"Yes," Marsh said. "That's the Catholic religion!..."
"I know as well as I'm livin'," Mr. Quinn went on, "that I have enough power over myself to know when to stop an' when to go on. That's been bred in me. That's why I'm a gentleman. But I know that if I let myself do things that I can control, I'll be givin' an example to hundreds of other people who aren't gentlemen an' can't control themselves ... don't know when to stop an' when to go on ... an' so I don't do them. An' that's a gentleman's job, John Marsh, an' when gentlemen stop that, then begod it's good-bye to a decent community. That's why England's goin' to blazes ... because her gentlemen have forgotten the first job of the gentleman: to keep himself in strict control, to be reticent, to conceal his feelings!"
But John Marsh would not agree with him. "England is going to blazes," he said, "because England has lost her religion. If England were Catholic, England would be noble again!..."
"Just like France and Spain and Italy," Mr. Quinn replied. "Bosh, John Marsh, bosh! I tell you, the test of a nation is this question of gentlemen!..."
"The test of a nation is its belief in God ... its church," said John Marsh.
"Well, Ireland believes in God, doesn't it? The Catholic Church is fairly strong here, isn't it? An' what sort of a Church is it? A gentleman's church or a peasant's church? Look at the priests, John Marsh, look at them! My God, what bounders! Little greedy, grubbin' blighters, livin' for their Easter offerin's, an' doin' damn little for their money. What do you think takes them into the church? Love of God? Love of man? No, bedam if it is. Conceit an' snobbery an' the desire for a soft job takes about nine out of ten of them.... Well, well, I'm runnin' away from myself. What I want to say is this: the Catholic church'll never be worth a damn in Ireland or anywhere else, 'til its priests are gentlemen. No church is worth a damn unless its priests are gentlemen!"
"But what do you mean by gentlemen, Mr. Quinn?"
"I mean men who are keepin' a tight hold on themselves. Mortifyin' their flesh ... all that sort of stuff ... so that they won't give the mob an excuse for breakin' loose!"
Marsh wondered why Mr. Quinn was talking in this strain and tried to draw him back to the subject of Henry's love of Sheila.
"I'm comin' to that," said Mr. Quinn, pointing his cigar at him. "Listen, John, there were two men that might have done big things in Irelan' and Englan'—Parnell an' Lord Randolph Churchill, an' they didn't because they weren't gentlemen. They couldn't control themselves. There isn't a house in Ulster that hasn't got the photographs of those two men in some album...."