Changing Winds / A Novel

by St. John G. Ervine

"I'm sorry, Henry," Marsh said when he had come up to him.

"It was my fault," Henry replied.

"I ought not to have walked off like that ... but I can't bear to hear any one talking!..."

"I know you can't," Henry interrupted. "That's why I ought not to have said what I did!"

But Marsh insisted on bearing the blame. "I ought to have remembered that you're not feeling well," he said, reproaching himself. "I get so interested in Ireland that I forget about people's feelings. That's my chief fault. I know it is. I must try to remember.... I suppose you didn't really mean what you said?"

"Yes, I did," Henry replied quickly.

"But why?"

"I don't know. I just don't want to. What's the good of it anyhow?..."

Good of it! Henry ought to have known what a passion of patriotism his scorn for the Language would provoke.

"Oh, all right, John!" he said impatiently. "I've heard all that before, and I don't want to hear it again. You can argue as much as you like, but I can't see any sense in wasting time on what's over. And the Irish language is over and done with. Father's quite right!"