“Because,” said Eileen, “she cares for it. And she’ll probably straighten it out a bit; that’s what I mean, partly, by the price ... you’ll have to become straight and simple and direct too, I wouldn’t wonder, in the end. You may die a Tory country gentleman, no less, saying, ‘To hell with these Socialist thieves’—no, that’s the horrid language we use in Ireland alone isn’t it, but I wouldn’t wonder if the English squires meant the same. Or you might become equally simple and direct in another direction, and say, ‘Down with the landed tyrants,’ only Molly wouldn’t like that so well. But it’ll be a wonder if you don’t, once you’re married to Molly, have to throw overboard a few creeds, as well as a few people. Anyhow, that’s not your business now. What you’ve got to do now is to get your health again and go down to Welchester and talk to Molly the way she’ll see reason.... And now I must go. Your mother doesn’t care for me to be here, but I had to come this once; it’s never again, you can tell her that.”
Eddy sat up and frowned. “Don’t go on like that, Eileen. I’ve not the least intention of having my friendships broken for me like this. If Molly ever marries me—only she won’t—it will be to take my friends; that is certain.”
She shook her head and smiled down on him as she rose.
“You’ll have to let your friends settle whether they want to be taken or not, Eddy.... Dear, kind, absurd boy, that’s been so good to me, I’m going now. Goodbye, and get well.”
Her fingers lightly touched his forehead, and she left him; left him alone in a world become poor and thin and ordinary, shorn of some beauty, of certain dreams and laughter and surprises.
Into it came his mother.
“Is Mrs. Le Moine gone, then, dear?”
“Yes,” he said. “She is gone.”
So flatly he spoke, so apathetically, that she looked at him in anxiety.
“She has tired you. You have been talking too much. Really, this mustn’t happen again....”