“Did you really?”
“Twice,” said Gorman, “on two consecutive days.”
A world in which such things could happen might, I began to feel, be worth living in after all. I smiled feebly at Gorman. He responded with a delicious wink.
“What’s happened to Home Rule?” I said.
“For the present it’s hung up; a case of suspended animation; our idea is that if we’re thoroughly loyal now the English people will be so grateful to us——”
“But they’ll be just as grateful to the Ulstermen,” I said. “They’re loyal, too, I suppose.”
“That’s the difficulty, of course,” said Gorman. “But what else could we do? If we’d allowed the Orangemen to make a corner in loyalty at the present crisis——”
“Crisis!” I said. “How that word brings it all back to me? Are we still going through a crisis? Fancy the word surviving!”
“It’s about the only part of our old political system which does survive. The rest’s gone, hopelessly.”
Gorman sighed, and I began to feel depressed again: But Gorman is not the man to sorrow long, even over the decay of the British Constitution. He dropped the unpleasant subject and started fresh.