"You can't."
"Larry, if you take Michael to Ireland, Anthony and Frances will never forgive you. I'll never forgive you."
"I'm not taking Michael to Ireland, I'm telling you. There's no reason why Michael should go to Ireland at all. It isn't his country."
"You needn't rub that in," said Michael.
"It isn't yours," said Vera. "Ireland doesn't want you. The Nationalists don't want you. You said yourself they've turned you out of Ireland. When you've lived in England all these years why should you go back to a place that doesn't want you?"
"Because if Carson gets a free hand I see some chance of Ireland being a free country."
Vera wailed and entreated. She said it showed how much he cared for her. It showed that he was tired of her. Why couldn't he say so and have done with it?
"It's not," she said, "as if you could really do anything. You're a dreamer. Ireland has had enough of dreamers." And Stephen's eyes looked over her head, into the high branches of the tree of Heaven, as if he saw his dream shining clear through them like a moon.
The opportunist could see nothing but his sublime opportunity.
Michael went back with him to dine and talk it over. There was to be civil war in Ireland then?