"Since you ask me," Crawshay replied, "I am."
Sir Denis threw away his cigarette.
"I suppose," he said quietly, "if I tell you that I am delighted to hear it, for your own sake as well as hers—"
"That's all I have been hanging about to hear," Crawshay interrupted, turning towards the castle. "I suppose we shall meet again in London?"
"I think not. They talk about sending me to the Dublin Convention here.
Until they want me, I don't think I shall move."
Crawshay looked around him. The prospect in its way was beautiful, but save for a few bending figures in the distant fields, there was no sign of any human being.
"You won't be able to stand this for long," he remarked. "You've lived too turbulent a life to vegetate here."
Sir Denis laughed softly but with a new ring of real happiness.
"It's clear that you are not an Irishman!" he declared. "I've been away for over ten years. I can just breathe this air, wander about on the beach here, walk on that moorland, watch the sea, poke about amongst my old ruins, send for the priest and talk to him, get my tenants together and hear what they have to say—I can do these things, Crawshay, and breathe the atmosphere of it all down into my lungs and be content. It's just Ireland—that's all.—You hurry back to your own bloated, over-rich, smoke-disfigured, town-ruined country, and spend your money on restaurants and theatres if you want to. You're welcome."
Sir Denis' words sounded convincing enough, but his companion only smiled as he brought his car out of a dilapidated coach-house, from amidst the ruins of a score of carriages.