them, 
 and, as he turned away, that she fumbled awkwardly with 
 her latchkey letting herself in. He noticed, too, that the 
 
 277
 
 278 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 dye of her pink frock had transferred itself in great measure 
 to his once white flannels. But he rather gloried in this as 
 he doubled out of Spring Avenue into the Circular Road, 
 facing defiantly the torrent of rain and splashing ankle- 
 deep through pools; for was not this wearing of Caroline's 
 colors a mystic symbol of their first exchange of love ? Not 
 even his omniscient guardian could possibly guess the 
 meaning of these rosy stains: and not to him, nor anyone 
 till judgment day, would Adam divulge this secret that fired 
 him as he sped, like Puck, through the mire of the Dublin 
 streets. . . . Only he wished that the last sound he carried 
 from Spring Avenue had been a word from her loving 
 mouth and not the creaking of that rotten gate and the 
 thud of that sepulchral door. 
 
 In Fitzgibbon Street he was checked by the arms of some- 
 one as unprotected from the tempest as himself. "I was 
 coming to look for you," said his guardian. "What a state 
 you're in." 
 
 Adam stuttered with surprise: "I didn't know you'd be 
 back already. . . ." He braced himself to evade an answer 
 to the question where he had been, but his guardian asked 
 none. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy only said : "Let's run," and, with an arm 
 round him, rushed him up the hill and up the steps of the 
 house and up the stairs to the bathroom, where he found 
 himself in less than no time up to his neck in steaming 
 water. 
 
 That night he slept, for the first time at Mountjoy Square, 
 in his guardian's own bed : Mr. Macarthy resting on a fold- 
 ing chair in the sitting-room, with the door open; for he 
 found the boy had developed a cough and a temperature. 
 For the moment Adam was glad of this, deeming that it 
 saved him from an almost inevitable inquisition. But in 
 the morning the temperature was still above normal, and 
 Dr. Ahern came to pronounce it an attack of pleurisy. So
 
 ON THE FURTHER SHORE 279 
 
 Adam spent a week in his guardian's bed and his guardian a 
 week out of any. 
 
 Since the great adventure which introduced him to the 
 luxuries of the Mater Misericordise Hospital, and indirectly 
 to the love of Caroline Brady, Adam had associated the 
 idea of illness with that of pleasure : and but for the barrier 
 which it set up between Caroline and him, he would have 
 reveled in his present one. But not all the comfort lavished 
 on him by his guardian could disguise from him that it was 
 unchivalrous of him (to use a word he had come to like) 
 to lie there in bed and leave her without a token that her 
 kisses had not been thrown away on him. He was particu- 
 larly anxious when the Saturday came and went without his 
 being allowed to leave his bed, so that he might look out of 
 the window to see if she passed, much less walk over to 
 Hollander's in Grafton Street to watch her coming out. 
 
 All that Saturday he lay thinking of her, and, as the bells 
 of St. George's Church struck five, he saw her sparkling 
 eyes alight in a little trim figure that sprang through the 
 hole in the roller blind to look eagerly around for him (as 
 eagerly as he had once looked round for her), and, still 
 searching eagerly, her little purse no longer swinging on 
 her arm, lest its bravado should attract another squire, pass 
 down Grafton Street, past Hodges and Figgis and the music 
 shop and the house-agents where Bernard Shaw was once 
 a clerk, and Ponsonby's, and the tobacconist's, and the 
 tourist agency, to take the tram at College Green. And so 
 he fancied her progress as far as Findlater's Church, maybe, 
 though that was out of her road, and she would do better 
 to change at the Parnell statue for the tram to Summer 
 Hill. But, for his sake, he imagined that she might at this 
 very moment, twenty past five, be walking up Gardiner's 
 Row, and Denmark Street, past Belvedere (hating it for his 
 sake), and through Gardiner's Place, and stopping at the 
 corner of Gardiner Street, undecided whether to pass the
 
 28o ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 house on the north side or, in memory of the night they had 
 walked it together, go round by west and south to Great 
 Charles Street. He decided that her practical temperament 
 would lead her to walk past the house, on the other side of 
 the road, so that she could look up at the window. ... A 
 pang of jealousy shot through him : had she not confessed 
 to looking up at the window in the past in the hope of seeing 
 Mr. Macarthy? 
 
 His reverie was broken into by the sound of voices in the 
 sitting-room: his guardian's and another, a gentle voice, a 
 woman's voice, a girl's voice, a familiar voice He drew 
 a breath full at once of hope and despair was it Caroline ? 
 . . . He listened fiercely: no, it was, he confessed unwill- 
 ingly, too cultured for Caroline : and, though he was not 
 prepared to admit it to be a more charming voice, its 
 cadences did in fact, even at that moment, charm his ear 
 with their cultivated rhythm. And he could not hide from 
 himself that it was with joy he saw the doorway brightened 
 suddenly by the winning figure of Babs Burns, with her 
 brilliant coloring, not so very unlike Caroline as she might 
 be if magically transformed into a princess. 
 
 "Well, Adam," said Barbara, "we've all been wondering 
 what had become of you." 
 
 "I don't believe it," said Adam, bruskly modest. 
 
 "Well, not perhaps everyone," Babs admitted; "but 
 mother asked me this morning why neither you nor Mr. 
 Macarthy had been near us for so long. So I offered to 
 come over and find out." 
 
 "And the offer," Adam heard his guardian say in his 
 quiet voice in the next room, "was enthusiastically re- 
 ceived." He came into the room. "And so was the visit, 
 by all concerned." He appealed to Adam : "There is no 
 one in the world you could be better pleased to see than 
 Miss Burns, is there, old man?" 
 
 And, though it smote his conscience, Adam could not bring
 
 ON THE FURTHER SHORE 281 
 
 himself to say there was; for he was at once too fluttered 
 and too flattered by this exquisite being's presence beside 
 his bed to think clearly of anything else. He beamed on 
 Babs Burns, and he thought Miss Burns looked back more 
 than kindly at him. ... It pleased him to think that he was 
 wearing his guardian's most beautiful pajamas. . . . His 
 guardian's glance traveled paternally from the one to the 
 other : "I will leave you two young people alone," he said. 
 And, having placed Miss Burns in a chair by the bed, went 
 out and shut the door behind him. 
 
 Adam and Babs regarded each other for a while in silence, 
 as two young animals for the first time in one cage. He 
 was relieved when she at last broke the silence : "I love lying 
 in bed, don't you?" 
 
 "Sometimes," said Adam. 
 
 "I love it always," Miss Burns declared, "unless there's 
 something on that I want to do." 
 
 "What sort of a thing?" Adam asked. 
 
 Her reply was a little vague. "Oh, anything. Acting, or 
 concerts, or hunting, for instance." 
 
 "Do you hunt?" The query had a subconscious note of 
 disapproval. 
 
 "No," said he, "not really. How could I? My mother 
 used to, but that was when she was well off, before she 
 married. . . . Not really well off, you know, but better off 
 than we are. We're always stoney-broke. ... I have rid- 
 den to hounds twice on a pony in Meath, and I would hunt 
 if I got the chance. ... I love horses ; don't you ?" 
 
 "I think I prefer motors," said Adam. 
 
 "How absurd," Miss Burns said roundly. "You can't 
 prefer motors to horses any more than you can prefer aero- 
 planes to angels. . . . You wouldn't prefer an aeroplane to 
 an angel, would you?" 
 
 Adam said he thought he might if he believed in angels, 
 but, as he had lately ceased to believe in angels, he had really
 
 282 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 no preference. And Miss Burns retorted that her father 
 did not believe in aeroplanes. 
 
 "But he must believe in them," Adam insisted, "for there 
 they are, whether he believes in them or not." 
 
 "But all sorts of things are there whether you believe in 
 them or not," said Miss Burns with a brilliance recalling 
 her mother's. 
 
 Adam demanded what there was there in which he re- 
 fused to believe, and she answered triumphantly : "Well, 
 for instance, Congregationalism is there, and you don't be- 
 lieve in that, do you?" 
 
 Adam, confessing that, so far as he knew anything about 
 it, which was not far, he did not. She continued : "Of 
 course not ; how could you ? How could anybody ? I don't 
 even know what it means, and neither does mother though, 
 mind you, she was a Congregationalist for nearly four 
 months before she became a Buddhist. You're not a 
 Buddhist, are you?" 
 
 Adam said he was not a Buddhist, and she went on : "I 
 suppose you're a Roman Catholic? I wouldn't mind being 
 a Roman Catholic. There's a tradition in the family that 
 my grandfather was near being a Catholic at one time. . . . 
 But, then, he did so many things. ... I like the smell of 
 Roman Catholic churches when they're not too dirty ; I can't 
 stand the smell of the Church of Ireland, respectability gone 
 sour. Mr. Leaper-Carahar is Church of Ireland. ... I 
 hate all religions, don't you?" 
 
 Adam agreed that, on the whole, he thought he hated most 
 religions he knew anything about : but he sometimes fancied 
 there might be something in Buddhism. 
 
 "You can't hunt if you're a Buddhist," said Miss Burns, 
 "so what's the good of that?" 
 
 "Can't you even hunt tigers?" Adam asked. 
 
 "Tigers?" snapped Miss Burns. "I can't go and hunt the 
 tigers at the Zoo; the poor things couldn't run away if I
 
 ON THE FURTHER SHORE 283 
 
 ran after them." He noticed that she seemed truly sorry at 
 the thought of their being unable to run away. 
 
 "But you could go to India," Adam suggested, "and hunt 
 them there." 
 
 "And who's going to take me to India?" she exclaimed. 
 "Will you?" 
 
 "I would if I could," cried Adam eagerly, oblivi- 
 ous of anything but the excited and exciting figure by 
 his bed. 
 
 Miss Burns laughed. "Before you could take me to India 
 I'd be a fat old woman with a lot of children. I love chil- 
 dren, don't you ?" 
 
 So far parentage had taken no shape in Adam's dream 
 romances, and his passion blushed at the thought of keeping 
 company with procreation: few days had passed since it 
 seemed to him almost a sin : yet, suddenly, he heard the 
 words leap across his lips : "I'd love to have children by 
 you." 
 
 For an instant Barbara blazed scarlet, and her ringers 
 closed his mouth, which kissed and found them the most 
 beautiful fingers it had touched. "You silly boy," she whis- 
 pered fiercely, "don't talk such nonsense." She glanced at 
 the door. "What would he think if he heard you ?" 
 
 "I'm sorry," Adam murmured; "I didn't mean to offend 
 you. It slipped out." 
 
 "You didn't offend me," she answered: "it only hurt me 
 to think that you thought . . . That anyone might think 
 . . . Never mind." She looked at him curiously. "I thought 
 you were in love with a nun, or something ridiculous, like 
 other boys of your age." 
 
 "Do you think," said Adam apologetically, "that you can 
 only be in love with one person?" 
 
 "No, I don't," said Miss Burns. "But what has that 
 got to do with it? I'm not in love with anybody, and I 
 don't mean to be. . . . And if I were, nothing would in-
 
 284 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 duce me to let the person I loved ever have the smallest 
 suspicion of it." 
 
 "Not if you were married to them!" Adam gasped. 
 
 "Oh, you never marry the person you love," said Miss 
 Burns with slightly husky bravado. "That's all a fairy- 
 tale." She got up and moved about the room. "Let's talk 
 of something else." Standing before the fireplace, she read 
 the 'What Rot!' program with a frown, and snapped out: 
 "Belinda Bellingham ! What rot indeed !" Then, coming 
 back to the bed : "That reminds me, why didn't you come 
 to the Abbey on Thursday night oh, I forgot : you were ill." 
 
 "What happened at the Abbey on Thursday night?" he 
 asked listlessly; "I thought the company was over in Eng- 
 land?" 
 
 "The ordinary actors are," said Miss Burns, "but didn't 
 you know there was a special performance of Mr. Tinkler's 
 new play?" 
 
 Adam shook his head. "Mr. Macarthy said nothing 
 about it." 
 
 "Mr. Macarthy thinks Mr. Tinkler a silly ass," said Miss 
 Burns, "and, of course, he is, but I don't see that's any 
 reason why Mr. Macarthy mightn't have come to see me 
 act." 
 
 Adam commenced to be interested. "I didn't know you 
 acted." 
 
 "I never tried it before," she pleaded, "not to speak of, 
 but I've had no end of a jolly notice in the Express." 
 
 "Mr. Macarthy doesn't think much of dramatic criticism," 
 said Adam, adding, in an effort to tone down in mid-channel 
 the tactlessness of his remark: "I mean in some of the 
 Dublin papers." 
 
 "Oh, but this notice," she returned triumphantly, "was 
 not done by the ordinary critic. It was sent in by Marcus 
 Pirn specially."
 
 ON THE FURTHER SHORE 285 
 
 "The chap in your father's office?" Adam asked inno- 
 cently. 
 
 Miss Burns frowned. "I don't see what that has to do 
 with it." She produced a crumpled piece of newspaper and 
 threw it on the bed. "There's the notice : you can see for 
 yourself. . . ." Quite in the manner of Caroline, she broke 
 off to stamp her foot: "It's bad enough that Mr. Macarthy 
 should laugh, but when it comes to you !" 
 
 "What have I done?" Adam asked, and as he failed to 
 elicit a reply, for she had turned her back on him to study 
 again the "What Rot!" program, he perused the critique. 
 
 MR. TINKLER'S "DEIRDRE" 
 
 "The least that can be said of Mr. Arthur Tinkler's 
 'Deirdre/ produced last night with overwhelming success 
 at the Abbey Theater, in the well-merited absence of the 
 Abbey Players, is that it is far superior to Mr. Yeats's and 
 the late J. M. Synge's, and falls little, if at all, short of 
 Canon Smithson's version of the same romantic theme. 
 Everyone knows the story of Deirdre, which is to Ireland 
 what Homer was to Troy in the practically prehistoric age 
 when knights were bold. But Mr. Tinkler's play, it is only 
 fair to the Dublin play-going classes and masses to say, is 
 not like 'When Knights Were Bold/ It is a superior play, 
 although not, it must be confessed, amusing, but certainly 
 in no way vulgar. If we have any fault to find with Mr. 
 Tinkler's work, it is that his writing is almost too refined. 
 It was difficult to believe that his Naisi could behave in a 
 manner unworthy of an English gentleman, and equally 
 difficult to think of Deirdre herself (impersonated by the 
 Marchesa della Venasalvatica with a golden voice in the 
 many emotional passages recalling Duse or Bernhardt at 
 their best) as a wild Irish girl even of that uncertain age.
 
 286 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Mr. Tinkler has still to learn the art of portraying Irish 
 character in a manner that will please the more cultivated 
 among what are, it is not too much to say, the most culti- 
 vated publics of the world. But his play is always high- 
 toned and has some really interesting moments, particularly 
 towards the beginning, while the audience are yet in doubt 
 as to what is the author's purport. This doubt is, more- 
 over, fairly sustained to the end, which was notably well 
 received by a fashionable and apparently interested audience. 
 "The acting, as it always is at the Abbey, whatever else 
 happens, was simply grand. Besides the overwhelming 
 Deirdre of the Marchesa della Venasalvatica (so well known 
 in Irish society and artistic circles on the Continent and 
 elsewhere, as Lady Daphne Page, second daughter of the 
 late Earl of Derrydown), which it would be a work of 
 supererogation to praise further, Mr. Tinkler himself, who, 
 apart from the play under discussion, is an author of world- 
 wide fame in England, and who will shortly publish a new 
 book, not, we believe, his first, would have had an equally 
 tragic effect as the ill-fated Naisi had not a quite uncalled 
 for modesty made his reading of the part inaudible, except, 
 no doubt, to those who were fortunate enough to be upon 
 the stage. If we have criticism to offer Mr. Tinkler, it is 
 that he should remember the stage of a theater is not a 
 drawing-room, even if the scenery is painted so as to de- 
 ceive the eye into this delusion, which in his play we need 
 not remind Mr. Tinkler that it was not, whatever it may 
 have been. Where all the parts were played far better 
 than could under any circumstances be expected, it would 
 be a work of supererogation to single out any one name 
 for special praise; but we may particularize as typical of 
 the general perfection the First Mute of Miss Calvinia 
 Macfie (who, it is an open secret, is said to be the gifted 
 daughter of our learned fellow-citizen, the Solicitor-Gen- 
 eral), and the Third Eavesdropper of Miss Barbara Burns,
 
 ON THE FURTHER SHORE 287 
 
 the charming heiress of our popular fellow-townspeople, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Burns, herself the brilliant hostess and ama- 
 teur piano player, the portrait of whose father, the famous 
 soldier and poetic amateur, Sir D. Byron-Quinn, painted 
 as an interesting coincidence by the once Lady Daphne 
 Page, is one of the handsomest ornaments of our national 
 collection. Each of these young ladies was in their own 
 way equally inimitable : Miss Macfie showing unmistakable 
 reserve of a kind for which even her best friends were 
 unprepared, and Miss Burns was no less successful on dif- 
 ferent lines. We should like to see one day both these 
 ladies in the title role, particularly if the Marchesa della 
 Venasalvatica would impart to them some of her own unique 
 tragic beauty of style." 
 
 When Adam came to the end of this dissertation he tried 
 to look as if he were interested, but held his peace. 
 
 "Well?" said Miss Burns, when she saw that Adam's 
 eye had reached the end of the story, and was obviously 
 not about to re-read it. "What about it?" 
 
 The door opened, and Mr. Macarthy appeared, saying 
 apologetically : "The long silence troubled me ; I feared you 
 had both gone to sleep." 
 
 The last word twinged Adam again, but he was glad of 
 his guardian's return; for he was conscious of a disability 
 to say to Miss Burns the sort of thing which he had a notion 
 she expected. "Mr. Macarthy will be interested to read of 
 your success," he suggested. 
 
 Said Mr. Macarthy : "Not at all." 
 
 Babs stamped her foot again. "How can you be so hor- 
 rid? Am I less interesting than other people?" 
 
 "Less interesting than some," said Mr. Macarthy, "but 
 so far as I am concerned, the only thing of any interest 
 about Mr. Tinkler's 'Deirdre.' " 
 
 "I believe you're jealous of Albert Tinkler," she mut-
 
 288 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 tered, and Adam wondered whether both of them were in- 
 tended to hear. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy looked at her reproachfully. "I admit 
 that he is my successful rival," he said, "in the affections 
 of Lady Bland." 
 
 Barbara grimaced half angrily. "I don't believe he was 
 ever in love with Lady Bland, or you either." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy shook his head gravely. "That will avail 
 you nothing so long as Lady Bland believes it ; if you can 
 persuade her of it, he might be released, as they say of the 
 cinematograph films, and then who knows, my dear Bar- 
 bara, what might happen?" 
 
 Barbara burst into a merry laugh. "I know one thing 
 that would not happen," said she : "Mr. Tinkler would never 
 ask me to marry him." Adam knew not whether to be 
 angry or pleased at this suggested remissness of Mr. Tinkler. 
 
 "No," said Mr. Macarthy, "to do Tinkler justice, he has 
 too much respect for you to do that." 
 
 Barbara frowned. "Do you think he would marry Lady 
 Bland if she were free?" 
 
 "To do Lady Bland justice," said Mr. Macarthy, "she has 
 too much respect for herself to do that." 
 
 Miss Burns's eyes filled with puzzlement. "To do what?" 
 
 "To be free to marry Tinkler." 
 
 "What can you mean?" Miss Burns dropped her voice. 
 "Surely he's better than her husband ?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy nodded portentously. "Far better. . . . 
 But Sir Adolphus has the great advantage of being a man, 
 and the hour he dies he will become, in Lady Eland's esti- 
 mation, an angel. She will entirely forget that he was a 
 drunken bully once that he is no longer there to bully her 
 and get drunk, whereas Tinkler's nothingness will be al- 
 ways before her eyes. It's quite a mistake to suppose that 
 a living jackass has any advantage over a dead hyena: 
 though when both are alive the jackass may seem the less
 
 ON THE FURTHER SHORE 289 
 
 trying company. It is the strong and not the virtuous per- 
 sonality that conquers death. Hundreds of people went 
 into hysterics over Parnell when he was dead who wished 
 to see him hanged when he was alive." He broke off. 
 "You probably know that poem, if one may stretch a point 
 and call it so, of your grandfather, Byron-Quinn ?" 
 
 Barbara broke in excitedly: "If you mean 'The Dead 
 Lover,' I set it to a sort of tune of my own the other day. 
 Would you like me to sing it to you?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy shrugged his shoulders : "If you remem- 
 ber the words," and turned carelessly away. 
 
 "Don't be horrid," Miss Burns pouted : "Of course I re- 
 member the words. ... At least, I think I remember the 
 last verse," and in her deep, moving, almost manly little 
 voice she sang: 
 
 "But though in my grave I lie, 
 I laugh deliciously 
 At the foolish living lovers that are dancing over me. . . ." 
 
 So far Adam heard and no further ; for, listlessly turning 
 the scrap of paper on which was printed Mr. Marcus Pirn's 
 appreciation of Barbara Burns as the Third Eavesdropper 
 in Mr. Tinkler's tragedy of "Deirdre," he read : 
 
 "BRADY: At n Spring Avenue, Summer Hill, on the 
 7th instant, of a chill contracted on Bank Holiday, Caroline 
 Moira, youngest and only surviving daughter of Alexander 
 Brady, Esq., of the Connacht and Leinster Bank. R.I. P."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 MR. MACARTHY ON CAROLINE 
 
 ADAM lay very still in bed, clutching that tragi-comic scrap 
 of paper in his fingers: he heard the voices of Barbara 
 Burns and his guardian close at hand languidly discussing 
 death and love: at least she was talking of love surviving 
 death, and he was laughing at her. She was saying: "I 
 know positively that a woman's love for a man will survive 
 the worst humiliation he can put upon her. He may be 
 cruel enough to kill her, yet she will go on loving him." 
 
 And Mr. Macarthy: "Has a man been cruel enough to 
 kill you?" 
 
 Then Barbara : "I don't exactly mean that." 
 
 Again Mr. Macarthy: "Has he killed any of your 
 friends?" 
 
 And Barbara: "You know I don't mean that." 
 
 And Mr. Macarthy: "Then how and what do you really 
 know?" 
 
 And then Miss Burns rather plaintively : "From my inner 
 consciousness I know that a woman's love for a man will 
 survive anything." 
 
 "A Tabby cat's love for a Tom will survive anything," 
 said Mr. Macarthy, "so long as nobody drowns the kittens." 
 
 "I don't think that that was at all a nice thing for you 
 to say to me," said Miss Burns with pursed lips. 
 
 "It's not the sort of idea that occurs to Tinkler," Mr. 
 Macarthy confessed, "but if it did Lady Bland would be 
 as annoyed with him as you are with me." 
 
 Miss Burns was softened. "I'm never annoyed with you, 
 but I don't think that you treat me at all nicely." 
 
 290
 
 MR. MACARTHY ON CAROLINE 291 
 
 "If you don't think that I treat you nicely," said Mr. 
 Macarthy gravely, "I think you ought to cut me." 
 
 Miss Burns made a dramatic gesture. "Why do you 
 always mistake me?" she cried. 
 
 "It is sometimes more convenient," he answered blandly : 
 whereupon she dashed into the other room, where Adam 
 thought he could hear her sobbing: but on Mr. Macarthy 
 following there was laughter, and he could hear his guardian 
 say : "It is time for you to go home ; would you prefer a 
 car or cab?" 
 
 Adam heard her say that she would walk and his guardian 
 answer: "You will not." Still arguing the point she went 
 off with Mr. Macarthy, leaving Adam without a farewell 
 and the newspaper cutting still in his hand. His soul was 
 torn with conflicting emotions ; for he was cut to the quick 
 by Barbara going off with his guardian, oblivious of him- 
 self : shocked with himself for being again jealous of his 
 guardian : and all the while wondering at himself for being 
 alive when Caroline Brady lay dead. 
 
 And it was he who had done her to death, or at least 
 been a partner to her self foredoing. . . . He thought he 
 saw death laughing at him from the foot of the bed. . . . 
 Love and Death. ... Of these things Barbara and his 
 guardian had been talking beside his bed while he had been 
 knowing Love and Death, walking with them hand in hand. 
 . . . What did those others know of Love and Death ? Bar- 
 bara certainly nothing. . . . His guardian? His guardian 
 knew everything. . . . Did he know about him and Caroline, 
 Caroline who was lying to-night for the first time in her 
 grave at Glasnevin. How long would she lie there? How 
 long do bodies last? Hamlet asked that question of the 
 grave-digger in the play ; the play . . . Barbara Burns was 
 acting in a play, pretending to die perhaps, while Caroline 
 was really dying last Thursday. . . . And to-day he was 
 making love to Barbara as he had never made love to
 
 292 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Caroline. . . . And Caroline lying in her grave, whom four 
 days ago he had loved as he would never love Barbara. . . . 
 Caroline's body was lying in her grave stiller than he lay 
 now in his bed. . . . God! The coldness of lying there in 
 a coffin six feet deep in the clay of dreary Glasnevin. . . . 
 What nonsense he was talking. Poor Caroline was lying 
 there dead and senseless as an old cat on a dust-heap beside 
 the canal. . . . Beside the canal. . . . Dead as a cat whose 
 kittens were drowned or a deader cat that had borne no 
 kittens. . . . Why had poor Caroline been ever alive? 
 Why, being alive, had she for many moments, unforgettable 
 moments, controlled every impulse of his soul ... ? Of his 
 soul, what of her own soul? What of the soul that had 
 left three days ago the body of Caroline Brady, the body 
 in whose arms he had lain last Monday on the canal bank, 
 and to-day had passed over the canal bank to lie to-night 
 for the first time in the grave at Glasnevin ? Was the soul 
 of Caroline still with her body, battling with her coffin lid 
 to break forth to him ... ? Or was it flinging itself 
 through a wave of endless fire against the gates of hell? 
 . . . Was it perhaps calling to him to come to her there if 
 he loved her? 
 
 A sweat burst forth all over him : he shook with some- 
 thing that was fear and still more rage. With a spasm he 
 plunged out of bed and knelt on the floor, as once he had 
 knelt on the floor of the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, to 
 pray for the soul of Emily Robinson, but in far other mood. 
 
 "God !" he cried, "God ! I cannot see that she and I have 
 sinned against any person or any thing. But if it pleases 
 You to say we have sinned, then let the punishment of both 
 be mine, for I can better bear punishment than she. But 
 I cannot bear that she should be punished because of me." 
 He raised his voice: "Come, oh God! strike me now. I'm 
 not a bit afraid when I think of her." Then his voice 
 quavered into sobs as he thought of the utter pitifulness
 
 MR. MACARTHY ON CAROLINE 293 
 
 of her end, and the thought of her lying dead in her grave 
 at Glasnevin, deaf even to the knowledge that he was striv- 
 ing at the uttermost cost to come to her aid. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy returned to find him prostrate on the floor, 
 hysterically cursing and sobbing. But the suggestion of his 
 guardian's presence rapidly soothed him and his head had 
 not been long on the pillow when he found himself telling 
 calmly, and almost with detachment, the whole story of his 
 connection with Caroline Brady, from their first meeting 
 below the steps of the hospital in Eccles Street to their part- 
 ing by the creaking gate in Spring Avenue. He did not 
 shrink from a faithful reproduction in substance of his 
 Caroline's allusion to his guardian himself. 
 
 Adam's interest in life was so great that he found him- 
 self studying his guardian's face, even as he told him what 
 he deemed to be a rare and tragic tale. But Mr. Macarthy's 
 face betrayed nothing : more than ever Sphinx-like with the 
 ghost of a wistful smile. At the end he said : "You may 
 sleep soundly to-night, Adam ; for it is certain you cannot 
 sleep so soundly as your little lady-love." 
 
 Adam scrabbled nervously the hem of his sheet. "You 
 don't think . . ." Words failed him. 
 
 "It is not a question of thinking: it is one of moral cer- 
 tainty," said Mr. Macarthy gently but firmly. "The poor 
 child's troubles, so far as they are in any sense compre- 
 hensible to the human brain, are over once and for all. 
 She is better dead." 
 
 Adam looked up startled. "Better dead, sir?" 
 
 His guardian nodded gravely. "So far as I can form an 
 opinion, she is better dead." 
 
 "I wish I could have seen her first," said Adam, though 
 not really sure of this in his mind. 
 
 "You could have done no great good," his guardian an- 
 swered, "but you may feel confident that you did her no 
 harm. Indeed, her affection for you was probably the
 
 294 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 tenderest and most gracious emotion of her sad little life, 
 and I like to think that you may have been her last thought 
 ere she died." 
 
 Adam's throat choked as he said: "I'll never forget her, 
 never. That's all I know." He broke off : "But she never 
 talked as if her life was sad." 
 
 "It was full of the saddest of all possibilities," said his 
 guardian, "and that is why she is better dead now, before 
 she even suspected what these possibilities were." 
 
 "I would have married her," Adam protested, "the mo- 
 ment I was old enough." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy shook his head. "You would not, and, to 
 do the poor child justice, I don't believe she would have 
 married you." 
 
 "You think," said Adam, after a long pause for cogita- 
 tion, "after all, you do think that her life was futile?" 
 
 "I do not," his guardian directly answered. "Her life 
 was not futile. She has been a good friend to you, and I 
 hold you to your promise, never to forget it."
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 GROWING UP 
 
 IT seemed as if the cause that slew Caroline gave Adam 
 a stronger grip of life; for, in spite of the risks he ran, 
 leaving his bed and the fever of remorse he was flung in by 
 the news of her death, the next morning Dr. Ahern pro- 
 nounced him convalescent, and in a few days he was about 
 again, with a sharpened appetite for all the wonders of this 
 world, which daily, under the interpretation of his guardian, 
 was becoming more wonderful to him. Caroline Brady, his 
 first love, was dead : but all things else were more than ever 
 alive : they were alive that summer with the presage of 
 conflict, and, as autumn drew nigh, Death himself seemed 
 to come alive, when Adam heard the shooting by the river 
 bank, when the King's soldiers shot down unarmed civilians, 
 and a few days later the soldiers of half the kings of the 
 earth were so occupied. Winter found the world at war. 
 
 Winter wore through with the world still deeper at war, 
 and Adam's birthday was honored by the revelation of a 
 new variety in the sport of kings, when there drifted across 
 the plains of Flanders the first whiff of poison gas. But 
 Adam was less interested in this new method of slaughter 
 than in the fact that he was at last sixteen, and felt, though 
 he did not look, a man. Already he had gone to the Muses 
 Club, though only on Saturday evenings and other occasions 
 of special sufferance, as a child : now, by his guardian's in- 
 fluence and a general tacit consent, a point was stretched 
 by the committee to admit him to membership : and, despite 
 his youth, he became not the least popular member of that 
 community, even among the men. Only Mr. Leaper-Cara- 
 
 295
 
 296 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 bar, C.B., remained consistently his enemy, and the poet 
 Tinkler was at pains to cheapen his achievements. The pair 
 of them had little in common, but they were agreed in a 
 frequently expressed regret that a young fellow so notori- 
 ously wanting in breeding should be foisted on them by one 
 suspect of revolutionary opinions, with as little awe for Mr. 
 Leaper-Carahar's official authority as for Mr. Tinkler's 
 poesy. 
 
 The plethoric dignity of the one, and the slim elegance of 
 the other were equally ruffled by the intrusion, and would 
 foregather in prominent places to express a joint disap- 
 proval. On them the Marchesa, as head of the extreme pro- 
 Adamites, waged a war untrammelled by the traditional 
 courtesies of even civil strife: and they fought at a peculiar 
 disadvantage. For, although Mr. Leaper-Carahar daily ad- 
 vised his department that she ought to be hanged, socially 
 he could not refrain from crawling before her as the Earl 
 of Derrydown's daughter : and the poet, who had consented 
 to her playing Deirdre solely in consideration of her having 
 been at school with Lady Bland, went in bodily fear of her 
 since she had beaten him with her umbrella at the dress 
 rehearsal of his masterpiece. Mr. Marcus Pirn, who claimed 
 to have been privileged to be present on this occasion, re- 
 ported (though not in the columns of the Express) that 
 the poet had divulged his opinion that the Marchesa was no 
 lady, and she had retorted that he was an hermaphrodite. 
 But he damaged the credibility of this story by quoting from 
 a too obviously imaginary letter from Lady Bland, protest- 
 ing against her old schoolfellow's insulting language. Mr. 
 Pim was more entertaining as a conversationalist than with 
 a pen in his hand: when, as even the amiable Mr. Burns 
 admitted, he became like a bad journalist, only worse. His 
 own attitude towards the great controversy was that of a 
 trimmer : he thought Adam should not be admitted on equal 
 terms to the society of ladies, and more particularly that
 
 GROWING UP 297 
 
 of Miss Barbara Burns : but he also thought that it would 
 be injudicious for him to quarrel over such a trifle with 
 the ladies in question, to say nothing of the mysteriously 
 cogent Macarthy, for whom he had early invented the 
 sobriquet of "The Hidden Hand." 
 
 As for Mr. Macarthy's interest in his young friend, Mr. 
 Pirn never experienced any difficulty, at all events after 
 dinner, in accounting for that. It was more difficult to 
 account for the Marchesa's: but Mr. Pirn had a theory 
 which he defended as not impossible. After all, Burke gave 
 the Marchesa's age as only sixty-three, and Adam was get- 
 ting on for seventeen. . . . Stranger things had happened. 
 He remembered when he was a kid someone telling him 
 that the wife of an emergency man near Killrush had twins 
 on her fiftieth birthday, although the lot of them, mind you, 
 were under a boycott at the time, which you'd think would 
 have depressed her spirits. And there was no denying that 
 Adam resembled both the Marchesa and his guardian. The 
 former likeness struck Mr. Pirn, the latter was the more 
 obvious to Barbara Burns. "But, more than anything, he 
 reminds me," said she, "of the portrait of my grandfather 
 the poet, in the National Gallery." 
 
 "Poet, indeed: is that what you call him?" said Mr. Pirn, 
 posing his spatted feet on the club fender, with his back 
 against the mantelpiece. "Sure, your grandfather, Sir 
 David Byron-Quinn, was an officer in the cavalry : he only 
 wrote, just as I do, to please himself." 
 
 "I don't think he wrote at all like you," said Miss Burns, 
 meaning to hurt, but failing in her intent. "Do you re- 
 member when that picture of him was done?" 
 
 "I do, indeed," said Mr. Pirn; "I mean, I could tell you 
 when it was done. ... It was done by the Marchesa when 
 she came back from Paris, where she'd been working under 
 Stevens, or Boldini, or one of these fellows, about the time 
 I was born. She and Byron-Quinn . . ." He broke off with
 
 298 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 a whistle. "I often wondered what it was that attracted 
 the Marchesa to Macarthy." 
 
 "What do you mean?" the girl asked angrily. 
 
 "Why, about the time you were born they were great 
 flames," said Mr. Pirn with an oleaginous smile, "just as 
 about the time I enlightened the world with my presence she 
 was a great flame of your grandfather's. You mightn't 
 think it to look at her, but she's a great war-horse, is the 
 old Marchesa, what the French call a grongammerroo. And 
 it occurred to me this moment that, although Macarthy goes 
 in for being a Socialist and all that sort of blatherumskite, 
 his mother was a pretty close cousin of Byron-Quinn's." 
 
 "Was she?" said Barbara; "then that would make her a 
 connection of mine, but I never heard my mother mention 
 her." 
 
 "I dare say not," said Mr. Pirn with a quizzical air, "but, 
 anyhow, it's natural enough that young Macfadden, as they 
 are pleased to call him, should resemble all three." 
 
 "I'm glad you think so," said Miss Burns, suppressing a 
 desire to garrotte Mr. Pim with his fashionable necktie and 
 then place his remains upon the fire before which he so ele- 
 gantly balanced himself. So will the gentlest young woman 
 desire to entreat the most ardent lover when he touches im- 
 pertinently on the subject of the one beloved: and Adam 
 was soon aware that there were moments when Miss Burns 
 looked kindly upon Mr. Macarthy, though he was not yet 
 aware that she had accepted her mother's brilliant decision 
 that she should, if possible, marry Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B. 
 
 Except at such moments as he was proving himself, or at 
 least appearing to prove himself, of service to her, Barbara 
 regarded Mr. Pim as rather a futile toad, but his capacity 
 as a compendium of scandalous chronicles, only too willing 
 to be consulted and to find out what he did not know, gave 
 him a definite value in her eyes, enabling her, as it did, to 
 take a distinguished part in the conversation of her elders.
 
 GROWING UP 299 
 
 She was deeply interested to know that there was some con- 
 nection, however slight, between her blood and Stephen 
 Macarthy's. From Mr. Pirn's tone she judged that he knew 
 more about this matter than he had put in words. With 
 affected nonchalance, she said to him : "Of course, I'd for- 
 gotten that Mrs. Macarthy was a distant cousin. Mother 
 always says we have too many relations, particularly poor 
 relations, to remember them all. . . . Mrs. Macarthy died 
 young, didn't she?" 
 
 Mr. Marcus Pirn cleared his throat with the air of making 
 an important announcement : "Very young. ... In point 
 of fact, she died when Stephen was born." 
 
 Barbara gave a little cry of dismay. "How sad for 
 Stephen !" she exclaimed. "And I suppose his father 
 brought him up then?" 
 
 Mr. Pirn's eyes squinted along the cigarette he was light- 
 ing. "Mr. Macarthy brought him up," said he. 
 
 "Adam is very like his father," she said quickly. 
 
 Mr. Marcus Pirn looked at her, inhaled deeply, almost 
 succeeded in blowing a successful smoke-ring into the air, 
 and said, following with his eyes the abortion: "Do you 
 tell me so?" He appeared to be about to enlarge upon the 
 subject when he caught her eye, and decided instead to 
 announce merely his need to write a letter. 
 
 Adam accepted as inevitable Barbara's weakness for his 
 guardian. He knew from Caroline Brady that it was pos- 
 sible for a woman to be in love with that middle-aged and 
 rather dowdy gentleman even without hearing him talk : and 
 when he talked he had the power to hold most people, 
 young or old. He conceived that Barbara's feeling for his 
 guardian was much the same as his own, only complicated 
 by, what he regarded in this instance as, the unfortunate 
 difference of sex. He felt sure that her affection for Mr. 
 Macarthy did pot preclude the possibility of her feeling 
 affection for him. And, indeed, it did not.
 
 300 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Nevertheless, she resented Mr. Macarthy's prescience 
 when he told her that one day, sooner or later, she would 
 find Adam the most attractive man in her circle. "Where 
 will you be then ?" she asked him sharply. 
 
 "Still on earth, I hope," he answered, "and not too old to 
 be interested in your interests." 
 
 "You never cared a fig about my interests," she cried, in- 
 discreetly loudly for a conversation at the Muses Club. 
 
 "I have considered your interests more than my own," he 
 answered, "so far as I am able to differentiate between my 
 own interests and those of the people in whom I take an 
 interest." 
 
 "I believe you love the Marchesa more than me," she 
 pouted. 
 
 "Your tone of voice implies that you do not believe it," he 
 responded thoughtfully. 
 
 "But you don't deny it," she snorted with indignation. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy was unmoved, saying judiciously : "I deny 
 that I love her more in the sense you appear to have in your 
 mind at the actual moment. . . . But what has this to do 
 with Adam?" 
 
 "Adam ?" echoed Miss Burns : "even if I wanted to, and 
 he were old enough, d'you think my people would allow me 
 to marry Adam Macfadden?" 
 
 "Do you purpose to consult them as to your husband?" 
 said Mr. Macarthy drily. 
 
 Miss Burns let her eyes fall. "Why not?" 
 
 "I was under the impression," said Mr. Macarthy, "that 
 I once heard you saying you valued no opinion except mine." 
 
 "That," she retorted quickly, "was when we both thought 
 the same." 
 
 Smoothly he returned: "But now you think the same as 
 your parents?" 
 
 "Mother," said Miss Burns lamely, "Mother says she had 
 the same trouble as I when she was young."
 
 GROWING UP 301 
 
 Mr. Macarthy laughed outright. "I don't believe a word 
 of it. I might as well say that I have had the same troubles 
 as Adam Macfadden." 
 
 In a second Barbara turned on him : "Then it's true what 
 Marcus Pirn says? You are his father?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy's laugh faded into his normal wistful 
 smile: "I wish it were true, for both our sakes," he said 
 gently ; "for I believe Adam's father to be even a less pre- 
 sentable member of society than myself." 
 
 "And yet you think him good enough for me to marry?" 
 she said with half real indignation. 
 
