love and not be able to
love. I shall have to marry an actress. That's all!"

They dressed in the shelter of the rocks, and then went back to the
hotel to lunch.

"I'd like to marry Mary!..." Henry began.

"Why don't you, then?" Gilbert interrupted.

"Because I feel that I must go to her absolutely undivided, Gilbert. Do
you know what I mean? I want to be able to go to her, knowing that no
other woman can sway me from her for a second. It would be horrible to
be married to her and feel something lurking inside me, just waiting for
a chance to spring out and ... and make love to some one else!"

"You've changed a lot, Quinny, since the days when you pleaded for
infinite variety. You wanted a wife for every mood!..."

Henry laughed. "We did talk a lot of rot when we first went to London,"
he said, putting his arm in Gilbert's.

"It wasn't all rot. My contributions to the discussion were very
sensible. I wonder what's the excitement up there! The papers are
in!..."

There was a group of visitors sitting on the seats in front of the hotel
and they were reading the newspapers which had just been sent out from
Holyhead.

"Let's go and ask," Henry exclaimed, and they both went on more
quickly.

"Any news?" Gilbert shouted as they mounted the steps leading from the
carriage-way to the terrace.

"Yes. Bad news from Ireland," a visitor answered.

"From Ireland!" Henry said.

"Yes. The Nationalists landed some guns at Howth!..."

"Yes, yes!" Henry said excitedly.

"And there was a scrap between the people and soldiers!..."

"The soldiers!"

The visitor nodded his head. "Some damned ass," he said, "had ordered
the soldiers out, and ... well, there was a row. The crowd stoned the
soldiers ... and soldiers are human like anybody else ... they fired on
the crowd!..."

"Fired on them!"

"Yes. Several people were killed. It's a bad business, a damned bad
business!..."

3

There was an unreasonable fury in Henry's heart. "It's a clever joke
when the Ulster people do it," he said, raging at Gilbert. "And
everybody agrees to look the other way, but it's a crime when the
Nationalists do it, and it can only be punished by ... by shooting. I
suppose it's absolutely impossible for the English to get any
understanding into their thick heads!..."

"Don't be an old ass, Henry. You're not going to improve a rotten bad
business by hitting about indiscriminately. I daresay the people who
were responsible for the th