“Yes, but when it does light up he hardly looks like the same man,” said Evereld. “I don’t think he would ever have stood the wear and tear of his life if it hadn’t been for his strong vein of humour.”
And with that she fell to musing on the strange fact which most people discover sooner or later, that it is not the prosperous and happy people who as a rule are blessed with this divine gift of a sense of the humourous, but the people whose lives are clouded with care and anxiety, or those who have to go about the world with an aching heart, or to bear the consequences of another’s sin. To such as these often enough, by some mysterious law of compensation, there comes a power, not only of feeling the pathos of life more acutely, but of perceiving in everything—even in matters connected with their own sorrows—the subtle touches of humour which keep life healthy and pure.
She noticed it very much in Dermot O’Ryan, who young as he was had passed through a hard apprenticeship of ill health, misfortune, political imprisonment, and misunderstanding that to one of his temperament was excessively hard to bear.
He was the only one of the O’Ryans who had any literary tastes, and now being cut off by his recent illness from active political life he was busy with a Memoir of his father, a well-known man in the Fenian rising of ‘65, who had died from the effects of his subsequent imprisonment.
Dermot was a thorough Kelt, and Evereld thought his sweet-tempered, philosophic patience, made him a most delightful companion. They had liked each other at Southbourne, and had become firm friends during Evereld’s stay at Auvergne, so that they quickly fell into very easy terms of intimacy. They were sitting together in the large sunny drawing-room and Bride was reading a page of the Memoir upon which Dermot wanted a special criticism, when Mrs. Hereford returned from the hospital bringing Ivy with her. Dermot looked up rather curiously to see the girl of whom he had heard so much, but instead of a beautiful and striking face which he could either have admired or criticised, he saw a little childish creature, with startled blue-grey eyes and a wistful face which was not exactly pretty but was somehow more fascinating than if it had possessed more regular features.
At sight of Evereld, Ivy forgot everything and ran across the room to greet her; she was so small and graceful and light that it seemed almost as if, like the birds, she had special air cells in her bones, for her movements had in them something altogether unusual so that merely to watch her limbs was keen delight.
She had, too, an eager quick way of talking, and by the time she had been introduced to Dermot he felt that the scrap of a hand put into his had carried away his heart.
“I have heard of you from Mrs. Denmead,” she said. “You were one of the imprisoned patriots.”
“Oh, most of us have a turn at that sort of thing,” he said smiling. “It’s part of an Irishman’s training.” Bride made some remark about the manuscript, and the talk became general, Ivy entering this new world with a sense of keen interest, and quite in the humour to study Irish history with Dermot as schoolmaster.
During her illness she had had more leisure to think than had ever before been the case. For five weeks there had been nothing to do, but to keep quiet and to recover as steadily as might be. At first she had suffered too much to make any use of the time, but later on, when she was convalescent, there were long hours when she learnt more of the real truth of things than she had hitherto grasped. The mere physical pain seemed afterwards to fit her to understand what had hitherto been a riddle to her, and the strong feeling for Evereld which grew and deepened in her heart did wonders for her. All her nature seemed to have become more tender and sweet; and whereas in time past she would have flirted violently with Dermot and played with him as a cat plays with a mouse, she seemed now to have laid aside all her silly little affectations and coquetries, and to be capable of realising that love is not a game, or a pastime, or a selfish having, but rather the entrance to all that is most sacred, the mutual sacrifice of self, the nearest approach of humanity to the life divine.