I believe that the secret service also took its departure at this time, for that part of it which I knew, that is to say 47, made its exit.
We had a note one afternoon asking us to see him off by the evening boat train. We went down in plenty of time. She was there beside him. He seemed the same as usual, neither greatly elated nor greatly set down at his departure, while she was unfeignedly glad to be away and said so.
“I’m glad you didn’t make your bow without letting us know,” I said.
“How many more years are you staying?” he asked.
“We came here to see it fixed up.”
“It’s going to be fixed up,” he answered. “Temporarily, at any rate.”
“Are you quite sure?”
He nodded, gloomily, I thought. “You’ll find it fixed up at any price. But the Government won’t have to pay a very big price. The extreme people won’t want to take this; but the nation as a whole want it, and they’ll help to see it through.”
“Some time ago, one night it was,” I said, “I met an old man waving about on two sticks and baying at the stars. He asked me if I’d like to know how the Irish question would be settled. I said certainly. He stopped waving on his two sticks, stopped baying at the stars, and cried out, ‘The extremists will meet the extreme extremists in the Rotunda at Rutland Square, and there will be a final battle to the death. If nobody is left, then it will be settled.’”
“But,” put in 47’s wife, thankfully, “we shall not be there.”