d I hated her. But I wouldn't be a thorn in my
grandmother's side if the old lady was assaulted by a brutal voluptuary,
and I saw her down and fighting for her honour.

"I've been a thorn in England's side all my life. But it's nothing to
the thorn I'll be if I'm killed fighting for her."

"Why--why--if you want to fight in the civil war afterwards?"

"Why? Because I'm one of the few Irishmen who can reason straight. I was
going into the civil war last year because it was a fight for freedom.
I'm going into this War this year because it's a bigger fight for a
bigger freedom.

"You can't have a free Ireland without a free England, any more than you
can have religious liberty without political liberty. If the Orangemen
understood anything at all about it they'd see it was the Nationalists
and the Sinn Feiners that'll help them to put down Catholicism
in Ireland."

"You think it matters to Ireland whether Germany licks us or we lick
Germany?"

"I think it matters to the whole world."

"What's changed you?" said Michael.

He was angry with Lawrence. He thought: "He hasn't any excuse for
failing us. He hasn't been conscripted."

"Nothing's changed me. But supposing it didn't matter to the whole
world, or even to Europe, and supposing the Allies were beaten in the
end, you and I shouldn't be beaten, once we'd stripped ourselves,
stripped our souls clean, and gone in.

"Victory, Michael--victory is a state of mind."

* * * * *

The opportunist had seen his supreme opportunity.

He would have snatched at it in the first week of the War, as he had
said, but that Vera had made it hard for him. She was not making it easy
now. The dull, dark moth's wings of her eyes hovered about him,
fluttering with anxiety.

When she heard that he was going to enlist she sent for Veronica.

Veronica said, "You must let him go."

"I can't let him go. And why should I? He'll do no good. He's over age.
He's no more fit than I am."

"You'll have to, sooner or later."

"Later, then. Not one minute before I must. If they want him let them
come and take him."

"It won't hurt so much if you let him go, gently, now. He'll tear at you
if you keep him."

"He has torn at me. He tears at me every day. I don't mind his tearing.
I mind his going--going and getting killed, wounded, paralysed, broken
to pieces."

"You'll mind his hating you. You'll mind that awfully."

"I shan't. He's hated me before. H