 "I confess," said Mr. Macarthy, "that Adam's undoubted 
 mother and probable father do not move in that sphere of 
 which his grandparents were once luminous, if erratic, 
 stars." 
 
 Barbara's eyes brightened at the thought of romantic mys- 
 tery. "Is he really and truly of good family ?" 
 
 Mr. Macarthy's smile was more than ever Sphinx-like: 
 "I hope you will not think it snobbish of me to mention my 
 confidence that his grandfather was a baronet and his great- 
 grandfather an earl." 
 
 "Oh," said Barbara, "I wish I'd known that before. . . . 
 Do you really want Adam to marry me more than anyone 
 else?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Macarthy simply ; "I'd rather he married 
 a girl called Josephine O'Meagher." 
 
 Miss Burns frowned. "Isn't she a nun?" 
 
 "Not yet," said Mr. Macarthy ; "she was to have entered 
 last Corpus Christi, but I managed to persuade . . ." 
 
 Barbara looked to see why Mr. Macarthy had stopped, 
 and saw him abruptly open the folding-doors to discover 
 a lady of uncertain age, not perhaps so old as she was young, 
 apparently polishing the carpet nails next the threshold. 
 
 "Oh," said the lady quite coolly, as she met Mr. Mac- 
 arthy's eye, "is that you ? I've lost sixpence."
 
 302 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "My dear Miss Macfie, you will break your father's 
 heart," was Mr. Macarthy's gentle answer as he passed her 
 to go downstairs. Miss Macfie laughed, not prettily. Many 
 considered her not unattractive : Mr. Pim had described her 
 in his most triumphant epigram as one who ought, for her 
 own sake, if no one else's, to get married : that sufficiently 
 described Miss Macfie. Her laugh died away with Mr. 
 Macarthy's footsteps : though the mocking expression lin- 
 gered on her face as she said to Barbara : "Alone with him ? 
 What would Leaper-Carahar say?" 
 
 "Have you never been alone with him?" asked Miss 
 Burns with the futility of one hopelessly at bay. 
 
 "I am not engaged to Mr. Leaper-Carahar." 
 
 "Who said that I was?" Barbara returned. 
 
 "Your mother," came the quick riposte. 
 
 Poor Barbara, driven to unwonted forgetfulness of gram- 
 mar, asked: "Who did she say it to?" 
 
 She was struck hard by the reply: "To Leaper-Carahar 
 himself." 
 
 "You mean to say?" cried Barbara, sorely hurt. 
 
 "I mean to say," came Calvinia's last overwhelming 
 broadside, "that to-day, after lunch, I heard your mother 
 say to him, in this very room, that she considered you as 
 good as engaged to him." 
 
 In spite of herself, Barbara put the fatal question : "What 
 did he say?" 
 
 "What could he say?" was Calvinia's coup de grace. 
 "You know what a man's like after luncheon. I suppose he 
 said he hoped he'd make you happy. And I hope he will. 
 . . . He wouldn't me : I'd almost rather have Macarthy." 
 
 "I hate you!" screamed Barbara, clenching her hands. 
 
 "You always did," returned Calvinia, eyeing her scorn- 
 fully. "D'you think I care a damn whether you do or not ?" 
 
 Adam, entering the room at this point, found them out-
 
 GROWING UP 303 
 
 staring one another, and asked in innocence : "Are you re- 
 hearsing 'Deirdre' or what?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know what your friend Barbara is play- 
 ing at," declared Miss Macfie, and, with a gesture of 
 disdain, she flounced away, leaving the door open be- 
 hind her. 
 
 This Barbara carefully closed, and then drew Adam over 
 to the window, whence they looked down upon the Green 
 and that noble effigy which many take to be St. Stephen, 
 but was intended by the artist to resemble King George II. 
 Adam did not see this work of art, but only the tears in 
 Barbara's eyes, and he put his arm, respectfully affectionate, 
 around her slim waist. Thereupon she whispered: "You 
 dear little thing," and put her arm round his neck. 
 
 At length she said again: "I wish you were old enough 
 now to take me to India, and that we could start now." The 
 words were murmured just loud enough for him to hear and 
 be fired by: but she checked his ready torrent of affection 
 by adding, very matter of fact : "You're not, and never will 
 be. ... So what's the use of talking? Let's go and drink 
 tea at Mitchell's instead." 
 
 Though he had been thinking of Josephine all day, and 
 wondering if, after all, Mr. Macarthy would triumph and 
 keep her in the world until he grew fully to man's estate, 
 Adam's heart was curiously high and happy as Barbara and 
 he walked, body fluttering by body, past the Shelbourne 
 Hotel, where first, as a ragged infant, he had witnessed the 
 existence of a life that was something more than a struggle 
 for food and drink, and down Grafton Street to Mitchell's. 
 He forgot what a little while had passed since he walked 
 down it with Caroline Brady, and noticed for the first time 
 that Hollander's was almost opposite Mitchell's : but it was 
 open, and, perhaps because he saw it from the other side 
 of the street, seemed different from what it had been when
 
 304 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 he met her coming out. And yet, he remembered now how, 
 on his thirteenth birthday, leaving Mitchell's with Barbara, 
 he had seen Caroline, no doubt coming out of Hollander's, 
 and wondered if she had been her own ghost. 
 
 Then, in the restaurant, that old notion of indefinite 
 identity came over him, and Barbara seemed to him in a 
 sense Caroline : Caroline as she ought to have been, if only 
 the gods had been good to her. It did not occur to him that 
 any girl of her age could be more happily circumstanced 
 than Barbara Burns, with her charming form and cultured 
 mind and manifold physical and mental accomplishments: 
 to say nothing of being the only child of her brilliant mother 
 and rightfully popular father. To him Barbara Burns, as 
 she loosened her pretty wraps and showed her pretty throat, 
 peeping, all milk-white innocence, at him from the other 
 side of the little table at Mitchell's, or leaning forward to 
 listen to his undertone so that her elbows kissed his, seemed 
 the human embodiment of a fairy princess. The embryonic 
 critic lurking in his brain whispered that the charm lay in 
 her having a spice of Caroline's devilry, without a taint of 
 Caroline's coarseness: but the romantic trumpeted persist- 
 ently that in the past love had been joy slain by death, in 
 the present triumphant over it. For sure, Adam had known 
 no happier hour than that with Barbara Burns at Mitchell's, 
 during which he dreamt himself her accepted lover. 
 
 It was cooling when she commenced, with an abrupt move- 
 ment, to gather her things to go : deadly chilling when she 
 resisted his effort to pay their bill : "No, no, my dear little 
 man," she said; "you know, Mr. Leaper-Carahar wouldn't 
 like it." 
 
 "Leaper-Carahar !" cried Adam, driving the nails into the 
 palm of his ungloved hand. 
 
 Barbara's fingers on his lips (just like Caroline) silenced 
 him. "You must have heard we were engaged." 
 
 Adam thrust from his lips the hand he had almost kissed.
 
 GROWING UP 305 
 
 "If I had, I'd have said it was a damned lie !" he stormed. 
 "Damn you and your Leaper-Carahar !" 
 
 Then, conscious that he was making a scene Barbara was 
 endeavoring to hide, he fled from the lighted shop and blun- 
 dered into the wintry darkness of Grafton Street, his ringers 
 gripping the throat of Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B., more 
 apoplectic in Adam's green-eyed phantasy than in reality. 
 
 At the corner of Nassau Street a draught of north-east 
 wind, driving sleet across the College park, cooled his re- 
 vengeful pride and wakened shame. He heard his own 
 voice saying to his lady-love of a moment ago : "Damn you 
 and your Leaper-Carahar !" in the same blasting rage as he 
 had once cursed Father Tudor and his Three Divine 
 Persons. 
 
 And some other memory stirred within him. . . . Per- 
 haps the first of his life. . . . Was it not just with such 
 frantic cadence he had once heard his mother shriek at his 
 godfather: "Damn you and your Emily Robinson"? . . . 
 
 What did that mean, if even in those distant days she had 
 not been infatuated with O'Toole? . . . Then a lurid light 
 pierced his brain and established there an idea which, by the 
 time he reached Noll Goldsmith's kindly pitiful effigy, had 
 become a settled conviction. Clinging to the College rail- 
 ings, he pressed his forehead close against them, and, while 
 the trams groaned and thundered and clashed their bells 
 behind him, he thought : "O'Toole begot me. . . . God ! what 
 a filthy thing is love." 
 
 He had been standing thus he knew not how long, when 
 a familiar deep voice spoke down at him : "You are ill, my 
 friend ; I think you live in my direction, Mountjoy Square." 
 
 Adam let go the railings and nodded silently. 
 
 "You had better take my arm and we'll walk on together," 
 said the big man. Adam obeyed, and, as they crossed by 
 Tommy Moore's statue to Westmoreland Street, said me- 
 chanically : "Thank your honor, and God bless you."
 
 306 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 For he knew that he was being cared for once more by 
 Dr. Hillingdon-Ryde, who had been kind to him when he 
 was a child: and for the moment he was struggling with 
 the nightmare of being a child again.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 OF A TOMBSTONE 
 
 DR. HILLINGDON-RYDE delivered Adam into his guardian's 
 hands at Mountjoy Square. "Our young friend was looking 
 ill when I passed him outside Trinity. So I suggested that 
 we should walk home together." 
 
 He said no more, but Mr. Macarthy read the surmise in 
 his manly eyes, and smiled : "Adam does not drink," he said, 
 "but he suffers badly from nerves." 
 
 "The dickens he does, poor fellow !" exclaimed the big 
 man, as one who knew them not, and took his leave with a 
 kindly farewell. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy produced an unwonted half bottle of claret 
 and put it before the fire. The warmth of it restored Adam 
 to his normal self as they shared it for dinner: And after 
 dinner, before very long, his guardian saw him home to St. 
 George's Place and watched him go to bed. 
 
 He had the more reason for this since there was no one 
 to understand Adam at St. George's Place now : Herr Behre 
 was no longer to be found in the eyrie that had been his 
 refuge while a whole generation of Dubliners were born 
 into the world and married and brought forth young, and 
 perhaps left the world again. He had been one of those 
 who declared that war was impossible : "The peoples of 
 Europe will not sanction it," he insisted ; "their leaders are 
 not that cretin Wilhelm nor that slink-butcher Poincare: 
 The men that matter, the leaders of the people, are Lieb- 
 knecht and Jaures. . . . There is no enmity between them." 
 But when Liebknecht was arrested, and Jaures murdered, 
 
 307
 
 308 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 he packed his trunks, saying: "The peoples are as Gaderine 
 swine : the devils of the kings are entered into them." When 
 Mr. Leaper-Carahar hinted that the Castle would not allow 
 him to leave the country, he laughed in his face. "I am not 
 a European, Gott sei Dank : I am an American citizen. . . . 
 I'll leave you to your blood feast." And Mr. Leaper-Cara- 
 har, though well practised in the art of straining the law, 
 was regretfully advised by Mr. Solicitor-General Macfie he 
 must fail to stay him. So Mr. Macarthy took over his room, 
 with the piano and all therein (save the portrait of the 
 plain woman bearing the inscription "Vorwarts") and 
 turned it into a study for Adam. And, for love of Herr 
 Behre, and partly because he could no longer bear the quaver 
 of "When other lips and other hearts," Adam would pay a 
 Danegeld to the cornet player every Friday night: to be 
 rewarded by an impressionistic and tentative rendering of 
 "Die Wacht am Rhein," which the inebriate Mr. Murphy 
 on the first floor, being a Redmondite in politics, would rise 
 and partially stand to honor, believing it to be "God Save 
 the King." 
 
 As Mr. Macarthy saw Adam to bed, he continued to talk 
 only of indifferent things. But the next morning, on enter- 
 ing as usual the sitting-room at Mountjoy Square, Adam was 
 hailed by the straight question : "What passed between you 
 and Miss Burns at Mitchell's yesterday afternoon?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Adam, conscious for the first time, as 
 he faced his guardian, of the ludicrous side of what he had 
 deemed a tragedy. 
 
 "Pardon me for pointing out that such an answer is un- 
 becoming to a question from me to you," said Mr. Mac- 
 arthy, and the words fell coldly on Adam's understanding. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir," he answered, calling himself to 
 attention. "I see now I behaved badly to ... to Miss 
 Burns in Mitchell's." 
 
 "Why did you behave badly ?" Seeing that Adam strug-
 
 OF A TOMBSTONE 309 
 
 gled vainly to answer, Mr. Macarthy added: "Do you sup- 
 pose you had any provocation to, shall we say, make an 
 ass of yourself?" 
 
 "Yes," said Adam boldly. 
 
 His guardian's Sphinx-like smile perhaps broadened a 
 hair's-breadth : "She provoked you to make an ass of 
 yourself?" 
 
 Adam's forehead sweated to the answer: "Yes." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy went on sweetly: "It was very wrong of 
 Barbara to provoke you to make an ass of yourself in a 
 public place. If you may tell me, without breach of confi- 
 dence, I should be glad to know how she did it." 
 
 Then Adam told him, with a reasonable degree of ac- 
 curacy and no deliberate concealment, all that had passed 
 between Barbara and himself from the moment of his inter- 
 ruption of her conversation with Calvinia until he lost his 
 head in the tea-shop. His coolness dropped from him as he 
 spoke, and the narrative ended in the angry cry : "I call it 
 disgusting that she should marry Leaper-Carahar." 
 
 "So do I," said Mr. Macarthy, "but apparently she does 
 not think it so, or you may be quite sure that she would 
 not do it." 
 
 Adam looked at his guardian, and commenced eagerly: 
 "If you told her it was disgusting . . ." 
 
 His guardian stopped him with a peremptory gesture. "I 
 have no right to interfere. . . . She has never even men- 
 tioned him to me as a possible husband. If she had con- 
 sulted me . . ." he broke off : "We have no right to suppose 
 that because we find a man disgusting, a woman will find 
 him so." His tone hardened: "Your poor little friend did 
 things that were disgusting to you, but you may be sure they 
 did not seem so to her." 
 
 Adam blurted indignantly : "Barbara Burns is very differ- 
 ent from Caroline Brady." 
 
 His guardian eyed him gravely, his smile now purely wist-
 
 3 io ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 ful : "Are you sure of that . . . ? Circumstance apart, eh, 
 are you really sure of that?" 
 
 Adam shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sure of nothing," he 
 said sullenly; "I dare say all girls are the same at heart." 
 
 "I think not," Mr. Macarthy declared; "but there are 
 varying degrees of difference, and I suggest to you, for 
 example, that there is less difference temperamentally be- 
 tween Caroline Brady and Barbara Burns than between 
 Barbara and, let us say, Josephine O'Meagher." 
 
 A wave of unaccountable indignation swept through Adam 
 as he growled : "She is altogether different." 
 
 His guardian's answer chilled him : "I am glad you think 
 so, though I beg you to remember that I do not suggest 
 she is in the sum of all things better or worse. All that I 
 know positively about her is that she appears to be the 
 most selfish of all three." 
 
 Adam fell into a chair, not knowing what to answer, 
 when his guardian went on "Anyhow, if Josephine really 
 enters her convent, she has made a choice away from us and 
 lies outside our scheme of things." 
 
 Adam's mind spoke for itself : "She hasn't entered yet." 
 
 He was not quite sure that his guardian did not steal a 
 glance at him as he answered : "She seems determined to do 
 so. I had thought that it was her mother's fault urging 
 her to do it, but it seems she no longer wants urging." 
 
 "I'd like to see her," said Adam. 
 
 "There is nothing to prevent your doing so," his guardian 
 pointed out, but, Adam offering no sign, he went on : "It 
 seems that, after all, she is a less living factor in your life 
 to come, at all events in the immediate future, than poor 
 little Caroline in her grave." He added, almost solemnly: 
 "I am convinced that that unhappy child did differ from 
 Barbara in one way, and that is that, in her fashion, she 
 deeply and unselfishly loved you." 
 
 Adam nodded, his face buried in his arms, then curiosity
 
 OF A TOMBSTONE 311 
 
 roused him to look up at his guardian. "How do you 
 know ?" he exclaimed. 
 
 "It is sufficient that I do know," said Mr. Macarthy: "I 
 do know that she loved you, and you are aware that I also 
 love you." 
 
 Adam nodded. "I am not such a fool as not to know 
 that." 
 
 "Thank you," said Mr. Macarthy, laying his hand, as his 
 way was, on his shoulder. "Loving you as I do, my instinct 
 tells me that I have reason to be grateful to her. So I am 
 showing that gratitude in the only way I can" he lifted him 
 by the arm. "Up with you, and come for a drive with me." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy called a car from the stand opposite, and 
 they drove down Belvedere Place, and by the Circular Road 
 over Phibsborough canal bridge, and then, instead of con- 
 tinuing, as Adam supposed, to the park, turned by Dumphy's 
 Corner, the way he had gone with Father Innocent long, 
 long ago to the Botanic Gardens. But, Westmoreland 
 Bridge passed, they turned into the Prospect Road and 
 stopped at the cemetery gates. And for the first time since 
 he had prayed at the grave of Malachy Macfadden, Adam 
 entered these gates. A moment later, with burning eyes, he 
 read these words on a simply-fashioned slab of Connemara 
 marble : 
 
 CAROLINE, 
 
 THE FRIEND OF ADAM. 
 R.I.P. 
 
 "That is all I could do," said Mr. Macarthy. "If you suc- 
 ceed in life, I take it that you will keep the stone clean. If 
 you fail, it will molder away, and Caroline be forgotten 
 with her friend." 
 
 Adam tried to say something, but failed. He knelt down, 
 but it was not to pray for Caroline : it was to kiss the stone
 
 312 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 that covered her. He fell forward on it, crying, and Mr. 
 Macarthy let him do it. 
 
 Presently he swung him to his feet, saying grimly: 
 "Enough of that." As he led him out through the gates 
 down the best-kept paths sprinkled with the metal tablets 
 promising "Perpetual Care," he continued, in the same dry 
 tone : "We think that she will sleep more sweetly there than 
 Barbara in the house of Mr. Leaper-Carahar. . . . But who 
 are we to form opinions about the soul of any woman?" 
 
 Later on, when they had regained Mount joy Square, 
 Adam, in tears most of the way, though not unhappy, his 
 guardian said to him, gravely cheerful : "You need not worry 
 because you fancy yourself in love with several people at 
 the same time. There is really only one thing about women 
 that I pretend to know most decent men love every woman, 
 and almost every woman loves a decent man. But what I 
 would have you bear in mind is, that if a man ceases to be 
 decent I think he will find that decent women cease to care 
 for him." There was a moment's silence, then he added: 
 "I do not say that this is finally true : but so far it appears 
 to me to be true within my experience. Anyhow, my dear 
 man, never be depressed about the women you fancy have 
 treated you badly. Probably it is purely your imagination, 
 but, mark again, if you suspect yourself of treating a woman 
 badly, then, believe me, you cannot worry half enough." 
 He wound up his homily with the impressive caution : "Be 
 sure that it is yourself you worry and not her. . . . Remorse 
 helps nobody."
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 MRS. LEAPER-CARAHAR'S AT HOME 
 
 CHRISTMAS passed, and, Lent at hand, Barbara Burns mar- 
 ried Mr. Leaper-Carahar. Mr. Macarthy found an excuse 
 for not going to the wedding in the fact that there was a 
 war on. A little while before he had brought Adam for a 
 change of air to Cork, and showed him Kilcrea Abbey, 
 which, he told him, was the inspiration of one of Sir David's 
 poems which Adam had learnt to recite at the Muses Club : 
 
 In by the hole in the old Abbey wall 
 
 My love and I passed with a solemn foot-fall, 
 
 And we drove out the dogs, that their feet might not tread 
 
 On the lowly, holy bones of the dead. 
 
 And she turned from me, in the cloistral gloom, 
 To peer through a reft in her father's tomb, 
 And she shrank from the sight of the things that were 
 And the foulness that moldered upon the fair. 
 
 And she cried : "The terrors that there I see, 
 Are they one day to come to me ?" 
 And I promised her then that when she should die 
 Then I, on guard, by her side should lie. 
 
 One moonlight night Adam went off by himself and tried 
 the effect of reciting it in the Abbey, but, frightened by rats, 
 came home in the middle of the third line. He thought it 
 would be easier to keep a promise of this kind at Glasnevin, 
 and consoled himself by reflecting that the baronet himself, 
 if he promised anything of the kind in real life, made no
 
 3 i4 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 effort to keep it. "D'you suppose that poem was written to 
 anyone in particular?" he asked Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 "I suppose it was," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 "Do you know ?" Adam pursued. 
 
 "Know what?" said Mr. Macarthy testily. 
 
 "Who the lady was ?" Adam faltered. 
 
 "Yes," Mr. Macarthy said, in a tone which did not en- 
 courage further questioning. 
 
 Adam tried plain statement. "I suppose it was the 
 Marchesa?" and, as Mr. Macarthy did not deny it, felt some 
 confidence that he was right. 
 
 When they returned to town Adam informed the Mar- 
 chesa that he had visited her family burial-place with his 
 guardian. The Marchesa looked at him surprisedly : "What- 
 ever made him bring you there?" she asked, and, without 
 waiting for answer to a question which he was surprised to 
 find her so little interested in, she went on : "Your flame, 
 Barbara Burns, is back with that loathsome husband of 
 hers." 
 
 Kilcrea Abbey was at once forgotten, and the affairs of 
 Sir David Byron-Quinn vanished before those of his grand- 
 daughter. "Why," said the Marchesa, "you've gone pale, 
 you don't mean to say you really care? . . . Why, you're 
 as bad as Sir David himself. The say he fainted once, when 
 he was seventeen, when he heard of the death of a school- 
 girl, just as the other Byron, the poet, did. Anyhow, I'm 
 rather amused, for they're giving a reception at their new 
 house in Waterloo Road next week, and Mrs. Burns has 
 insisted that I must go, although Mr. Carahar, you know 
 . . . Well, you know what Mr. Leaper-Carahar is, don't 
 you?" 
 
 Adam answered between his teeth : "I'd like to knock his 
 head off." 
 
 The Marchesa stooped and kissed his forehead. "Dar- 
 ling," she said, "some day let us do it."
 
 MRS. LEAPER-CARAHAR'S AT HOME 315 
 
 The idea of assisting the Marchesa to knock the head off 
 Mr. Leaper-Carahar, C.B., made Adam look forward to the 
 meeting with Barbara Leaper-Carahar with greater pleasure 
 than he had anticipated. When his guardian was for de- 
 clining the invitation to the At Home, Adam expressed his 
 desire to go ; and so Mr. Macarthy, rejoiced to find him 
 recovered from his love-sickness, accepted for both. 
 
 Yet, the day of this first At Home of Mrs. Leaper-Cara- 
 har Adam wakened with a premonition of evil. Calling for 
 Mr. Macarthy at Mountjoy Square, he told him as much, 
 and Mr. Macarthy laughed. "There is no such thing as 
 evil," said he. 
 
 "But," Adam protested, "I feel it so clearly." 
 
 "So do all Irishmen," his guardian explained: "it comes 
 from our long inheritance of fear. I am terrified in my 
 dreams by the howling of a banshee, that existed only in 
 the imagination of my ancestors." 
 
 "But if you heard the howling of a real banshee?" Adam 
 suggested. 
 
 "If I heard the howling of a real banshee, it would give 
 me unqualified pleasure," Mr. Macarthy assured him, "pro- 
 vided that I knew it was a banshee and not a cat." 
 
 "You don't believe in the supernatural at all?" Adam 
 queried. 
 
 "If by supernatural you mean something opposed to the 
 natural, I do not," said Mr. Macarthy firmly; "but if by 
 supernatural you mean things that might appear unnatural 
 to a congenital idiot like your friend Leaper-Carahar, or a 
 zany such as Tinkler, then I do not deny the existence of 
 such supernatural things. I will grant you that there are 
 more things in heaven and earth than were ever dreamed of 
 by the committee of the Kildare Street Club or the senate 
 of either of the universities. ... At all events, the knowl- 
 edge of them has not been recorded on the minutes of these 
 corporations," he added with characteristic caution.
 
 3i6 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "'Do you think the world is just a joke?" said Adam. 
 
 "If I do," said Mr. Macarthy, "I think it a thundering 
 good one, and not a disgusting piece of folly as it is repre- 
 sented by the Fathers." 
 
 After all, the day promised to be an amusing one ; for, 
 lunching at the Muses Club on the way to Waterloo Road, 
 they encountered Mr. Tinkler, in a new fancy costume, and 
 unusually dapper: his breast bulged with a freshly typed 
 manuscript. 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Burns," he explained, "has induced me most 
 charmingly to read my revised version of 'Deirdre' to the 
 people at Mrs. Carahar's At Home." 
 
 "The dickens she has !" said Mr. Macarthy smoothly, as 
 if it were a compliment. "And what did Leaper-Carahar 
 say to that?" 
 
 Mr. Tinkler looked around him and dropped his voice: 
 "I don't think he knows yet: dear Mrs. Burns means it as 
 a charming surprise." 
 
 "She has a gift for that sort of thing," said Mr. Mac- 
 arthy. 
 
 "She has indeed," Mr. Tinkler agreed, "a charming gift. 
 She really loves poetry. . . . Even my poor efforts. . . . 
 Though I know that I am not as great as some people 
 tell me." 
 
 "Come," said Mr. Macarthy, filling the poet's glass, "You 
 know in your heart that your poetry is much better than 
 even I have ever pretended to think." 
 
 "It is very charming of you," said the poet vaguely, and 
 emptied his glass. "I am sure that you would never say 
 anything you did not mean, any more than dear Mrs. 
 Burns." 
 
 Mr. Macarthy said in an undertone to Adam : "He got 
 home on me that time." To Mr. Tinkler he said : "You 
 believe in necromancy, don't you?" 
 
 "Necromancy," Mr. Tinkler repeated, "of course. I
 
 MRS. LEAPER-CARAHAR'S AT HOME 31? 
 
 passed through that stage of enlightenment; I did believe 
 in it until dear Lady Bland . . ." 
 
 "Converted you?" Mr. Macarthy suggested. 
 
 "I was not going to say quite that," Mr. Tinkler declared, 
 and added, looking at his wine-glass, which Mr. Macarthy 
 had again filled: "I forget what I was going to say. . . . 
 Lady Bland and I ..." he broke off to put his lips to his 
 glass again, pouring some of it down his throat and more 
 not, which seemed to recall him to himself : "Nobody knows 
 what she suffers from that man, that man . . ." here he 
 dropped his serviette, and, looking for it, continued, in a 
 voice that was muffled by the tablecloth : "It is natural that 
 she should have the illusion that she is carrying her cross 
 to . . ." the last word was inaudible. 
 
 "Very natural," Mr. Macarthy agreed, and the conversa- 
 tion would have flagged, but that Adam took it up. 
 
 "Where did you say Lady Bland was carrying her cross ?" 
 
 "Did I say that?" Mr. Tinkler inquired. "I thought we 
 were talking about necromancy." 
 
 "We were," said Mr. Macarthy. "Our friend Adam here 
 dreamt last night of some disastrous happening to-day, quite 
 in the manner of Plutarch, you know, and then your men- 
 tioning the reading of your play . . ." 
 
 "My God!" said Mr. Tinkler, "he thought I might have 
 lost the manuscript !" and unbuttoned his breast, suffering 
 the manuscript to escape and knock over his wine-glass. 
 "That's nothing," he explained to the waitress; "it's safe, 
 besides, I have two carbon copies." 
 
 "I should have all the copies carbonized if I were you," 
 suggested Mr. Macarthy, and Adam thought his guardian 
 had gone a little too far. But Mr. Tinkler gravely explained 
 that in typewriting you were bound to have one top copy. 
 
 "Every man is a cad at times," said Mr. Macarthy as they 
 left Mr. Tinkler sobering himself with coffee, "and you have 
 seen me behaving like one just now. Nothing can be more
 
 3 i8 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 contemptible than to make game of a man whose intellect 
 you despise." 
 
 "Is Mr. Tinkler really very silly?" Adam asked, for, in 
 fact, he had not enjoyed his usually urbane guardian's con- 
 duct of the matter. 
 
 Mr. Macarthy looked at him almost shamefacedly : "I'm 
 afraid it has never occurred to me as possible to take any 
 other view of him, but that, perhaps, merely shows how 
 unjust I can be from instinctive prejudice. I often ask 
 myself whether I might not have regarded Blake as a lit- 
 erary freak had I been his contemporary ; let us assume that 
 Tinkler has really a fine intellect and give him the benefit 
 of every doubt that arises as to the evidence of it in his play. 
 Perhaps we shall find it to be the very best of all the Deirdre 
 plays ever written." He added pensively : "I wish we were 
 going home." 
 
 The house in Waterloo Road presented a wonderful 
 aspect, where the color-schemes of the bride's vorticist 
 friends were trampled underfoot by the Victorian furniture 
 which the bridegroom had inherited from the founder of his 
 family. But the most wonderful thing of all was, at all 
 events to Adam, that Mr. O'Toole opened the door. "How 
 delightful to meet you," said Mr. Macarthy, "an old friend 
 of Leaper-Carahar's, no doubt?" 
 
 Mr. Byron O'Toole bowed, and answered modestly : "He 
 wouldn't call me that. ... I know him better than he knows 
 me." Without inelegance, he dropped his mouth towards 
 Mr. Macarthy's ear : "Maybe I'd have the cinch on him if it 
 came to a spar. . . . Sure, Leaper-Carahar was no one until 
 he kissed that fellow Byrne's you know what I'd be 
 ashamed to get on the way that fellow's got on and he 
 hasn't an idea in his head about how things are done in 
 society. ... So a mutual friend at the Castle asked me to 
 come along and lend him a bit of a hand as a major-domo, 
 you might call it. . . ." He went on apologetically : "They're
 
 MRS. LEAPER-CARAHAR'S AT HOME 319 
 
 not the sort of people I'm used to, nor any use for Adam 
 there to meet. . . . Bohemian, I'd call some of them. But, 
 of course, the nobility and gentry are gone to this bloody 
 war ... a public nuisance, this war . . ." he broke off to 
 address himself bruskly to Mr. Marcus Pirn: "Pass along 
 there, will you? Pass along." And then resumed his 
 deferentially hospitable manner: "What I wanted to tell 
 you, Mr. Macarthy, was that you mustn't touch the cham- 
 pagne cup. . . . It's worse than the viceregal. ... If you've 
 a mind to the real stuff, just wink at me and I'll make you 
 as drunk as a lord. . . . But I won't give any to the lad 
 there, for drink's a curse, as his namesake found it." 
 
 "When the Romans called a thing a curse they also called 
 it a blessing," said Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 "Sure, well I know," Mr. O'Toole assured him: "Wasn't 
 I a Roman myself until I learnt the truth in John Bull . . ." 
 He added in a tone of now suave command : "Pass on now, 
 pass on, will you? . . . Even at the Castle I never allowed 
 the Chief Secretary himself to block the stairs to the 
 boofay." 
 
 Passing along as directed, Adam heard his godfather in 
 his ear: "Whisper, now. . . . It's well you're looking. . . . 
 Mind you do nothing to disgrace me." 
 
 Immediately afterwards, Mr. Macarthy commented: 
 "How much more dignified is Mr. O'Toole than Mr. Leaper- 
 Carahar !" and went on, as though talking to himself : "Am 
 I snob enough to admit that blood tells ?" 
 
 Adam thought only that Leaper-Carahar cut a monstrous 
 figure beside his blooming bride, and he stared at her until 
 she frowned and blushed and frowned again, and at last put 
 her arm around as much of him as she could compass. 
 Adam's sense of the ludicrous got the better of his jealousy, 
 and he smiled, which seemed to please the lady no more. 
 
 After his encounter with his godfather, Adam was past 
 surprise, and found it almost a commonplace of life in Mr.
 
 320 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Leaper-Carahar's society to meet Mrs. Burns addressing Old 
 Comet, attired in khaki, as Colonel Newton. He could not 
 resist saying to Barbara: "I seem to know your mother's 
 friend." 
 
 Barbara blushed: "Do you think anyone suspects?" 
 
 Adam answered: "I don't suppose your mother does, but 
 what about your father?" 
 
 Barbara compressed her lips. "Daddy isn't here," she 
 said, and blurted out the information : "He can't stand my 
 husband." 
 
 "No more can I," said Adam, as plainly as might be 
 without speaking the words. But Mrs. Carahar, ignoring 
 the point, asked where Mr. Macarthy was. "He wouldn't 
 be here," Adam answered, "only I asked him to bring me." 
 
 "You needn't be rude . . ." Barbara was beginning, 
 when there was a hubbub of interest, and the Marchesa en- 
 tered, followed by another officer in khaki, who exchanged 
 glances with Old Comet, and Adam noticed that one or 
 the other of them kept station within three feet of her. 
 
 The Marchesa was in an excited mood. She ran at Adam 
 and hugged him. "My beautiful boy," she sang rather than 
 said : "It is tragical to meet you here amidst this rabble of 
 would-be English people. . . . But we shall not have to 
 bear this for much longer now. . . . What are you looking 
 at?" Adam was looking at the second officer in khaki pen- 
 ciling a note on the shirtcuff which, contrary to Regula- 
 tions, he wore. He tried to move the Marchesa out of 
 range of the man's hearing. But the Marchesa, glancing at 
 the officer in khaki, said to Adam in a loud voice: "Don't 
 mind him, dear; he's only a policeman." 
 
 The officer bowed apologetically, saying in a respectful 
 undertone: "Sure, I have to do it, your ladyship." 
 
 "I quite understand," said the Marchesa. She regarded 
 him with interest : "I think I blacked your eye once. I hope 
 it did not hurt?"
 
 MRS. LEAPER-CARAHAR'S AT HOME 321 
 
 The officer smiled deferentially. "Ah, not at all, your 
 ladyship, not at all," said he. "Sure, that was only a 
 suffrage scrap. You were welcome there was nothing in 
 that but I ought to warn you that the Chief says that these 
 Infant Druids of yours are a bit obstreperous, ducking re- 
 cruiting officers and that ; it's not for me to say anything I 
 shouldn't, but things are getting serious now." 
 
 The Marchesa drew herself up with dignity. "I have 
 always been serious," she said, and, hearing Mrs. Burns, 
 who appeared to be collaborating with Mr. O'Toole in the 
 arrangements for the entertainment, announce that Mr. 
 Tinkler would now read his play, she turned from him and 
 deliberately led Adam to sit down in the front row of the 
 audience gathering for this purpose. She chose a seat next 
 the local and temporary Colonel Newton, who appeared to 
 Adam a trifle scared by her immediate proximity. He was 
 not aware that the Marchesa was credited by the Intelli- 
 gence Department with carrying an automatic pistol in that 
 part of her costume where Lady Bland carried her figure. 
 
 Adam glanced around him. The audience seemed com- 
 posed to a great extent of members of the Six Muses Club. 
 Despite Mr. O'Toole's effort to suppress him, Mr. Marcus 
 Pirn was much in evidence, and the tallest officer in khaki 
 was overhung by the shadow of Miss Calvinia Macfie. In 
 the same row with Adam, but on the other flank, Mr. 
 Leaper-Carahar hovered broodily. There was khaki beside 
 and behind him: he looked to Adam considerably older 
 since his marriage, but he was not any thinner. Adam was 
 conscious of his guardian sitting behind him and muttering 
 from time to time. In front of the audience was a table 
 with a reading desk, where Mr. Tinkler fumbled his manu- 
 script. He appeared to be trying to strike an attitude and 
 failing in the attempt. Behind him sat Mrs. Burns, obviously 
 in the chair, and beside her an elderly gentleman with an 
 ear-trumpet, which he seldom attempted to use, seeming
 
 322 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 content to find himself in the place of honor beside that 
 brilliant lady without troubling about the proceedings. 
 
 At a signal given by Mr. O'Toole, Mrs. Burns rose to 
 announce that Mr. Tinkler would read his play. There 
 was a flutter of excitement as she said, emphatically, that it 
 was called "Kathleen-ni-Houlihan," and, the author being 
 understood to protest that it was called "Deirdre," she re- 
 joined archly, if esoterically : "But we know what we know, 
 don't we?" 
 
 "Some people don't know what they don't know," Adam 
 heard his guardian mutter. 
 
 Having playfully slapped Mr. Tinkler, Mrs. Burns con- 
 tinued: "I'm sure I had no idea until I came here that I 
 should have the privilege of taking the chair for Mr. Tinkler. 
 We all hoped that the chair would be taken by His Excel- 
 lency the Lord Lieutenant, whom Mr. Leaper-Carahar had 
 himself invited to do Mr. Tinkler honor. ... I am sure it 
 would have been a mutual honor . . ." she waited for ap- 
 plause, some of which came. "Unfortunately, His Excel- 
 lency was unable to come, so I then asked the Chief Secre- 
 tary, who, as you know, is also a literary man, but he, too, 
 was engaged." 
 
 "Not in Ireland," said Mr. Marcus Pirn, at which there 
 was laughter. 
 
 "Why didn't you ask Jim Connolly?" the Marchesa de- 
 manded. 
 
 "I did ask Mr. Connolly," Mrs. Burns brilliantly retorted, 
 "and the Lord Chief Justice too, but so far neither has 
 arrived, and as it's getting late I'll venture to take their 
 place, but only until they come." She smiled brilliantly : "I 
 hope that you'll be rid of me long before Mr. Tinkler has 
 finished his reading." 
 
 Mr. Tinkler was understood to say: "Not at all," and 
 there was mild applause as he rose. 
 
 Mr. Tinkler rose, but Mrs. Burns did not sit down ; she
 
 MRS. LEAPER-CARAHAR'S AT HOME 323 
 
 continued: "I mustn't tell you what Mr. Tinkler's play is 
 about ; some of you who acted in it will know already, and 
 I dare say there are others among you who may have seen 
 it at the Abbey Theater, that very delightful performance 
 in that dear little theater which, I am sure, is the the . . ." 
 she broke off, "I forget what Mr. Yeats called it. But we 
 all know the Abbey Theater, and how wonderfully it has 
 changed the life of Dublin since the days which my friend 
 here, Colonel Newton, remembers, when it was a mauso- 
 leum." 
 
 "Morgue," said Colonel Newton, and this correction was 
 repeated by others. 
 
 "Was it a morgue?" said Mrs. Burns; "I didn't know: 
 that makes it almost more interesting, like Paris. But 
 there, I mustn't keep Mr. Tinkler waiting any longer ; all I 
 can say is that I saw 'Deirdre' at the Abbey Theater" she 
 hesitated, and appealed to Mr. Tinkler : "It was 'Deirdre' I 
 saw, wasn't it ?" and, without waiting for his reply, finished 
 brilliantly: "After all, what does it matter? The great 
 thing is to hear Mr. Tinkler read his play, and, whether we 
 like it or not, if such a thing were possible, to discuss it 
 afterwards ; for, after all, the great thing about reading is 
 not so much the reading itself as the conversation that arises 
 from it afterwards. I am sure that Mr. Tinkler's delightful 
 poem, yes, I mean poem : it is a poem, though an unusually 
 long one, will give us much food for conversation. I know, 
 for instance, that the Marchesa della Venasalvatica, who 
 took a leading part in it, will have much to say which will 
 be helpful to all of us." At this there was a burst of ironical 
 applause, through which Adam could just hear Mrs. Burns 
 saying: "I will now again call upon Mr. Tinkler," and sat 
 down, clapping her hands, as if summoning Mr. Tinkler in 
 the manner of the Arabian Nights.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 
 
 WHEN he had got used to the author's method of delivery, 
 which made it difficult to guess which of the characters was 
 supposed to be speaking, Adam liked Mr. Tinkler's 
 "Deirdre of the Nine Hostages" pretty well. The opening 
 of the play was moderately clear. King Conchobar had an 
 interview with his wife in these terms: 
 
 Conchobar: Remember, Deirdre, you are the High King's 
 wife, and I am he. 
 
 Deirdre: How could I forget? Do you not know that I 
 have given nine hostages to you and Fate? 
 
 Conchobar: Who is Fate? Is he some strolling player 
 that frets an hour in the booths at the hurley matches ? 
 
 Deirdre: Conchobar, you jest with me. You love great 
 laughter. 
 
 Conchobar: I am all for greatness and broad jest. 
 Subtlety is not for me. I have forgot how many hostages 
 you gave me. Who am I to waste my time counting an 
 endless flock? Write down their names in a fine hand in 
 the Holy Book, and I will, some great day, perhaps, to 
 come, commit the lot to memory. Yours and mine. 
 
 Deirdre : They are all yours, Conchobar. 
 
 Conchobar: I thought you were a widow when we 
 married ? 
 
 eirdre: I have counted only your children. 
 
 Conchobar: And they are nine. I had reckoned between 
 seven and eight. But it becomes not a king to doubt his 
 own greatness. Let them be seven score. What care I, if 
 
 324
 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 325 
 
 I am not disturbed at my writing? I will remember that 
 you have said that they were nine. Let you remember to 
 see, in times to come, that they are neither more nor less. 
 For, if doubts creep in, I can be great even in doubt. Let 
 you not forget this, Deirdre, and, above all, let you re- 
 member . . . 
 
 Deirdre : What ? 
 
 Conchobar: Let you remember not to forget yourself 
 with . . . 
 
 Deirdre : Whom ? 
 
 Conchobar: Never let his name be spoken within the 
 grove of the sacred tree of Clonmacnoise. 
 
 Naisi: (His face appearing through the branches of the 
 sacred tree) He means me. I am Naisi, the lover of his 
 Queen. I would die for her a thousand times. I have not 
 yet, but the hour of my passion is at hand. Conchobar is 
 going out and I am coming in. But the end of love is rarely 
 satisfaction. And all is already over before it has begun. 
 And I am not sorry that it is so. To love Deirdre is to 
 long for death. Still, I must not let him see me yet. Else 
 he should think I came in homage to the High King and not 
 to ... I must be a dissembler and hide my head. (Con- 
 ceals himself in tree.) 
 
 Deirdre : Why do you leave me, Conchobar ? 
 
 Conchobar: Great kings have greater kings to rule them. 
 They greater still. And so on into infinity. 
 
 Deirdre : You will be writing in the castle all the day ? 
 Writing, perhaps, late into the night ? 
 
 Conchobar: Question me not too closely. These times is 
 there warring upon us. I can see one that should be carry- 
 ing a hackbut 'midst the gallowglasses, could I clap hands 
 on him. 
 
 Deirdre : (As if thinking of looking round) Where is 
 he . . . ? Who, O King? 
 
 Conchobar: It is Naisi, the nameless one.
 
 326 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Deirdre: (Inaudibly) Naisi! 
 
 Conchobar: He is hiding in the sacred tree (Distractedly) 
 Would I had my ebon catapult with but an elastic and a 
 stone, and I would mend his manners. 
 
 Deirdre: (As before) Thy catapult will sever my heart- 
 strings if it pierce but a hair on Naisi's head. 
 
 Conchobar: (Even more distractedly, tearing two volumes 
 of the archives from an ancient chest) Ask him how many 
 river horses drink the Nile. He is an idler. Even a hurley 
 stick breeds terror in his soul. I am a king. . . . (Fum- 
 bling in chest and throwing papers about in his madness) 
 Where is my pen? Will my archives never be full ? (Flings 
 doivn the lid of the chest and exit stormily.) 
 
 Having got rid of Conchobar, Mr. Tinkler paused, and 
 sipped a glass of water. "That is the end of the first scene." 
 he said, "and before I go on I think that, as there may pos- 
 sibly be someone here among you who has not seen the play 
 as it was performed at the Abbey Theater, that there are 
 things they must visualize for themselves as I read. For 
 instance, King Conchobar always carried two volumes of 
 the archives about with him." 
 
 "How does he carry them?" asked Mr. Leaper-Carahar 
 portentously. 
 
 "He carries one in each hand," the poet explained, ob- 
 viously grateful for his host's interest. 
 
 "Thank you," said Mr. Leaper-Carahar, and promisingly 
 cleared his throat. "I take it the volumes would be of mod- 
 erate size?" 
 
 "They must not be too small," the poet said deprecatingly. 
 "At the Abbey they were not quite what I would have 
 wished." 
 
 Mr. Marcus Pim rose in his place to say : "As a matter 
 of interest, I noticed at the time that one was the Douay
 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 327 
 
 Bible and the other Thorn's Directory," and sat down again 
 amidst laughter led by himself. 
 
 "I shudder at the thought of what happened at the Abbey 
 Theater," Mr. Tinkler declared, "and even more of what 
 was written about it in the papers." 
 
 "Hear, hear," broke in Mr. Macarthy resoundingly. 
 
 Mr. Leaper-Carahar spoke again, this time consulting his 
 notebook: "Why does His Majesty carry two volumes of 
 the archives about with him?" 
 
 "To show that he is a man of action," said the poet 
 readily. "That is pure symbolism; taken as a whole, my 
 'Deirdre of the Nine Hostages' is a static, rather than a 
 kinetic, play." 
 
 "One moment," said Mr. Leaper-Carahar, stepping for- 
 ward to wave a fountain pen under the poet's nose : "How 
 do you spell the last word ?" 
 
 "PLAY," Mr. Tinkler informed him with a baffled 
 air. 
 
 Mr. Leaper-Carahar frowned and shook his head. "No, 
 no ... The word before that." 
 
 Mr. Tinkler consulted his manuscript for the necessary 
 information. (Which, Adam noticed, was conveyed not 
 only to Mr. Leaper-Carahar's book, but the shirt cuff of the 
 policeman, who appeared to think there was something in 
 it) And, after an awkward pause, went on: "Conchobar 
 carries his archives to show that he is a man of action. 
 Naisi and Deirdre just exchange beautiful speeches and do 
 nothing." 
 
 "How I look forward to the first of the beautiful 
 speeches," cried Mrs. Burns ecstatically. 
 
 "We are coming to them in a moment," said the poet. 
 
 Mr. Carahar cleared his throat again. "Am I right in 
 supposing that you did not intend the opening remarks of 
 their Majesties to be anything in particular?"
 
 328 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Mr. Tinkler shuffled on his feet. "I hoped ... I must 
 not say more than that I hoped, these lines had a charm of 
 their own, considered as pure protasis . . ." 
 
 "Pray be so good as to spell that," Mr. Leaper-Carahar 
 broke in, and swept round to his company to explain : "In 
 my position you cannot be too exact." 
 
 When this question had been answered, an old lady asked 
 another : "Would the gentleman who is addressing the meet- 
 ing be so kind as to mention, if he has not already done so, 
 why one of the gentlemen does something, but the lady is 
 never allowed to do anything?" 
 
 "In my play," Mr. Tinkler declared, ''nobody does any- 
 thing worth talking about." 
 
 "Why do they talk about it?" asked Mr. Marcus Pirn, 
 who seemed to find some backers. 
 
 But Mr. Tinkler was not so unwise as to answer that 
 question. "My play," he insisted, "my play is static. Prac- 
 tically nothing happens. In kinetic plays, such as Synge's 
 very successful, in the popular sense, play, 'The Playboy 
 of the Western World,' and that other great popular suc- 
 cess, I believe the greatest success of our time, 'What 
 Rot' " 
 
 Here the speaker was interrupted by a hiss from Mr. 
 Macarthy. 
 
 A sulky look came over Mr. Tinkler's face. "Does anyone 
 deny that fortunes have been made out of 'What Rot'? Far 
 more than ever was made out of 'The Playboy of the 
 Western World.' " 
 
 Mr. Macarthy rose in his place, the only time Adam had 
 ever seen him flushed and angry: "I cannot understand Mr. 
 Tinkler's object in comparing Synge's play with 'What Rot !' 
 Let him compare his own play with it if he likes." 
 
 "All the same," Mr. Tinkler returned, with an effort at 
 dignity, "the fact remains that in the 'Playboy' and in 'What 
 Rot !' things do happen. In my 'Deirdre' nothing happens.
 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 329 
 
 You will find that as the play goes on Naisi and Deirdre do 
 nothing, absolutely nothing . . ." 
 
 "Excuse me," said Mr. Leaper-Carahar, "just before you 
 go on, I would like to point out that there is a question 
 before the meeting, put, I think, by" again he cleared his 
 throat "the Honorable Mrs. Smith . . . Why does Naisi do 
 even less than Conchobar?" 
 
 "I did not hear that question," Mr. Tinkler declared, "or 
 I should have answered it at once. . . . Deirdre and Naisi 
 do nothing, because that is the most beautiful thing that a 
 man and a woman can do." 
 
 "D'ye mean," called out the Honorable Mrs. Smith, "that 
 it would be a beautiful thing for the world to come to an 
 end?" 
 
 "Certainly not," replied Mr. Tinkler, with what, for him, 
 was a sort of fire, "I think that it should come to nothing. 
 It should stand perfectly still in a charming attitude." 
 
 At this point there was a real burst of applause from Mrs. 
 Burns and the gentleman with the ear-trumpet in his lap 
 seated next to her. Mr. Tinkler glowed with triumph as he 
 tapped his manuscript with an inky finger. "Naisi is a 
 hero, therefore he is beautiful. Beauty is an attitude. . . . 
 In other words, lose his beauty. Even if he takes up an 
 equally beautiful attitude afterwards. . . . Still, there is an 
 ugly interval. . . . Let us take a humble example from real 
 life. . . . Though that has nothing to do with art. ... A 
 man may have two beautiful pairs of trousers, but a man 
 changing his trousers, or, shall we say, trousers in the act 
 of being changed by a man, cannot be beautiful in that act." 
 
 As he paused to look round after this close argument, he 
 caught the eye of Mr. Leaper-Carahar, who said approv- 
 ingly: "I think I follow you. . . . You mean that, while 
 Conchobar may change his trousers, Naisi and Deirdre" at 
 this point Mrs. Leaper-Carahar was seen to lay her hand on 
 her husband's coat sleeve, and he paused.
 
 330 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Mr. Tinkler was very pink as he helped his host out of 
 what seemed to Adam a tight place : "If I were a prose 
 writer and not a poet, that is how I might express it. Not 
 to waste the time of you all any further, I will now go on 
 with the reading of my play. When Conchobar goes off, 
 Naisi again shows his face through the foliage of the sacred 
 tree . . . This could not be done at the Abbey, as there was 
 no tree . . . and says : 
 
 Naisi: He says he is a king. I do not think so. For great 
 kings do nothing. Conchobar is great, but he is not a king. 
 He is a clerk, a priestly shaven clerk, a beardless priest . . . 
 
 Deirdre: Did you not hear me say I gave nine hostages, 
 nine little cooing bonhams, to him and Fate? 
 
 Naisi: To him and Fate, to Conchobar and Fate. Were 
 they, then, two? 
 
 Deirdre : They are the same, for Conchobar was my fate. 
 I am a part of him and he of me. Or so I thought before I 
 changed my mind, and will again, if you do nothing, always. 
 
 Naisi: Let me think. 
 
 Deirdre: I am old and have no time for thinking. Let 
 us ... Why should we not? 
 
 Naisi: You would say "Let us pray." 
 
 Deirdre: I said my prayers this morning; let us now 
 talk. 
 
 Naisi: Yes, let us talk about the great things we shall 
 never do. 
 
 Deirdre: Listen to me. 
 
 Naisi: I am always listening. It is not often I that does 
 the talking. 
 
 Deirdre: You do not know me when I am asleep. 
 
 Naisi: I would that we could go to church, Deirdre. But 
 you were twice married ere that I was born, and Brehon 
 Law .
 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 331 
 
 Deirdre: Sometimes I feel I am above the law. But 
 when I say that to Conchobar he beats me. 
 
 Naisi: Saint, what you suffer from that man, that man. 
 
 Deirdre : You would not beat me, Naisi, even if ... 
 
 Naisi : I would never be doing anything any time. 
 
 Deirdre : Not even now ? (As if thinking of approaching 
 the tree) Stranger, last night I dreamt that you were climbed 
 down from the sacred tree. And when I woke I almost 
 wished it might be true. 
 
 Naisi: The saints forgive my saint. If this were true, 
 then are we wandering in a labyrinth, a sort of maze, hold- 
 ing intricate path most closely to its bosom, mocking the 
 senses, which seem to render difficult the way, and hard 
 it is to find it, because on either hand, or both, the path is 
 lost between the hedges which offend the eye by robbing 
 them of their own heaven-born sight. . . . Deirdre, my 
 Queen, did he who made these hedges make thee too? 
 
 Deirdre : Do you not wot, Naisi, that these hedges are 
 the High King's hedges, whoever made them? 
 
 Naisi : Vile topiarian ! . . . Though they be the High 
 King's high hedges, if they were not so high maybe I could 
 leap over them. 
 
 Deirdre : (Almost as though about to move} And so could 
 I: to hop and skip and jump was my delight before I met 
 with you. 
 
 Naisi: How long before? 
 
 Deirdre : What does that matter now ? 
 
 Naisi: It matters nothing to our love, Deirdre. But I 
 was thinking thoughts of awful joy if we could jump the 
 hedges. 
 
 Deirdre: Of how awful joy? 
 
 Naisi : (As one who does not hear) I could, perhaps, cut 
 one of them down a little if I had a knife. They do not 
 grow on trees.
 
 332 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Deirdre: All the knives are gone to feed the wars that 
 Conchobar will make against the rebels when he has done 
 writing. 
 
 Naisi: (Mysteriously) When he has done writing. 
 
 Deirdre : Misdoubt not ! He is fond of war, but he is too 
 great a king, while the event can hang in any doubt, to 
 go to it. 
 
 Naisi: Have you no scissors, Queen? 
 
 Deirdre : They, too, are gone as food for powder. They 
 will serve for swords to cleave out shapes of buckram to 
 clothe Conchobar's soldiers cap-a-pie. I think that the 
 armies march the moment he stops writing. 
 
 Naisi : He will never stop. He has the writing madness. 
 The archives that he writes have nothing in them and can 
 never end. 
 
 Deirdre : It is an open secret we shall have, perhaps, few 
 more children. Then he'll stop. 
 
 Naisi: (Sadly) Nothing can stop him unless nullity. And 
 there is none when nothing is annulled. 
 
 Deirdre : Let you not be talking great words, Naisi. 
 When all's said, there is no maze, but in that fairy ring, 
 your mind. 
 
 Naisi: I never thought you would have been the one to 
 have said that. Say on. 
 
 Deirdre: Below the bottom of the sacred lawn there lies 
 a river. 'Tis a poor river, Naisi : there is no horse, nor 
 whale, nor hippopotamus there to ride. 
 
 Naisi: River horses and hippopotami are one to me. 
 
 Deirdre : There is not even one of either, Naisi. 
 
 Naisi : That will be all the better if we swim. 
 
 Deirdre : I cannot swim, though once upon a time, near 
 Baile's strand, I floated on my back. ... I did it very well, 
 but that was sea. ... I know not, in fresh water, if I 
 could. . . . Fresh running water that might run with me 
 down to the Gaelic Undine's secret nook.
 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 333 
 
 Naisi: True, it might suck you down, or bear you up, or 
 throw you back on shore. We are but pawns at chess : bet- 
 ter do nothing. . . . The risk is far too great. I could not 
 bear that anything should happen to you. I'll go alone. 
 (He makes the slightest possible movement, as though wish- 
 ing to go, whereupon the sacred tree breaks, and he falls at 
 Deirdre's feet.) 
 
 Deirdre : (As if about to make a movement towards him, 
 after the curtain falls) Now I have got you, and you shall 
 not go. 
 
 "That," said Mr. Tinkler, "that is the end of the first act ; 
 unfortunately, as I have said, there was no tree at the Abbey 
 Theater, and so I had to speak the lines of Naisi with my 
 head around one of the wings, which made it difficult, I 
 understand, for the pit to hear me. Also, I regret to say, 
 that the last of Deirdre's lines was spoken by her some 
 pages before they come in the text, and, consequently, the 
 curtain fell too soon." He paused here while Mr. Pirn 
 applauded. When this had subsided, he continued : "In the 
 circumstances, I imagine there was some confusion in the 
 mind of the audience as to my precise meaning. I think I 
 am justified in hoping that I have to-day made that mean- 
 ing, by reading the part of Deirdre myself, quite clear." He 
 sat down, and emptied his glass, amidst applause, which, so 
 far as Adam was concerned, was genuine. 
 
 After a moment's silence, Mr. Leaper-Carahar declared, 
 in a note of challenge to those who might be critical : "I must 
 say," and then consulted his notes, "I was about to say that 
 I must say that there is a great deal in Mr. Tinkler's play 
 which is quite up to the standard of some London theaters." 
 
 "I told you so," cried Mrs. Burns. 
 
 Adam was surprised to hear Barbara hiss through bitten 
 lips : "I wish you two would not conspire to make me 
 ridiculous."
 
 334 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 /There was much in the first act of "Deirdre" that had 
 pleased Adam : although amused, he was also touched. But 
 .the second act was less compelling in its interest. It opened 
 with a long scene between the Three Eavesdroppers and the 
 Three Mutes, in which the Eavesdroppers sought to obtain 
 from the Mutes detailed information as to the relations sub- 
 sisting between Naisi and Deirdre. Adam thought that the 
 Eavesdroppers were unnecessarily prolix in their questions 
 and unconscionably slow in suspecting the reason why they 
 received no answer. . . . The following scene, in which the 
 Eavesdroppers, having heard nothing from the Mutes, 
 started to concoct a story about the lovers for themselves, 
 was slightly more dramatic. And the next scene, in which 
 they told what they had invented to Conchobar, was promis- 
 ing to be quite effective when Adam was alarmed to hear 
 himself snore, and found that Mr. Tinkler was well on in 
 the last act. He pinched himself into wake fulness and 
 listened steadfastly to the end of the tragedy. He picked 
 up the threads as Mr. Tinkler was reading, thus : 
 
 Naisi: What I have said I have said, and nothing can be 
 done. 
 
 Deirdre: (Almost keening) And I am not undone, yet are 
 we both undone; for, see, one comes. (Enter the First 
 Mute, with the appearance of one running.) 
 
 First Mute : The King has cursed me with great oaths 
 into finding my voice. He is coming here cursing. The 
 Eavesdroppers have done you great wrong. You will be 
 flying now, the two of you, if you had the wisdom of little 
 fleas. 
 
 Deirdre : There is no beauty in fleas, nor wisdom. 
 
 First Mute : There is sense in them, Queen Deirdre, all 
 the, same. I have legs, and, therefore, will run. 1 will be 
 running to the Bog of Allan and hiding my head in it. For 
 there is great shame in the house of Conchobar.
 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 335 
 
 Deirdre : It is for Conchobar to shame himself, and 
 not I. 
 
 First Mute: He is a great king, even in his wrath, and 
 writes down his curses in the archives as he lets them. . . . 
 Oh ... Oh ... Woe . . . Woe! (Exit First Mute, run- 
 ning imperceptibly as before.} 
 
 Naisi: If one of us were to go somewhere now, perhaps 
 it might be well. 
 
 Deirdre: And if one goes, why not two? 
 
 Naisi: For two to go one road, who but yourself would 
 think of that ? 
 
 Deirdre : Are my thoughts still new to you, Naisi ? 
 
 Naisi: As the Phoenician Queen's. 
 
 Deirdre : I know : the Queen that lodges in the grove of 
 the Phoenix. 
 
 Naisi: If I could arise now, I would, maybe, go to her. 
 
 Deirdre: Alone, Naisi? Is it alone you would be going? 
 
 Naisi: I could never be alone for long. . . . Where is 
 Conchobar ? 
 
 Deirdre : If he is not coming here with great curses, as 
 the Mute foretold, he is surely in the castle writing down 
 the words of his Eavesdroppers. 
 
 Naisi : There is great height in his lowness. 
 
 Deirdre : Why do you say that, now ? 
 
 Naisi: I think of him always there, always writing, filling 
 the world with words that, for all we know, may be fine. 
 
 Deirdre : No, not fine, Naisi, not fine ; strong, maybe, but 
 never once refined. 
 
 Naisi: I will say nothing against even Conchobar, lest he 
 hear me. 
 
 Deirdre : Hush ! will you listen to him cursing. (Her eyes 
 appear to indicate the direction in which Conchobar is 
 coming.) 
 
 Naisi : His is the better part. 
 
 Deirdre: You do not know him as I do, Naisi, with his
 
 336 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 goblet filled by the arch-secretary's butler, or throwing dice 
 on the green. 
 
 Naisi : I have never diced nor drunk deep : I have always 
 been temperate. . . . Perhaps that has been my undoing. 
 
 Deirdre: You are not undone yet. Let us go together 
 now, Naisi : you can see the shadow of a ship by the garden 
 gate: it is tied to the pale. The crew are gone and will 
 never come back. You can row, or maybe let her drift. 
 
 Naisi: Conchobar would sink her with one of his great 
 curses. It will be less trouble to be killed here. 
 
 Deirdre : You do not believe, as I do, in the beyond. 
 
 Naisi : At least, there will be nothing. 
 
 Deirdre : He is coming now. If you cannot save yourself, 
 Naisi, think of me. 
 
 Naisi: I have done too much already. (Enter Conchobar 
 with archives, one of which he lets fall on Dcirdrc's harp, 
 breaking the third string. A cannon is shot off.} 
 
 Naisi : Why did you do that ? We have not wronged you. 
 
 Deirdre: You might have waited. 
 
 Conchobar: I have waited long enough. Must a king 
 have patience? Are my Eavesdroppers to lie for nothing? 
 Conchobar was never harsh to the poor. 
 
 Deirdre: Harsh to his poor wife was Conchobar. 
 
 Naisi: And never friendly to her friends. 
 
 Conchobar: I will strike the golden head against the 
 gray: they are of one softness. (Kills them, takes up 
 archives, and goes out weeping. Then enter the Three 
 Mutes, who place Deirdre and Naisi on a bier, broken harp 
 between them.) 
 
 First Mute : Now we may speak, for there is none to hear. 
 
 Second Mute : Is Deirdre really dead, or does she sagely 
 imitate the little red fox? 
 
 Third Mute : Hush ! Conchobar is greater than ever in 
 his loss. (Enter Conchobar, in mourning, and without the 
 archives.)
 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 337 
 
 Conchobar : I see some speculation in their eyes : they are 
 not dead. 
 
 Deirdre: Naisi will be remembered for ever. (Dies.) 
 
 Naisi: And Deirdre too. (Dies.) 
 
 Conchobar: And what of me? (With authority) My 
 Mutes, I charge you, speak. 
 
 First Mute : You have broken Deirdre's harp. 
 
 Conchobar: Hang it on Tara's walls. 
 
 Second Mute: They would fall down. 
 
 Conchobar: I will shore them up to bear a greater sorrow. 
 
 Third Mute : They are falling now. 
 
 Conchobar: How do you know? 
 
 First Mute: There is not a brick left standing. 
 
 Conchobar : You cannot shake me : I am too great. 
 
 Second Mute : I can hear strong men mewing like spavindy 
 goats. 
 
 Conchobar: They are calling for me at Armageddon. 
 
 Third Mute: They are fools. 
 
 Conchobar: You must not speak so to your king. 
 
 First Mute : Whether they are calling you or not, you had 
 better go. 
 
 Conchobar: (With great enlightenment in his eyes) You 
 had better go. That is the word I heard spoken in the grove 
 of the Phoenix: set down naught in malice. Tell Deirdre 
 and Naisi I am sorry they are dead. (Exit.) 
 
 First Mute: Is he mad, or what? 
 
 Second Mute : He is neither, or the one or the other, or 
 both. 
 
 Third Mute: Conchobar was always like that. 
 
 First Mute: Conchobar was the greatest of all in his 
 greatness. 
 
 Second Mute: But Deirdre and Naisi had the conquest 
 <af him for beauty. 
 
 Third Mute: This play of Conchobar's greatness and 
 Deirdre and Naisi's beauty will outlast all time.
 
 338 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 Mr. Tinkler, taking breath at this moment, his audience 
 gave him the applause due to a poet who had devoted him- 
 self to their entertainment, at no little cost to his physical 
 comfort; for he was as winded as an ill-trained hunter after 
 a steeplechase. But he motioned them to withdraw not from 
 him their full attention, and, with the air of a man coming 
 at last to his point, went on reading: 
 
 (Enter the Three Eavesdroppers, with three blind musi- 
 cians who play sad music on sackbuts. The Eavesdroppers 
 sing:) 
 
 We have seen with listening eyes 
 
 Tidings of a great surprise: 
 
 We have heard with seeing ears 
 
 Wormwood tales of hopes and fears. 
 
 As we climbed the castle stair 
 
 To my lady's chamber, where 
 
 We beheld a red-haired man, 
 
 Who said Kathleen-ni-Houlihan 
 
 And fair Deirdre were the same, 
 
 Changed in nothing but in name. 
 
 Now to Conchobar we go, 
 
 And we will surprise him so 
 
 That the pang of the surprise 
 
 Will tumble tears down from his eyes. 
 
 Great will be the great king's pain 
 
 When he knows whom he hath slain, 
 
 And cannot call alive again. 
 
 (Exeunt the Three Eavesdroppers, followed bv three blind 
 musicians, still playing their sackbuts sadly. A green light 
 is thrown on Deirdre, and, if possible, an amber on Naisi. 
 The back of the stage should be rather dark from now to 
 the end of the play.) 
 
 First Mute : Who would believe what the Eavesdroppers 
 would be saying, and they going everywhere telling lies?
 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 339 
 
 Second Mute : There is not a word of truth in it. There 
 is no truth in anything at all. 
 
 Third Mute : There is no truth, now, that Deirdre and 
 Naisi are dead, but that the people will be playing this story 
 of their deaths and their beauty and their love and of what 
 never happened at all until the world will be standing still 
 to listen to it. 
 
 Deirdre: That is a true thing. But the Eavesdroppers, 
 too, knew a true thing. Though they did not know that it 
 was a true thing, but only a thing, true or not. Let me be 
 rising now and I will tell you the truth of it all. 
 
 First Mute : The truth of it all. 
 
 Second Mute : She's going to tell us the truth of it all. 
 
 Third Mute : Deirdre is going to tell us the great truth 
 of all the great truths: the truth about the things that no 
 one tells about. 
 
 Deirdre : Listen to me, now, and I will tell you the truth. 
 The red-haired man . . . 
 
 First Mute : Is he mad, or what ? 
 
 Second Mute : He is neither, or the one or the other, or 
 both. 
 
 Third Mute : Conchobar was always like that. 
 
 First Mute: Conchobar was the greatest or all in his 
 greatness. 
 
 Second Mute: But Deirdre and Naisi had the conquest 
 of him for beauty. 
 
 Third Mute: This play of Conchobar's greatness and 
 Deirdre and Naisi's beauty will outlast all time. 
 (Enter the Three Eavesdroppers . . .) 
 
 Here Mr. Tinkler abruptly checked his reading, fumbled 
 wildly with the papers in his hand and on the table before 
 him, and in his pockets, and even within his shirt. "This 
 is dreadful," he stuttered. "I have lost the last seven pages 
 of my manuscript. . . . That is to say, I must have left
 
 340 _ ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 them at home and brought carbon copies of the part I've 
 already read instead." 
 
 "Better have carbonized the lot," growled Mr. Macarthy. 
 
 But Mrs. Burns said : "Do you read what you have there 
 over again : it is all so beautiful. What does it matter where 
 it begins or ends?" 
 
 "Go on, man!" shouted Mr. Marcus Pirn, without 
 troubling to rise. "Sure, what does it matter?" 
 
 Mr. Leaper-Carahar impressively took ground. "I am 
 afraid I cannot agree with the last speaker. If I am right 
 in supporting that Mr. . . ." he consulted his notes, "Tink- 
 ler intended his work to be a work of art, and, frankly, I 
 suppose that he did, and I am sure that there are things in 
 it which are a credit to a city like Dublin, cut off as it is 
 from the center of the artistic world round Charing Cross." 
 Again he consulted his notes. "I was about to say that 
 Aristotle, or it may have been Ruskin, says that a work of 
 art must have a beginning and a middle and an end. This 
 is almost a truism, for, clearly, there is nothing else to dis- 
 tinguish a work of art from any other work. I have no 
 wish to take up time which was meant for rejoicing, if I 
 may say so, on Mrs. Leaper-Carahar's first public appear- 
 ance as my bride, if I may call her so, by further reference 
 to Mr. ... to his play. But I would like to ask the author 
 if he has no notes of any kind, or could tell us anything 
 from his recollection, which would help us to form an 
 opinion as to what ultimately happened. ... If Deirdre 
 was really alive, as seems to be indicated, did Conchobar 
 kill her again, or divorce her, or take her back? For there 
 does not seem to have been any real connection between her 
 and the gentleman whose name I did not catch. . . . And, 
 if so, why?" 
 
 Adam was conscious of a general feeling throughout the 
 assembly that their host's question went pretty near the root 
 of the matter. And Mr. Tinkler was not as frightened
 
 MR. TINKLER READS HIS PLAY 341 
 
 by it as Adam thought he might have been in the like 
 case. 
 
 "It is implicit, in my view of beauty, that nothing should 
 happen to my leading character," the poet explained. 
 "Deirdre merely says that what the Eavesdropper says about 
 what the red-haired man said is not, as the Mute said, more 
 or less untrue. She says she really is Kathleen-ni-Houlihan. 
 Apart from any little merit my play may have as pure litera- 
 ture, I claim that the idea of making Deirdre the same 
 person as Kathleen-ni-Houlihan is a really important addi- 
 tion to the folk-lore of ancient Ireland. Also, I need not 
 point out that it is in the best sense dramatic ; for it comes 
 in the nature of a surprise to those who are accustomed to 
 the conventions of Yeats and Synge and Russell and 
 Trench and Canon Smithson, though the last mentioned 
 author did show some originality by imitating Spenser so 
 far as to make Deirdre the same person as Queen Elizabeth." 
 
 "Shame to Captain Simpson," said the old gentleman with 
 the ear-trumpet next Mrs. Burns, who added : "Hear, hear." 
 
 Mr. Tinkler gathered momentary force from Mrs. Burns' 
 encouragement. "I do not think that Canon Smithson fol- 
 lowed a good model in imitating Spenser, but I think that 
 he was on the right line before he went off it. It was in 
 the true spirit of romantic poetry that he made Deirdre 
 something that she was not. My idea was to make her the 
 same as Kathleen-ni-Houlihan, and that is why I gave her 
 gray hair. To the bourgeois mind, such as that of Concho- 
 bar, would be in real life, say, a Castle official . . ." 
 
 "A . . . what ?" cried Mr. Leaper-Carahar, bouncing up, 
 while the policeman in khaki made feverish notes. 
 
 "I do not mean a Castle official of the type that is inter- 
 ested in the fine arts, such as our host," Mr. Tinkler trem- 
 blingly explained. "I mean quite a different type, one that 
 is now probably disappearing, the, in fact, bourgeois type. 
 ,To his mind, Deirdre would have appeared an ordinary old
 
 342 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 woman . . . though, I must say, more tidy in her appear- 
 ance than some old women who ought to know better." 
 
 "Hear, hear," said Mr. Leaper-Carahar, glancing mean- 
 ingly towards the Marchesa : "Hear, hear," and once again 
 "Hear, hear." Two officers in khaki echoed this, conceiving 
 it to be their duty, and Mr. Leaper-Carahar sat down, con- 
 tent to be acknowledged as a patron of the fine arts. 
 
 And so Mr. Tinkler concluded: "To her bourgeois hus- 
 band, Conchobar, with his wrong sort of official mind, 
 Deirdre appears as an old woman. Not so to the poet, 
 Naisi, who loved her, who is ready to die for her, and, in 
 fact, does die for her ... to him she appears, even in 
 death, to be a beautiful young girl." 
 
 He expressed this sentiment so very touchingly that Adam 
 felt there really was something in it: though he could not 
 say what.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 VIEWS DIFFER AND FOG RISES 
 
 As Mr. Tinkler's voice died away in a tremulo, the last 
 accents drowned in his glass of water and a murmur of 
 applause in which the dominant note related less to the 
 passion of Deidre than the pleasantness of tea, Mrs. Burns 
 sprang to her feet and essayed to check the stampeding 
 guests. Against the dissonance of their chatter and the 
 mellow note of Mr. O'Toole chanting: "Pass along there, 
 pass along there ! Downstairs to the boofay !" she pitched 
 her appeal: "Do let us have a little discussion about the 
 play. . . . Let us tell each other and the great author what 
 we think it means. . . . And then perhaps he in his turn 
 will be so good as to tell us what he thinks it means if he 
 isn't too tired." 
 
 "I am rather exhausted," murmured Mr. Tinkler, mop- 
 ping his brovr, "and I think I have explained as much as 
 was necessary. ... I never was very good at explaining, 
 I find it wearisome." 
 
 "Well, then," Mrs. Burns insisted, "if you're too tired 
 I'll ask Mr. Macarthy to explain the meaning of the play." 
 
 "What is there to explain?" Mr. Macarthy rose from his 
 seat to ask. "I am under the impression that the thesis of 
 Mr. Tinkler's play lies in a man, called Conchobar, thinking 
 another man, called Naisi, to be on more familiar terms 
 with his wife, called Deirdre, than suits his convenience. 
 So he makes an end of one, if not both of them, in a way I 
 did not quite understand, and then seeks a change of occu- 
 pation in a more business-like manner than one might 
 expect from his conversation." He sat down again. 
 
 343
 
 344 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 But Mrs. Burns urged him once more to rise. "Do go 
 on with your exposition of the play," she cried, "I never 
 dreamt of Conchobar being at all a business man. I thought 
 him just kingly, I might almost say majestic if the word 
 were not so hackneyed. . . . We're all learning something. 
 No one more than Mr. Tinkler himself, I'm sure. . . . Any- 
 how, do go on talking about something that somebody else 
 can say something about when you stop. It doesn't really 
 matter what you discuss so long as you discuss it. ... I 
 mean, of course, in a manner that leads to further discus- 
 sion. Say anything that comes into your head, and when 
 everybody else who would like to speak has said all they 
 can about what you or anybody else says, I'll ask Mr. Tinkler 
 to reply. . . . Did I or did I not forget by the way to say 
 how much we all enjoyed his reading of the play?" 
 
 Mr. Pim said in a tone that was not entirely serious : "I 
 really forget whether you forgot to say it or not." 
 
 "Well, anyhow," said Mrs. Burns, "whether I said it or 
 not, of course Mr. Tinkler will understand. . . . The great 
 thing now is to hear Mr. Macarthy tell us what he has got 
 to say." 
 
 To Adam's surprise Mr. Macarthy rose again : "Very well, 
 then," said Mr. Macarthy, "if I must say something I beg 
 humbly to submit that I am quite prepared to accept the 
 play Mr. Tinkler has read to us, as his masterpiece. I am 
 prepared to believe that he will never achieve anything bet- 
 ter than this. And it is impossible for a man's friends not 
 to be interested in what they believe to be his best work. 
 I have not the vanity to claim to be one of Mr. Tinkler's 
 friends, but it is easy for me to understand what they must 
 be feeling at this moment. So I need not enlarge on Mr. 
 Tinkler's merits as a dramatist, particularly as I have no 
 reason to suppose that he would attach the smallest weight 
 to my opinion. It is not to people such as I that he will 
 look for an audience. I confess myself constitutionally in-
 
 VIEWS DIFFER AND FOG RISES 345 
 
 capable of writing a play of this kind, if only for the reason 
 that it is many years since I have been able to affect an 
 interest in illicit passion, or for the matter of that, passion 
 of any sort. So far as my superficial studies allow me to 
 form an opinion, passion is as Mr. Pitt shocked Madame 
 de Stael by describing Glory 'all my eye and Betty Martin' : 
 or as I would say : Conceit. It appears to me that the only 
 possible excuse for a man kissing a woman is as a direct 
 intimation that he thinks her fit to bear children by 
 him. . . ." 
 
 Mr. Leaper-Carahar exploded : "Tut tut, tut tut, tut tut," 
 in a manner that reminded Adam of Dr. Ahern's motor-car 
 when throttled. A few among the audience seemed annoyed 
 by this interruption: but not so Mr. Macarthy, who said: 
 "I am glad that our host agrees with me." 
 
 Up jumped Mr. Leaper-Carahar: "Not at all," he cried, 
 "on the contrary." 
 
 Adam saw a grin of delight flash over his guardian's face 
 and disappear as he said gravely: "At all events we shall 
 all be glad to have from our host an authoritative state- 
 ment on this subject, of which I am aware that I know 
 practically nothing." And he sat down, leaving Mr. Leaper- 
 Carahar, very flustered, standing alone and wiping his 
 forehead. 
 
 Adam saw that Mr. Leaper-Carahar had been placed by 
 Mr. Macarthy in a position from which he could not easily 
 escape, for all in the room had their eyes turned on him 
 with an interest which he had not so far aroused. "I was 
 only going to say," said he, "that I am a conservative. . . . 
 I mean, of course, in the best sense of that word. . . . Nat- 
 urally, as an official I have no politics. ... I am liberal 
 wherever it is possible to be liberal. . . . But, ladies and 
 gentlemen, I will say this, that so far as the relation of real 
 ladies and true gentlemen are concerned . . . And I am 
 not 'thinking of anyone here ih.birJn believe- in Romance.
 
 346 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 And, ladies and gentlemen," he said vigorously, "I know for 
 a fact, so does Mrs. Leaper-Carahar." 
 
 He was sitting down amidst a hum of approval over 
 which Mr. Macarthy's voice rang out challengingly clear : 
 "I should like to hear the lady say that for herself." 
 
 The eyes of the audience swept from Mr. Leaper-Carahar 
 to Barbara, but she only said angrily : "Oh, I don't believe 
 in anything." It sounded to Adam as if she really meant it : 
 and his soul, which had been vaguely stirred by the play, 
 fell sick as his eye traveled from the flushed face of her to 
 whom he had made the most passionate speech of his life, 
 to the form of the egregious man who possessed her body 
 and perhaps also claimed to possess her mind. 
 
 Mrs. Burns rose again. "We all know that Mr. Macarthy 
 thinks differently from everyone else," she said, shining 
 with even greater brilliancy in that dark moment. "And 
 that is why I asked him to speak first. Now, I will call 
 upon someone . . ." Mr. Leaper-Carahar rose, but his 
 mother-in-law, ignoring him, went on: "I will call upon 
 someone who, more than anyone, made Mr. Tinkler's mas- 
 terpiece, as even Mr. Macarthy himself called it, a success 
 before he altered it, and, I must confess, from what I heard, 
 it seems to me, a little disimproved it. I won't say every- 
 where, but in some of the parts I liked, but a masterpiece it 
 remains. . . . Everyone knows that I mean the Marchesa 
 della Venasalvatica, so it is quite unnecessary for me to 
 name her, but I will, I mean I have . . . Marchesa, will 
 you perhaps be so kind, the Marchesa della Venasalvatica ?" 
 
 The Marchesa bounced to her feet. She was wearing 
 what appeared to Adam to be the cast-off suit of a game- 
 keeper, with blue goggles, and her manner did not portend 
 kindness. "Either I am very deaf, or Mr. ... I forget 
 his name, cannot read his own typewriting. ... So I'm 
 afraid I can't say anything about the revised version of his 
 masterpiece, as my friend Stephen Macarthy called it in one
 
 VIEWS DIFFER AND FOG RISES 347 
 
 of his fits of mockery, from which the Lord deliver all 
 artists. Not that I mean that Mr. What's-His-Name's an 
 artist. Our hostess, I mean, of course, Mrs. Burns, for I 
 need hardly say that I am not here as the guest of a Sas- 
 senach official, who probably has a warrant for my arrest 
 in his breeches pocket, or wherever he keeps official docu- 
 ments, at the present moment. Our hostess has been kind 
 enough to mention my success in the part of Deirdre. If I 
 was a success in that part, that was no thanks to the author 
 of the play. It was the spirit of that greatest of Irish- 
 women, Deirdre herself, that inspired me. I remember 
 now that the author's name is Tinkler. I suppose, from 
 Tinkler's name, that he is an Englishman, or else a German. 
 We have a great many Germans over here just now. And, 
 I'm sure, whatever we think of them, we all love them for 
 hating their first cousins, the English. When thieves fall 
 out, you know what happens, only, unfortunately, it 
 doesn't. ... I forget what we were talking about. . . . 
 Oh, my Deirdre. ... I hope Mr. Tinkler, for his own sake, 
 is a German. But, whatever he is, I resent his insolence as 
 a foreigner in writing about an Irish subject: the most 
 beautiful of all Irish subjects. The love of Deirdre for the 
 man who was not, and would not under any circumstances 
 have been, her husband. That is what I mean by beauty. 
 But you do not get beauty in Fitzwilliam Square. . . . Some 
 of you besides Mr. Tinkler may understand what I mean. 
 I repeat, you do not get it in Fitzwilliam Square. You get 
 it in the country. I was brought up in the country, and I 
 love it. Willy Yeats was brought up in the country 
 too . . ." 
 
 "Bedford Park," said Mr. Marcus Pirn. 
 
