"You see, dear, don't you, that this job of making a commonwealth of worth in Ireland is a long and difficult one. That's why we've got to be very patient. Everything's against us. We have a contemptible press, a cowardly crowd of corrupt politicians, a greedy people, an ignorant and bigoted priesthood (that includes the Protestant clergy) and a complete lack of social consciousness and plan of life. But then, what's life for, if it isn't to cope with difficulties like that...."
6
There was snow, thick and long-lying, on the ground when he reached Boveyhayne, and the crunch-crunch of it under their feet, as Mary and he walked home, gave him a feeling of pleasure, and the cold, bracing air exhilarated him so that he laughed at things which would otherwise barely have made him smile. The antics of Rachel's daughter, as related to him by Mary, seemed extraordinarily entertaining, and when he drew Mary's arm in his and pressed it tightly, he felt that there was nothing in heaven or on earth more to be desired than the love of a woman and the love of a child. He had a sense of age, of a passed boundary, that made him feel much older than Mary. "Here I am, listening to her as she talks gaily about a child's pranks, nodding my head and laughing, too ... and in a little while I shall tell her everything ... and then I shall go ... and we will not laugh again together. I'm holding her arm closely in mine, and presently I shall kiss her lips, and she will put her arms about me with the careless intimacy of lovers ... and then I shall tell her everything ... and she will kiss me no more ... and our intimacy will shrivel up!..."
He wished to prolong his pleasure in this walk through the snow, and so he took her back to the Manor by long roads and roundabout ways. They did not climb up the old path over the cliff because that was so much shorter than the hair-pin road.... "I must tell her soon," he said to himself, "but before I tell her, I must feel the most of her love for me!"
He listened to her, not for what she was saying, but for the sound of her voice, and made short answers to her so that he might interrupt the flow of her speech as little as possible. When he returned along this road, he would come alone and for the last time, and so, that his memory of her might be full, he would be no more than her auditor and watcher. Just to have her by his side, her arm in his, and hear her ... that was sufficient.
They walked through the village and when they came to Boveyhayne lane, he said to her, "Isn't there a longer way, Mary!" and she laughed at him, bantering him because of his sudden desire for exercise; but she yielded to him, and they took the longer road that led them past the Roman quarries to the fir tree, standing in isolation where the main roads meet.
"Mary," he said, as they came in sight of the house, "I want to tell you something ... something important!..."
"Yes, Quinny!"
"But not now, dear. To-night! Or to-morrow, perhaps!"
She pinched his cheek in a pretence at anger. "You were always very vague, Quinny!" she said.