"How should I? These detestable Irish isolations are as yet unknown paths to me."
"But I thought you said—you gave me the impression that you knew Connor's Cross."
"I regret it if I did," shortly. The rain is running down his neck by this time, leaving a cold, drenched collar to add zest to his rising ill temper. "I had heard of Connor's Cross. I never saw it. I devoutly hope," with a snarl, "I never shall."
"I don't think you are likely to," says Joyce, whose own temper is beginning to be ruffled.
"Well, this is a sell," says Beauclerk. He is buttoning up a heavy ulster round his handsome form. He is very particular about the fastening of the last button—that one that goes under the chin—and having satisfactorily accomplished it, and found, by a careful moving backward and forward of his head, that it is comfortably adjusted, it occurs to him to see if his companion is weather-proof.
"Got wraps enough?" asks he. "No, by Jove! Here, put on this," dragging a warm cloak of her own from under the seat and offering it to her with all the air of one making a gift. "What is it? Coat—cloak—ulster? One never knows what women's clothes are meant for."
"To cover them," says Joyce calmly.
"Well, put it on. By Jove, how it pours! All right now?" having carelessly flung it round her, without regard for where her arms ought to go through the sleeves. "Think you can manage the rest by yourself? So beastly difficult to do anything in a storm like this, with this brute tugging at the reins and the rain running up one's sleeve."
"I can manage it very well myself, thank you," says Joyce, giving up the finding of the sleeves as a bad job; after a futile effort to discover their whereabouts she buttons the cloak across her chest and sits beside him, silent but shivering. A little swift, wandering thought of Dysart makes her feel even colder. If he had been there! Would she be thus roughly entreated? Nay, rather would she not have been a mark for tenderest care, a precious charge entrusted to his keeping. A thing beloved and therefore to be cherished.
"Look there," says she, suddenly lifting her head and pointing a little to the right. "Surely, even through this denseness, I see lights. Is it a village?"