 "Excuse me," said the Marchesa. "Bedford Park is not 
 the country. Bedford Park is Hammersmith. Many of us 
 have been in Hammersmith, but that proves nothing. Willy 
 Yeats has passed his whole spiritual life in the country, and
 
 348 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 so has been able to write the most beautiful Deirdre that 
 ever was written, and I think I have read nearly a hundred 
 Deirdres of one sort or another, not counting, of course, 
 Mr. Tinkler's. I really could not count Mr. Tinkler's : it 
 is not a Deirdre play at all, though I tried to make a Deirdre 
 out of it, and I am glad that I succeeded. ... I offered to 
 play in Mr. Yeats's Deirdre in a special performance for 
 the Infant Druids, but he told me the rights were held by 
 some English actress. It is only fair to say she had an Irish 
 name. That is the worst of being a poor country." Sud- 
 denly her voice gathered strength. "There was an Irish 
 poet once who might have written a better Deirdre than 
 even Mr. Yeats. But he was killed in, I am sorry to say, 
 a wrongful cause, the cause, I need hardly remark, of Eng- 
 land, against a people who, as even that old hypocrite Glad- 
 stone admitted, were struggling rightly to be free." 
 
 Adam, whose mind had wandered from the Marchesa's 
 address in admiration of the efforts of the policeman to 
 pursue his report of it so far as his elbow, was conscious of 
 a commotion. Mr. Leaper-Carahar was on his feet, crying : 
 "This is my house, and I protest against the introduction of 
 politics. The Soudanese were entirely in the wrong, and 
 I am old enough to remember that their rebellion jeopardized 
 the interest on the Egyptian bonds." Wiping his forehead, 
 he said, dramatically : "My own father lost 240." 
 
 "It's a pity he didn't lose you," retorted the Marchesa; 
 "and if you think this is going to be your house, you're a 
 bigger fool than I took you for. . . . Anyhow, we're not 
 talking politics, as you call your own wretched, sordid, 
 money-grubbing interests. . . . We are talking about a great 
 poet who is dead, David Byron-Quinn." Adam pricked his 
 ears, all attention now, and so did everyone ; for, as even 
 Mrs. Burns admitted afterwards, the Marchesa was making 
 the success of the afternoon. "David Byron-Quinn was 
 killed before the Celtic Twilight commenced, and so he never
 
 VIEWS DIFFER AND FOG RISES 349 
 
 heard of Deirdre. I'm afraid I'd never heard of her myself 
 at that time, for I was chiefly interested in painting 
 then. . . . All of you know my portrait of Byron-Quinn 
 at Leinster House, and most of you know that he was my 
 lover." Here two ladies and Mr. Leaper-Carahar went out, 
 and immediately afterwards several more ladies came in. 
 The Marchesa took no notice of going or coming, but con- 
 tinued, as though her relations with the late baronet could 
 be the only matter of interest to the assembly : "He was my 
 lover, and I think I may say that, considering I was so 
 young at the time, and knew nothing of the world, for I 
 don't count Paris, I loved him almost as much as he loved 
 me. I remember the first night we met, I am sorry to say 
 it was at a Castle ball. . . . The Viceroy, either Earl 
 Spencer or the Duke of Marlborough, introduced him to 
 me. . . . And whatever we said or did then I don't know, 
 but the next day we went to a rather odd sort of house, I 
 thought it odd at the time, on the other side of the town, 
 and he kissed me oh ! so passionately I shall never forget 
 it as long as I live." 
 
 As she paused impressively, Mrs. Burns was heard to 
 say into the ear-trumpet of the old gentleman : "I told you 
 the Marchesa would make a good speech. That's my 
 father she's talking about now." 
 
 The Marchesa, having drawn breath, went on: "After 
 that, unfortunately, he had to go away to Africa for quite a 
 long time ... I think it was either the Ashanti War, that 
 thing of Wolseley's, you know, or he may just have had to 
 shoot elephants : anyhow, while he was away, I had a baby." 
 Here Adam caught Old Comet's eye, and they both blushed. 
 The Marchesa continued : "A dear little baby, the very image 
 of him, so I wanted to keep it, but my mother, Lady Derry- 
 down, was extremely puritanical, and threatened to stop 
 my allowance if I didn't get rid of it, and, as I really could 
 not live by painting, and being very young in those days, I
 
 350 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 saw no way out of it but to give it to my charwoman at 
 the studio I had in Brunswick Street. She carelessly forgot 
 it behind her getting out of a tram, and didn't tell me about 
 it at the time, for fear I'd be annoyed and stop the money 
 I gave her for its keep. Even among the humbler classes 
 there are women who are quite unscrupulous; I should 
 never have suspected that anything happened if, when 
 David, Sir David Byron-Quinn, that is, came back from 
 Africa, he hadn't wanted to see it. ... Of course, when 
 I gave it to the charwoman, I often wondered what she 
 would do with it, but I was so fond of the child I really 
 could not bring myself to talk about it. Of course, when 
 he came back, he did not know at the time that I'd had a 
 child, and he made me forget about everything except him- 
 self ; the odd thing was he had got it into his head that he 
 would like to have a child by me, but, somehow, it never 
 came off, and in the end he left me for another woman ; 
 then I told him about the child we had, but when he found 
 that it had been lost he lost his temper too, and we had 
 quite a painful interview, after which he went out on the 
 expedition to save Gordon after he was dead, and he was 
 killed too. The whole thing was terribly sad, and I've often 
 wondered what became of the child. When I first met 
 Stephen Macarthy I thought perhaps he might be my son, 
 but I don't think so now. . . . Anyhow, I'm quite sure his 
 poetry will last for ever, particularly 'The Dead Lover,' 
 which Barbara Burns has set quite nicely, and I'm quite 
 convinced that if he had known about Deirdre he would 
 have written a better play about her than anyone else. For 
 Deirdre is the perfect love-story, and all the women who 
 knew Byron-Quinn were agreed that he was the perfect 
 lover. . . . Not even Lady Bland would say that of Mr. 
 Tinkler." 
 
 "I have heard her say it," gasped Mr. Tinkler indignantly.
 
 VIEWS DIFFER AND FOG RISES 351 
 
 "The Marchesa reminds me of George Moore," said Mr. 
 Pirn in a stage-whisper. 
 
 Mr. Tinkler rose to stutter: "I mean the lover of her 
 soul." 
 
 "Blank to blank," snapped the Marchesa. "Anyhow, 
 there's never been a poet in Ireland to compare with David 
 Byron-Quinn since he died, nor such a man as he . . ." 
 Her eyes wandered : "I've never been the same woman 
 since. ... I don't care who knows" her voice faltered, 
 and she laid her hand on Adam's shoulder "I sometimes 
 think that we may find such a poet in" her tongue stood 
 still in her mouth, for Mr. O'Toole was trying to speak 
 to her. 
 
 Adam heard him say : "Look here, this can't go on. That's 
 not the way for a lady of your rank to be talking before 
 these people." She looked from him to Adam, and sud- 
 denly collapsed. Adam helped to support her until Mr. 
 Macarthy relieved him, saying: "She wants air; you'd bet- 
 ter go." 
 
 Dazedly he made his way into the hall, where he was 
 joined by Calvinia Macfie. 
 
 "What a hysterical old frump the Marchesa is," said Cal- 
 vinia. "I'd be sorry for myself if I was as vain as that. 
 You'd think she was Deirdre herself instead of a tipsy old 
 rag-bag." 
 
 "I can't help thinking she was like Deirdre once," Adam 
 protested : "I've seen photographs in which she looked quite 
 charming." 
 
 "Have you ever seen her look charming herself?" re- 
 turned Calvinia. "I dare say that Leaper-Carahar looked 
 charming as a baby, or his mother thought so. It isn't what 
 you were that matters, nor what you will be, but what 
 you are." 
 
 "Perhaps you're right," Adam admitted ruefully.
 
 352 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "Of course I'm right," Calvinia answered, with a snap of 
 her strong jaws ; "I'm going home. Fitzwilliam Square. . . . 
 If you're going that way, you may as well come too." 
 Silently, Adam took his hat and followed her : and, even as, 
 ten years ago, Lady Bland led him eastward from Stephen's 
 Green to her house in Fitzwilliam Square, so now did Miss 
 Macfie lead him westward from Waterloo Road to the house 
 next door to Lady Bland. But how different his entry ; for 
 Calvinia led him straight to the drawing-room and settled 
 him with her own hand in the most comfortable chair. Then 
 she lit a cigarette, passed it on to him, and lit another for 
 herself. 
 
 Adam asked politely : "Is your mother out ?" 
 
 Calvinia nodded at him through the smoke of her cigar- 
 ette : "Playing bridge ; she's always out playing bridge. . . . 
 Everyone's out to-day, and will be for an hour at least." 
 She sat down on the arm of Adam's chair, adding gruffly : 
 "Anything else you want to know?" 
 
 Adam wondered whether she really meant to have a cross 
 tone in her voice. If so, why did she take up this friendly 
 attitude? . . . She was a perplexing creature, this gaunt 
 woman with her half repellent attractiveness. He counted 
 up the months since she had frightened him to panic that 
 first day on the Dublin Hills. He never could make out 
 whether she recognized him or not; since then he had been 
 accustomed to think her the most stuck-up baggage he had 
 ever met, yet at this moment she was treating him as if they 
 were brother and sister. . . . That was a queer trick with 
 the cigarette : it made it impossible for him to say he didn't 
 smoke. . . . She hadn't asked him, but just lit the thing, as 
 if she were going to smoke it herself, and then changed her 
 mind and passed it from her mouth to his. . . . She had 
 rather a handsome mouth, largish, but very firm and proud. 
 Her behavior to him was, perhaps, firm, but there was no 
 pride in it. Certainly she meant to be affable, or she would
 
 VIEWS DIFFER AND FOG RISES 353 
 
 not have sat down on the arm of his chair, so close that he 
 could feel her bosom, what there was of it, rise and fall, and 
 hear her heart beat, quicker than he believed to indicate a 
 normal state of health. 
 
 Her hand, with unexpected gentleness, ruffled the hair at 
 the back of his head from the collar upwards, as she asked 
 in a voice hardly to be recognized: "What are you think- 
 ing of?" 
 
 "I'm listening to the music," answered Adam readily. 
 And, in fact, he was conscious, among other things, of an 
 harmonium wheezing mechanically at Lady Eland's side of 
 the wall, and children's voices wailing obstinately : 
 
 "I know that Jesus loves me, 
 I know that Jesus loves me, 
 I know that Jesus loves me : 
 The Bible tells me so." 
 
 Just as in the past he would shout for an hour at a time : 
 
 "I'll be true to Jesus Christ, 
 And faithful unto death." 
 
 And he had still a vague feeling that the Jesus of the 
 slums and Father Innocent was the only true, genuine, orig- 
 inal article; while he of Fitzwilliam Square and Lady 
 Bland was an impostor retained in the service of the 
 Pharisees, whose real worship was at the shrine of Mammon. 
 
 "Do you call that music ?" Calvinia demanded. "That dis- 
 gusting noise next door?" 
 
 "What would you call it ?" Adam asked. 
 
 "What I have called it," she repeated, "a disgusting noise. 
 How could you listen to it when I am talking to you?" 
 
 "I couldn't help it," Adam said humbly, and was dismayed 
 to hear himself volunteer: "I knew a man once " he
 
 354 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 paused; for it seemed to him that he could not speak of 
 Father Innocent to Calvinia. 
 
 "Well?" Calvinia asked, as she marked his distraught 
 manner, "What about it ? I've known a man or two myself." 
 
 "Oh, it's nothing really/' said Adam. 
 
 Calvinia more or less playfully pinched his ear. "Come, 
 tell me about your man," she commanded. 
 
 Adam found it strangely difficult to control his mind with 
 Miss Macfie sitting so very close beside him. He rather 
 wished that she gave him a little more room : he was almost 
 stifled. He was thinking of this rather than of what he 
 was confessing to her: "He only said that Lady Bland 
 was the worst woman in Dublin." 
 
 Calvinia, faintly sniggering, asked, in a bored voice : "Did 
 he mean the dowdiest, or was it some sort of a joke?" 
 
 "It was no joke," Adam assured her; "he wasn't given 
 to making jokes about women. . . . He was a priest." 
 
 "Oh, a priest," she laughed contemptuously. "I suppose 
 someone had told him that she misbehaved herself with 
 Albert Tinkler." 
 
 Adam reddened under her satirical questioning and, all 
 unthinking, said : "You wouldn't tell me that a lady living in 
 Fitzwilliam Square would go and do a thing like that?" 
 
 "A thing like what?" asked Calvinia, still laughing: but, 
 as Adam's eyes fled from hers, the speed of her voice quick- 
 ened and her laughter died down to a mocking undertone: 
 "Do you mean that Lady Bland Avouldn't sit on the arm of 
 Albert Tinkler's chair, as I'm sitting on the arm of yours, 
 rumpling Albert Tinkler's hair as I've been rumpling 
 yours . . . ? D'you mean that a lady wouldn't do what I'm 
 doing now," and she thrust down her savage mouth and 
 bit his ear. 
 
 Adam felt himself unpleasantly on fire, as though Miss 
 Macfie's teeth had set light to his ear and the conflagration 
 was spreading. He had no will to fan the flame, if he
 
 VIEWS DIFFER AND FOG RISES 355 
 
 lacked the strength of mind to stamp it out. It seemed to 
 him that he was sorry that he had come to Calvinia's house, 
 and yet he could not wish himself away. 
 
 Suddenly her hands caught his jaw in a firm grip, so 
 that he could not but look her in the face. "Answer my 
 question," she hissed or growled, he doubted which tone she 
 used : "Do you think I'm doing what a lady ought not 
 to do?" 
 
 Adam's fatal love of the truth, inculcated by Mr. Mac- 
 arthy perhaps even more persistently than by Father Inno- 
 cent, paralyzed his tongue, and he stuttered : "I wouldn't go 
 so far as to say that." 
 
 Instantly the face looking into his grew, he thought, old 
 and horrible: the eyes that held his eyes turned to a wild 
 cat's, and the thin hand stopped half-way in a caress to 
 harden into a fist that struck him, forcibly as might a spent 
 bullet, on the cheek-bone. 
 
 "You contemptible fool !" she snarled : and as Adam gazed 
 wonderingly at her and stammered out a broken word of 
 question, she cut him short, crying : "Little imbecile, be off." 
 
 Then Adam, seeing her prepared to strike viciously at 
 him again, plunged from his place beside her and, terrified 
 in body and soul, found himself whirling out of the room 
 and downstairs to the hall, where he strove with eyes blind 
 from pain to discover the means to open the door. He was 
 too bewildered to perceive that, thanks to the foresight of 
 Miss Macfie, it needed two hands at once, one on the bolt 
 of each lock, to open it : and at last Calvinia, having watched 
 him for a little while with malicious eyes from the staircase, 
 had to come to his aid, lest his clumsiness should betray 
 them both. With a pressure of her lips, oddly reminding 
 him of Father Tudor, she beat his hand from the door with 
 her clenched, ringed fingers on his knuckles: "Imbecile," 
 she said again: "Have you never been in a decent house 
 before?"
 
 356 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 He did not answer, shrinking from her that he might 
 snatch his hat and stick from the corner where he had 
 dropped them when struggling with the latches. Then he 
 sprang out and down the steps, leaving the door open behind 
 him. ... It closed with a bang, and there followed silence 
 in Fitzwilliam Square. But that quietude was broken once 
 again as he hastened away into a gathering mist, broken by 
 the wheezing of the harmonium at Lady Eland's and the 
 piping of weary, desperate little voices singing, with their 
 eyes fixed, no doubt, on the photograph Adam had seen in 
 the back room of the clergyman who suffered little children 
 to suffer coming unto him : 
 
 "Jesus loves me: this I know, 
 For the Bible tells me so; 
 Little ones to Him belong: 
 They are weak, but He is strong. 
 Yes, Jesus loves me, 
 Yes, Jesus loves me, 
 Yes, Jesus loves me: 
 The Bible tells me so." 
 
 The words trailed after him mockingly through the mist 
 that was rising from the vegetation in the square, to meet 
 another heavier cloud of fog creeping in from the sea to 
 swallow Dublin in the coming night. No star shone in the 
 heavens, and no bell rang.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 THE WATERS THAT DROWNED FAN TWEEDY 
 
 TURNING his back on Fitzwilliam Square, and breaking his 
 way through the thickening mist, Adam felt himself sunk 
 again in the misery of his childhood : that misery which sees 
 no meaning whatever in the cruelty of life. The physical 
 pain and shock he suffered was not little; for he felt his 
 bruised left eye swelling so that he could not use it: but 
 the extraordinary indignity of what he had suffered chiefly 
 impressed him. He had not gone to Calvinia's house to 
 please himself, but only because he had felt it discourteous 
 to refuse : and surely he had said nothing, done nothing, 
 there which could offend the most difficult woman : his atti- 
 tude had been purely passive and compliant. Yet, she had 
 flung herself upon him in such a rage as he had seen no 
 woman but his mother give way to, and had beaten him as 
 none but his mother had ever beaten him. He had long 
 regarded Miss Macfie as eccentric, and he had heard stories 
 from Mr. Pirn and others of her doing queer things : but 
 never had he foreseen the possibility of her doing so queer 
 a thing as to kiss him first and the next instant beat him 
 and hoosh him out of the house like a pig out of a flower- 
 garden. 
 
 These things he thought as he scuttled out of Fitzwilliam 
 Square and on towards Stephen's Green through the dark- 
 ening mist : the road he had taken leaving Lady Eland's ten 
 years before: but he did not think them rationally and in 
 lucid sequence : it seemed rather that all the years of his 
 life, near seventeen now, had been knocked into one incom- 
 prehensible rigmarole in his head: he was not sure beyond 
 
 357
 
 358 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 question whether it was his mother or Miss Macfie who had 
 just hit him, not absolutely sure whether his mother and 
 Miss Macfie were not, in some mysterious sense, the same 
 person : just as he had been wondering earlier that day, as 
 often before, whether Caroline Brady and Mr. Leaper- 
 Carahar's boasted bride were not in essentials the one being. 
 And Josephine O'Meagher too, in that ever more confusing 
 fog he could ask himself, had she nothing in common with 
 either ? . . . Through his aching brain worked the thought : 
 was the earth peopled yet by only two persons ? . . . A man 
 and a woman hidden from each other by many disguises. 
 
 It had been a wonderful day, one of the most wonderful 
 in his life, and at moments such as when the old Marchesa 
 opened her cobwebbed soul, careless, as a gentlewoman 
 should be, of what the world thought of her, he seemed to 
 hear the angel of life singing in his ear a song for him alone 
 which in time he would learn and understand. But then 
 came the crushing, senseless experience with crazy Calvinia, 
 which dissipated in a muddy torrent that crystal stream 
 percolating so deliciously into his consciousness. The 
 thought of her made him avoid Stephen's Green and turn 
 down Merrion Street. He could never go near the Club 
 again, where he must meet the person who had put upon him 
 such brutal insult. . . . Perhaps by now she had concocted 
 some story about the whole adventure, in which he would 
 figure as a brutal little cad and she as a lady of spirited 
 virtue. And here his sense of humor came to the rescue, 
 and as he bore round into Westland Row, where the fog 
 lay heavier than in Merrion Square, he found himself smil- 
 ing. After all, though his experience had been damnable, it 
 had also been ludicrous, and it was the ludicrous side of it 
 which everyone would see. 
 
 This reflection was not, however, very comforting to vain 
 youth : the fall from the exaltation of seeing Barbara as 
 Deirdre and himself as Naisi was too sudden. Self-satis-
 
 THE WATERS THAT DROWNED 359 
 
 faction could not quickly recover from an assault at the 
 hands of Miss Macfie. Most detestable of all women was 
 Miss Macfie. Whom did he know who was most unlike 
 her? To her he would go and pour out his heart and devote 
 his years of promise. . . . Was it Barbara ? . . . No, surely 
 not. There was even in her something of that vulgar world- 
 liness which, colored with sensuality, was almost the whole 
 soul of Calvinia. . . . Who, then . . . ? The railway line 
 crossing the Row boomed an answer as the yellow lights of 
 an invisible train passed over it : a train that in twenty 
 minutes' time, despite the fog, would be reaching Sandycove. 
 The woman he knew who was least like Calvinia was 
 Josephine O'Meagher : she, and she only, had never been to 
 him otherwise than tender and receptive. True, he had not 
 seen her for three long years : but he knew he would find 
 her still the same. . . . 
 
