When the play was over, he had sat still in his seat, more deeply moved than he had ever been before, overwhelmed by the disaster which had come upon the young lovers through the foolish brawls of their foolish elders; and it was not until an impatient woman had prodded him in the side that he returned to reality.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am!" he said and got up and hurried out of the theatre into the street.
He went along High Street towards Castle Place, and as he walked along, he regarded each woman and girl that approached him with interest.
"That one's nice-looking!" he said of a girl, and "That one's ugly!" he said of another. He wondered why it was that all the older women of the working-class were so misshapen and lacking in good looks, when so many of the girls of the working-class were shapely and pretty. Mr. Cairnduff had told him that Belfast girls were prettier than London girls. "London girls aren't pretty at all," Mr. Cairnduff had said. "You'd walk miles in London before you'd see a pretty girl, but you wouldn't walk ten yards in Belfast before you'd meet dozens!" And yet, all those pretty working-girls grew into dull, misshapen, displeasing women. "It's getting married that does it, I suppose," he said to himself. "They were all nice once, but they married and grew ugly!"
He did not look long at the ugly and misshapen women. His eyes quickly searched through the crowds of passers-by for the pretty girls, and at them he looked with eagerness.
"There's no doubt about it," he said to himself, "girls are nice to look at!"
He found a restaurant in the street off High Street. He climbed up some stairs, and then, pushing a door open, entered a large room, at the back of which was a smaller room. A girl was standing at a window, looking out on to the street, but she turned her head when she heard him entering. She smiled pleasantly as he sat down, and came forward to take his order.
"It's turned out a brave day after all," she said.
He said "Aye" and smiled at her in return. She had thick, fair hair, and he remembered Bassanio's description of Portia:
And her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece.