“You,” she said, “you—you—you are——”
She was evidently in difficulties. I helped her out as best I could.
“An Irish gentleman,” I said.
“An alien,” she replied, “a stranger in the land you call your own.”
“That,” I said, “is just what I say, put more forcibly and picturesquely.”
Then Gorman came in, without knocking at the door. I was very glad to see him. In another minute Mrs. Ascher and I would, perhaps, have quarrelled. Gorman saved us from that catastrophe. I do not think I ever understood before that moment the secret of Gorman’s charm. He came into that studio, a place charged with the smell of damp clay, like a breeze from a nice green field. He was in a thoroughly good temper. I suspect that he hurt Mrs. Ascher’s hand when he shook it.
“I’ve just been looking at Mrs. Ascher’s statue of your soul,” I said. “Splendid muscles in the calves of its legs. You must be enormously proud of them.”
Gorman, under pretence of seeking a place in which to put his hat, turned his back on Mrs. Ascher for a minute. As he did so he deliberately winked at me.
Some day I mean to get Gorman in a private place, “away from everywhere,” as Mrs. Ascher would say. When I get him there I shall ask him two questions and insist on having an answer. First I shall ask him why he devotes himself to Mrs. Ascher. He is not in love with her. We Irish have not many virtues, but we can boast that we seldom make love to other men’s wives. Besides, Mrs. Ascher is not the kind of woman who allows strange men to make love to her. She is, in essentials, far less emancipated than she thinks. It is just possible that he finds her responsive to his fondness for the more flamboyant kinds of rhetoric. Gorman really likes talking about Ireland as an oppressed and desolated land. It is easy enough to move large audiences to enthusiasm by that kind of oratory. It is not so easy, I imagine, to get single, sympathetic listeners in private life. Mrs. Ascher apparently laps up patriotic sentiment with loud purrs. That may be why Gorman likes her. The next thing I mean to ask him is what he means by patriotism. I can understand quite easily what Irish patriotism meant ten years ago. Gorman’s friends wanted my land, a definite, tangible thing. I wanted it myself. But now they have got the land, and yet Gorman goes on talking patriotism. It is not as if he had no sense of humour. Gorman sees the absurdity of the things he says just as plainly as I do. The ridiculous side of his own enthusiasm is never long absent from his consciousness; yet he goes on just the same. I wish I understood how he manages it.