so little about me, Shane. And I know all
about you.... I know the adventures of your youth.... And of the hard
girl of Louth, and the poor harassed woman of Marseilles.... And of the
little Syrian wife whom you didn't know you loved until you lost her ...
and the gray voyages to the cruel country.... At times I see you like a
little boy hunting the leprechawn.... And then I see your face, your
eyes, and understand how you commanded men in ships.... You are like
some beautiful play, Shane.... I wonder what is the ending?"

"It is already ended, Granya."

"No, Shane. I know, the end hasn't come.... I know you, Shane," she
asked abruptly; "what do you know about me?"

"Nothing much, Granya, except that you are you. I heard you were a great
actress ... and that you had two babies ... who died...."

"Not a great actress, Shane, a very good one, perhaps. I might have been
great one day ... and again, I mighn't. I shall never know.... And I
had two babies.... They were very nice little people, Shane. I was very
fond of them.... But a physical life is a little thing, I have come to
believe, and there is another life, a life of thought and emotion. And
that one is so long.... It seems ages since I was an actress and had two
pretty babies. It seems in another life.... Shane, I don't think I was
alive until my babies died...."

"I don't understand, Granya."

"I mean this, Shane, that things were so casual to me. They came and
they went, and I was what I was, and that was all.... When you were a
boy, Shane, you had what I never had--wonder. I was the child of actors,
Shane, brought up to a mechanical tradition, knowing the business
thoroughly--a part was words and directions, and a salary.... That
things were mimic meant nothing ... do you see? That there was a life
that was unreal, and another life that was real, and then a further
life, too subtle, too profound for the value of words ... one sees
glimpses ... one feels ... and when you try to fix it, it eludes you. Do
you understand? Like your mirage, a little.... That is only a symbol....
Am I talking nonsense, Shane? Anyway, I took things, well, just
casually....

"See the moon rising, Shane?" she paused. She turned again.

"I got married, just got married; he was a good man, Shane. But I didn't
love him. I loved nobody. I got married because he was a suitable and
every one got married. And just the same way I accepted marriage.... And
when he died, I was very sorry,