“It’s rather a long and difficult word, I’m afraid,” she said gravely. “I was going to ask how you, an Irishman, came to be the British Representative in our Council?”
For a minute all the old, sick suspicion clouded the gray laughter of his eyes—his face grew hard and still—then the unswerving candour of the eyes lifted to his smote him to the heart, and he smiled down reassuringly.
“I suppose that it does seem damned queer. But you see, I happen to be British first and Irish second. Does that seem impossible?”
“No,” she replied slowly, “but it’s unusual, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so. It’s infernally lonely work, I can tell you. You see, I was born and bred in Dublin; all my family think I’m a black traitor. They’re hot against England, and hot against me. They won’t believe that Ireland is my heart’s heart. But England—oh, she’s the power and the glory—she can lift the Irish high and safe out of their despair, though it’s blind from weeping the poor souls are—they’ll never be seeing it.”
The Irish in him was burning in his eyes and on his tongue—she stirred and nodded.
“Yes,” she said quietly, “I suppose that our Southern men who fought for the Union met with just such hatred and misunderstanding. And yet they were the ones who loved her best, the proud and lovely South—they who were willing to bear her hatred that they might save her soul.”
“Oh, it’s the wonder you are for understanding!” His heart was shaking his voice, but the callous and greatly bored gentleman on the other side of Mrs. Lindsay suddenly raised an energetic protest.
“See here, Lovely Lady, are you going to leave me to commune with my soul for the rest of the evening? For the last ten minutes I’ve been trying——”
O’Hara turned to the impatient young woman on his left, the ardour still lingering in his face. It lingered so convincingly that he proceeded to thrill her clear through to her small bones; she spent the next few days in a state of dreamy preoccupation that fairly distracted her adoring husband, and continued to cherish indefinitely the conviction that she had inspired a devastating if hopeless passion. It was lucky for her that she never knew that all that pulled O’Hara through the next ten minutes was a strong effort of the imagination, by which he substituted a head of palest gold for the curly brown one and a voice of silver magic for some rather shrill chatter. And then, suddenly, it was in blessed truth the silver voice.