Barty Mangan fulfilled his father's behests, and on Saturday, he drove his mother to Coppinger's Court.
He drove a motor well; not brilliantly, like Larry, because Barty did nothing brilliantly, but capably and gently, with consideration for donkey-carts, with respect for horses, with kindness towards pedestrians, even without animosity towards cur-dogs. The surprising aspect of the fact was that he should be able, in any degree, to handle a car, the control of energy being an effort foreign to his nature. What in his mother was laziness, was with him transmuted to languor; his father's vigour and decision became in Barty a sort of tepid obstinacy, and the Doctor's fierce and fighting allegiance to his Church reappeared in his son as a peevish conscientiousness, that had provoked a friend of the family to say: "Barty's a dam' bad solicitor! He'll take up no case but what pleases him, and he'll touch nothing if he thinks he'll make money out of it!"
"Ah! He was always a fool for himself!" replied, heartily, Barty's great-aunt, Mrs. Cantwell, to whom the comment had been offered.
One aspect of the practical affairs of life, and one only, had power to rouse Barty from the dreamy passivity which had excited Great-Aunt Cantwell's contempt. Where Ireland and Irish politics came into question, some deep spring of sentiment and enthusiasm in him was touched, and all the force that he was capable of became manifest. All the strength and tenacity that were in him were concentrated in the cause of Nationalism; Ireland was his religion, and he felt himself to be one of her priesthood.
There are some gentle natures, with deep affections, but without much brain-power in whom an idea, a mental attitude, and especially a personal liking or disliking, is very easily implanted; yet, easily as it is introduced, once it has taken hold it can never be dislodged. The intellect has not energy enough for reconstruction; it accepts too readily, and, once saturated, the stain is indelible, because there is no power of growth.
Behold, then, Barty, gentle and obstinate, timid and an enthusiast, loving, yet implacable, seated in Larry's studio, regarding with submissive adoration the being compact of the antithesis of his qualities, and ready, for that being's sake, to make any sacrifice save that of renouncing him.
The being in question, wholly and feverishly absorbed in his own affairs of the heart, while bound by his oath to say nothing about them, brought himself with difficulty to attend to the retrospect of financial operations, hitherto postponed, but now insisted upon, by his man of business.
"Oh, first-rate, old chap—quite all right—good business!——" With these, and similar interjections, did the employer ratify and approve of his agent's transactions. Barty's legal training abetted his conscientiousness, and in his mild and monotonous brogue he laid before Larry a statement of his money matters that was as unsparing in detail as it was accurate.
"So now you see," he concluded, "I didn't act without careful consideration, and I consulted me fawther, besides others of experience in such matters. I believe there are people who are saying we sold too cheap to the tenants. But, on the other hand, the money's good and safe now; you have a certain and secure income, and you're in a very favourable position in the eyes of the people."
Larry pulled himself from reverie to ejaculate further general approval; then he rose from the table, upon which Barty's books had been displayed, and drawing forward an easel on which was a framed canvas covered by some vivid oriental drapery, he arranged it carefully with regard to the light. Then he caught away the drapery, stepping back, quickly, from the easel.