“You’re an Englishman. How can you understand the Irish point of view? The divine passion of a people fighting for freedom against ruthless oppression? It’s not in your mentality.”
“I’m half Irish,” said Bertram, bitterly, “and sometimes I wish, by God, that I hadn’t a drop of Irish blood in my veins! But because I’m half English as well as half Irish, I say that England cannot surrender to Irish gun-men. You’re fighting with the wrong weapons in a dirty way.”
Rose O’Brien had whispered to the priest, and he answered as though he had gained new understanding.
“I don’t argue about Ireland with a son of Michael Pollard, K.C.”
It was a shrewd blow, and Bertram was silent under the thrust of it. He turned from the priest to the three girls.
“Your brother’s wife is my sister,” he said. “What’s to be done?”
Rose O’Brien answered him.
“There’s nothing to do but pray.”
Betty O’Brien saw something else to do.
“I’ll go to Dublin to-night. If the dirty Black and Tans touch me with a little finger—I’ll lay a whip across their faces. I’m Irish, body and soul.”