 His hand groped in his pocket for money as he thrilled 
 to the magic thought that he could fly up the steps to the 
 departure platform in time to catch the train which had just 
 trundled across the bridge, and whose engine's exhaust steam 
 filled his nostrils as she panted in the station above. Then, 
 in twenty minutes he would be at Sandycove, and another 
 ten would find him at Josephine's feet. It was now all but 
 a quarter to seven : by half past, what a change would have 
 come over all his life. . . . As in a dream, he hurried to the 
 booking office, and put down a half crown. . . . "Sandy- 
 cove, please." 
 
 "Single or return?" 
 
 "Anything." 
 
 Then the booking-clerk's voice, aggrieved : "Anything 
 won't do for me ; you must say what you want." 
 
 For the life of him, Adam could not say what he wanted. 
 He could think of nothing but the smell of steam and fog 
 and orange peel ; hear nothing but the voice of a small boy, 
 invisible in the mist, calling: Evening Telegram, and then
 
 3 6o ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 much whistling and shouting above, and the clerk's voice: 
 "You've missed the train, anyhow." 
 
 Leaving his half crown, but still ticketless, Adam stormed 
 up the long flight of steps to the platform. In front of him 
 toiled a familiar shape, from which came a familiar voice, 
 grunting: "Hold on, hold on; don't let her go." But, as 
 the two men drew neck and neck, invisibility above called: 
 "Sure, I can't hold her any longer," the gates slammed to, 
 and then the engine caught up the train and jerked it away 
 from Adam's eyes, red lights and all. 
 
 As Adam flung himself in childish rage against the barrier, 
 his companion in misfortune, attaining the top, swung round 
 to him, crying in a thick voice : "There now, you see. That's 
 the way the Castle encourages these railways to do you 
 down. I never come into Westland Row that I don't say 'To 
 hell with Wicklow and Wexford' . . ." He broke off as 
 they stared each other in the face. "Adam, my dear, dear 
 boy ! What a world it is. I was thinking of you as I came 
 up these steps, thinking of you and Josephine pillow-fighting 
 that night you'll remember. . . . And now Josephine's 
 gone." 
 
 "Gone?" cried Adam, "Josephine? Was she in the train 
 we've missed ?" 
 
 Mr. O'Meagher shook his head. "Ah, not at all : I tell ye, 
 she's gone : she was received this morning. . . . That's why 
 I'm in the state you see me, missing the bloody train. . . . 
 After all, what does it matter. Damn the train. . . . Damn 
 the railway company. . . . Damn the Little Sisters of the 
 Holy Ghost. They've done me down between them." 
 
 Adam's heart seemed to stand still within him, and he 
 shook. "Is Josephine really . . . gone?" he asked. 
 
 "Gone she is, gone for ever," wailed her father, and then 
 passed from sorrow to reproach. "You might have stopped 
 her if you'd held on tight. But you wouldn't. I suppose you
 
 THE WATERS THAT DROWNED 361 
 
 couldn't be bothered, or Macarthy wouldn't let you. Cynical 
 devil believes in nothing. Won't do anything to help any- 
 one. My wife's afraid of him, but he wouldn't take the 
 trouble to terrify her. Said it was my business to knock 
 the fear of hell into her." 
 
 "Did he say that?" asked Adam, surprised even now at 
 this anecdote of his guardian. 
 
 "No, of course he didn't," returned Mr. O'Meagher. 
 "He'd never use that sort of language. But that's what he 
 meant, in his cynical English way." 
 
 "But," Adam objected, "he's not English." 
 
 "Never mind that now," Mr. O'Meagher responded. 
 "When I say he's English I mean he's not truly Irish, as a 
 Macarthy ought to be. But they were all the same, the 
 Macarthys. Wasn't it Teague Macarthy got a baronetcy, or 
 the Order of the Bath, for taking off his hat to John Lack- 
 land, and didn't John claw the beard off him when he got 
 him in chancery?" 
 
 Adam had doubts whether this particular honor already 
 obtained in the thirteenth century, but he knew that his 
 companion, when sober, was the better historian, so he did 
 not debate the point. He asked whether Mr. O'Meagher 
 proposed to pass through the gates, now again open, and 
 take the next train to Kingstown, whence he could proceed 
 by tram to his own door. 
 
 "I will not," declared Mr. O'Meagher ; "I was after taking 
 the one that's gone. But, now that I've met you, why would 
 I ever want to go home again, and my darling girl taken 
 from me by these lousy nuns? Sick and sore I was this 
 morning to see them all prancing about with these crows of 
 holy confessors, wasting their beauties on the desert air, 
 and letting on that a Jew carpenter, crucified two thousand 
 years ago, was the only man worth talking about in the 
 whole wide world. I'd bitter words with me wife as I came 
 away, I can tell ye."
 
 362 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 "What did you say to her ?" Adam asked ; for he, too, in 
 his raging heart cursed her for a fanatical fool. 
 
 "I said nothing at all," declared Mr. O'Meagher, "and 
 well she knows what I meant by that. Never more, it 
 meant, never more. But, sure, what does she care, with 
 her scapulars and sodality medals and bits of the true what- 
 you-may-call-it ? She'd rather sleep with an Agnus Dei on 
 her breast than feel my kisses falling there." He seized 
 Adam's arm and projected him down the steps: "I'm not 
 going back to-night to have her tell me that it was old 
 Jehovah got her children for her, and not me. Come over to 
 the Grosvenor and have a drink." 
 
 Adam's experience of life had not so far brought him 
 into the habit of drinking, but he was in the mood to-night 
 which opens a youth to the temptation of bad ways ; he felt 
 as if anything might happen as he steered his tipsy com- 
 panion between the trams that made the way dangerous to 
 the Grosvenor. 
 
 But in the hotel bar Mr. O'Meagher steadied himself, and 
 said, as though his brain were reasserting itself : "Now, I'm 
 going to drink whisky, for there's nothing left for me to do 
 at my age, with my daughter stolen from me, but to go to 
 the dogs. But there's no sense in your doing it. So I'll 
 just be giving you coffee, or beef-tea, or whatever's your tap 
 when you and that Macarthy fellow are on the spree to- 
 gether. . . . He believes in nothing, does that Macarthy 
 fellow, neither religion, nor patriotism, nor love, nor drink. 
 And I often wonder how he lives at all and grows fat and 
 prospers on it while better men go to hell, like me." 
 
 Adam shook off his grasp that he might turn towards him, 
 looking him full in the face, to say firmly : "Mr. Macarthy's 
 the best man I know." 
 
 Not entirely to his surprise, Mr. O'Meagher's hand sought 
 his. "Don't mind what I'm saying in my rage, Adam. I 
 know he is, at all events where young people are concerned.
 
 THE WATERS THAT DROWNED 363 
 
 If he'd been Josephine's father ..." He drowned his sor- 
 row in whisky and sank on to a chair, where he sat a long 
 time silent. Adam thought he was going to sleep, when he 
 went on again, almost mechanically : "I've said to you more 
 than I should have said about my poor wife. I suppose it's 
 her misfortune and not her fault. You couldn't expect poor 
 Innocent's sister to be quite sane. But Josephine's my blood 
 as well as hers, and Josephine's temperament's more mine 
 than hers, I haven't a doubt of it ; and I tell you Josephine's 
 thinking to-night, or, if not to-night, to-morrow night, and 
 if not that, some night, then, before long. . . . Before those 
 succubines suck her dry, that is. ... She'll be waking in 
 the night to cry, 'Why am I dreaming about Jesus here when 
 I might be pillow-fighting with Adam Macfadden, as I used 
 to do when I was young. . . .* What's the matter lad ?" 
 
 When Mr. O'Meagher commenced this speech, Ada'm had 
 been sitting on his high chair by the bar, sipping a cup of 
 bovril, and his mind divided between care that he should not 
 scald himself with too great a gulp of the hot liquor, and 
 the thought that in the scent of it was some comfort for 
 his triple heartache of the day: Barbara's marriage, Cal- 
 vinia's insulting battery, and, as it seemed now, acutest pain 
 of all, this news of Josephine. Why was it that the sight 
 of the train lights crossing the bridge at Westland Row had 
 flashed up her image and not that of Caroline Brady, who 
 had died for him? There was the real love of his young life : 
 the only one that had known a beginning and a middle and 
 an end. Yet Caroline, seen a few months since, was very 
 dead to-night, and Josephine, not seen for years, preternat- 
 urally alive. Was it her father's presence beside him that 
 recalled her? ... It had never done so before : it had never 
 seemed to him that Josephine, physically, resembled her 
 father. Yet, looking at him to-night, he thought it possible 
 there might be some resemblance there: not in form or 
 feature, but in a certain expression that told of a passionate
 
 364 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 desire to live, to let live, and to make live, the absence of 
 which first and third qualities was almost as conspicuous in 
 the countenance of Mrs. O'Meagher as in that of her 
 brother. 
 
 From the loins of that pale young solicitor of Brunswick 
 Street who had sung "Let me like a soldier fall," and died 
 untimely of sedentary death, no living seed had sprung. He 
 had given his children some beauty of form and gentleness 
 of nature, which the daughter had passed on to her daughter 
 and two sons : but the blood that flowed through their veins 
 and had warmed to Adam's kisses on Josephine's cheeks 
 and lips was, thought Adam, the blood of the man who sat 
 opposite to him now, poisoning that blood with alcohol, since 
 there was no more use for its pulsing on the earth : and he 
 was thinking that what of it ran in his daughter's arteries 
 would be to her only a curse in the prison life to which her 
 own mother had inspired her to condemn herself. 
 
 It almost seemed to Adam that the spirit of Josephine had 
 entered her father now to call on him to save her from the 
 life that was living death : that, perhaps, the Josephine that 
 knelt that moment by the little bed in her cell at Bray, was 
 praying already that, if only in her dreams at night, the 
 little Adam she had kissed in love might come to her for 
 kisses once again. For, if she might not know love even in 
 her dream, then the bitterness of death was already come, 
 never, perhaps, to pass away, for a nun with a double mind. 
 
 Into these thoughts broke Mr. O'Meagher's query what 
 was the matter with him. Receiving no answer, the man 
 steadied himself to rise, leaving his glass half empty on the 
 counter. "It's near nine o'clock. . . . Time for young fel- 
 lows to be going home. . . . Let me see, now, if I can't get 
 an outside, or maybe a cab would be better, and I'll drop 
 you at Mount joy Square or St. George's, and then, maybe, 
 drive back here myself and take the train after all. . . . 
 There'll be time enough for that after I've seen you safe in
 
 THE WATERS THAT DROWNED 365 
 
 bed and that old devil Macarthy hearing you your prayers 
 backwards." He took Adam's arm and led him steadily 
 to the door, and through it to the street. 
 
 But there a change came over him as the sea of fog bathed 
 them both. "It's the hell of a night, old fellow," he said. 
 "Damn railways and tramways and hackney carriages. . . . 
 It's the hell of a night for a walk. . . . Let's go round the 
 town before we turn in." He swung Adam round to the 
 right and into Lincoln Place. "Oscar Wilde born here," he 
 said, waving his stick at something not to be discerned in the 
 fog. "Used to be Opto . . . Ortho . . . Ophthalmic Hos- 
 pital." He added gravely: "Never had any sympathy with 
 that sort of thing, and then he burst into song: 
 
 "The girls they cry 
 As I pass by, 
 Are you there, Mo-ri-ar-i-ty ?" 
 
 These seemed the only words he could recollect, but their 
 frequent repetition kept him employed so far as the corner 
 of Grafton Street. Adam, saying nothing, trudged beside 
 him, sunk in melancholy, tempered by a grim amusement 
 at his companion's folly. Could Josephine imagine how her 
 father would celebrate her nuptials with the church, and, if 
 so, could she think herself best serving God by dismissing 
 him into outer darkness? 
 
 Thus was he pondering as they strolled along by the in- 
 visible College railings, when he became aware that his com- 
 panion's song had stilled, and he was talking over his 
 shoulder to someone veiled in the mist. "And if you think 
 I'm the man to do a thing like that, my dear, you're very 
 much mistaken. . . ." Then, less steadily: "Sure, I'm no 
 young masher, but the father of a holy nun. . . ." And then, 
 drunkenly : "Damned if I know where we could go. . . ." 
 
 Then Adam's blood froze to the answer in the voice from
 
 3 66 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 darkness of an unseen woman : "I can tell you a nice place, 
 love: d'ye know O'Toole's in Pleasant Street?" 
 
 The next moment Mr. O'Meagher, sobered, was clutch- 
 ing at Adam, begging him to stop, and Adam, drunk with 
 shame, tearing himself away: to run in panic down Grafton 
 Street. For now he saw himself clearly at last for what he 
 was : the chick of obscene birds, gotten upon a dunghill, for 
 all that strain in him of pride that would war down heaven. 
 He was conscious, as he ran, of two things : within him a 
 voice saying that in life there could be happiness for such 
 as he : without, the siren of the Bristol boat was calling, call- 
 ing, calling him to the waters that drowned Fan Tweedy. 
 Through the fog he ran on past Trinity College, and, 
 guided by the great lamps beside Moore's statue, turned back 
 towards Brunswick Street. At the cross roads where once 
 stood Lazar Hill, he checked a moment, doubtful of his way : 
 but again came the siren calling yet three times to the waters 
 that drowned Fan Tweedy. Choking, he rushed forward 
 down Tara Street, slipped on some filth on the narrow pave- 
 ment, and fell, striking his head on the curb. But in a 
 moment he was up again and rushing forward. He could 
 see lights on the river, he could hear the creaking of a 
 derrick, and a confused clatter of horses and wheels. Then 
 the wood of Butt Bridge under his feet ; the feel of the iron 
 rails to his hand. He clambered over on to the wooden 
 platform on which, in the days when Sir David Byron- 
 Quinn still lived, the bridge swung to allow sea-going ships 
 up-stream, but never opened since Adam had known them. 
 . . . Below him now he could hear the lap of the waters that 
 had washed the woman of whom his father had asked too 
 much out of the world. . . . One mighty effort of will to 
 break the cord of life, and, as the Bristol boat sent forth her 
 last note of warning that she was about to clear from the 
 quay, Adam sprang. . . . 
 
 This was the end of all, he thought, and then pitched into
 
 THE WATERS THAT DROWNED 367 
 
 the water and went plunging down; for, subconsciously, he 
 had leaped from the bridge with his joined hands thrown 
 forward, in the attitude of a diver, and he suffered no hurt 
 in the impact. But never had he dived so deep before, and 
 his lungs were bursting as he came at long length to the 
 surface, and drew a full delirious breath of life across the 
 waters of that unsavory stream. Aye, even the fetid air 
 that lay nethermost of the foggy vapors on Anna Liffey was 
 drawn thirstily into his young body: and, with the nervous 
 strokes of adolescence, he sought to cleave a path back to 
 the world he had flung from him in disdain a moment be- 
 fore. For, in the pulsings of his heart that sped between 
 the disappearance of his head beneath the waters and its 
 emergence, his blindness had been washed from his eyes, 
 and he saw in his mind his guardian's arms stretched out 
 to save him. If only he could regain his grip on life, these 
 arms would nurse him back, without question or reproof, to 
 self-respect and contentment ; for, although his grandfather, 
 who for a moment of joy and pride had created misery and 
 shame for so many and won despair for himself, had damned 
 life as a miserable folly, his guardian, with much of the 
 same blood and not a few of the same qualities, had taught 
 him a more generous lesson . . . Had claimed him for the 
 army of hope. 
 
 Boldly he struck out, though his sodden clothes bore him 
 down, hampering his arms and legs. . . . He fancied him- 
 self swimming through a nightmare, a nightmare that had 
 commenced in Calvinia's chair. . . . The waters that 
 drowned Fan Tweedy, his father's fancy woman, one of his 
 father's fancy women : perhaps the least unfortunate, were 
 sucking him down, were singing his dirge in his ears. . . . 
 He felt his strength oozing out of him under the fog. . . . 
 Yet, he did not mean to die willingly ; for his instinct, wak- 
 ened by the clutch of death upon his throat, proclaimed, what 
 vanity only could deny, that, to the sound of mind and body,
 
 S68 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 life was good. Though his father was a pimp and his 
 mother no better, he saw now they were but poor players, 
 filling the parts set down for them in the prompt book of 
 the Great Comedian who crumbled Thais and lovely Roman 
 Flora to sour-smelling mold, even as He called lilies from 
 the soil of swine. ... If the world were a joke, what of 
 that? It was a thundering good one. So he had learnt 
 to-day from the one person who would not suffer him to 
 deceive nor be deceived. . . . Now, if he perished in this 
 idle fashion, the Comedian would say: "So your sense of 
 humor was not Mine : you will not condescend to jest with 
 me?" . . . Or, maybe, he would be deemed unworthy even 
 of reproach, and would just drift out into nothingness, to 
 dissolve at sea like a drowned beast. . . . Futilely dead, as 
 futilely as, so far, he had lived. . . . 
 
 But his life need not be futile: he had not surrendered 
 yet. . . . He would rather even bear the ridicule of crying 
 for help. . . . He opened his mouth. . . . And a surge of 
 water broke over him, filling his mouth, beariqg him down 
 to the very bed of the stream, while a strange thunder, like 
 the beat of a giant's heart, rolled through the water into his 
 ears. . . . 
 
 He thought he was done, surely, now. . . . One thought 
 struggled in him still : he would not have his guardian think 
 he had given way. . . . Perhaps, if he struggled on, his 
 body would look as if he had not given way. . . . They 
 would think he had fallen into the water in the fog. . . . He 
 opened his mouth again to call. . . . The beat of the giant's 
 heart thundered louder. 
 
 And then, ages after, he was drifting to the surface again, 
 hardly conscious of his own share in the cause that brought 
 him there. . . . But alive enough to recognize the weight of 
 something dragging across his face. Blindly he snatched at 
 it, fiercely he clung to it, with teeth and fingers and all of 
 him that he could bring in contact with it, as it splashed
 
 THE WATERS THAT DROWNED 369 
 
 away through the fog, towards lights that leaped from the 
 gloom into sharper definition, till the counter of a steamer 
 loomed overhead, and he knew the thunder for the beat of 
 her propeller as she thrashed cautiously, head down-stream, 
 into the fairway. . . . 
 
 Then he was struck by something as he was heaved into 
 space by the hawser lifted inboard. . . . Again was he 
 struck, and again. . . . But this time he felt himself falling, 
 falling, battered, but not yet quite senseless, on the 
 deck. . . . And then, rough voices, rough hands, a burning 
 in his throat, brandy pouring over his lips and chin . . . 
 Life rushing back to him with rude and maddening vio- 
 lence. . . . 
 
 And then the whole world reeling tipsily round him. . . . 
 The clang of her plates, as the Bristol boat rose on the 
 cross tide, over Dublin bar, the roar of her well-remembered 
 siren rumbling away into the fog, and the thud thud, thud 
 thud of her engines carrying him out to sea. . . . Wild 
 dreams . . . Nothing clear but the vision of a tombstone 
 with the legend of: 
 
 CAROLINE, 
 
 THE FRIEND OF ADAM. - 
 R.I.P. 
 
 and a voice repeating thunderously: 
 
 "For ever wilt thou love and she be fair . . ." 
 
 At last wakefulness, to find morning. . . . The Bristol 
 boat hooting her way slowly through the fog. . . . 
 
 Out of the mist reverberated the crash of a great cannon. 
 It recurred louder and louder at longish but regular inter- 
 vals. ... A hump-backed battleship swept by in monstrous 
 silhouette, flaming from her funnels and pounding the oily
 
 370 ADAM AND CAROLINE 
 
 waters into billows that stormed over the steamer's lower 
 decks and splashed to her bridge. 
 
 When the sun burst through the fog she was no longer 
 to be seen. . . . But cannon could still be heard. 
 
 Cannon could be heard that day from one end of the Old 
 World to the other. The sun that shone on Adam's face 
 lighted to mutual slaughter millions of men, fighting in a 
 scarcely broken line, in double, treble, and quadruple lines, 
 fighting in air, on land, on sea, groping to murder one 
 another in the very depths below the sea, righting from the 
 heart of the African desert, where burnt the dust of Sir 
 David Byron-Quinn, to the drenched Irish earth, where 
 moldered the form of that thing called Caroline, the friend of 
 Adam. Between their two resting places, so far apart, the 
 world they had known ... the world that had made them 
 what they were . . . was digging its grave. 
 
 Here ends the story of "Adam and Caroline." That of 
 "Adam and Barbara" is yet to be told.
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAI. LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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