“We’re going to do it.”
“Then make up your minds. You’re sure to run across me if you come to Dublin.” He looked at the watch on his wrist and said, “I must go.” But he did not get up.
“You’ve got the pip,” I said.
“I’m glad to be on the road,” he answered, rubbing his chin on his stick again; “but it’s a solemn business.” He became suddenly very stern. “An agent requires a better courage than a soldier’s. Once he enters enemy country he does not hear a word in favour of his cause. The very newspapers he must read denounce the Government whose servant he is. Day after day he wages his lonely war.
“The man I meet at the Hibernian Hotel at twelve o’clock to-morrow is to be my ‘cousin,’ as we call it. It is my privilege to pour into his ears all my troubles, and he will do his best for me. Once a day, once or twice a week as may be arranged, he will appear at this place or that place at such and such an hour to take my information. This information he will pass on to another man, and this third man is the link with Dublin Castle.
“My wife and I will have no other loyal acquaintances, no other person in sympathy with us. While the Irish situation stays as it is we shall have only each other to lean on. Now and again we may pass an acquaintance in the street, and we shall go by without a word, without a nod. How many times must we join in the laugh against us? How many times must we sneer when we love? How many times must we applaud when we scorn?”
He looked in front of him and said in a low voice, “Betray once more, 47, that a traitor may be destroyed. Deny once again, 47, that a liar’s mouth may be stopped. Listen this time, 47, that some one else shall listen no more. Stifle your humanity. Fight your lonely fight.”
He got up, nodded, and departed.
I returned to lunch and told my wife I had come across 47. She was thrilled now at the idea of Ireland, and when lunch was over we had nearly made up our minds. I had to leave her in the evening, it was the case of a theatre, and as I walked out of that same theatre, somebody was at my side. He was the only other secret service man I knew; the introduction had come through 47. Such is life.
He was resplendent. The background of lights and women and motors purring at the kerb was just what he wanted. We strolled back together along Piccadilly, and he was in his best vein. He asked after my wife, and from her he got on to women in general. He began to philosophise presently and said: