actions for libel suggested. But Denis Quirk and his
paper went on their prescribed course, regardless of threats, and
awaiting libel actions that failed to come.

There was no lack of excitement in Grey Town in those days. Men did not
go about wearily, and sigh because there was nothing in the papers.
There were times of stress and battle in the town when Denis Quirk and
"The Mercury" fought with sloth, indifference, and vested interests;
times when he was rarely at home with the old people, because he had
many and important things to do, to say, and to write about in the town.

But Gerard dropped quietly into a position of family friend and
confidential adviser at "Layton." He was introduced by Denis Quirk, and,
being a man of comparative leisure, it became his habit to spend a part
of his leisure at the house, and to accompany Mrs. Quirk and Kathleen
O'Connor when they went out to find amusement. To this Denis Quirk
readily assented, for he was more at ease among the men and women who
worked than among those who played. Desmond O'Connor, too, was
shouldering the burden of stern responsibility, and someone had to look
after Mrs. Quirk and Kathleen. Who could better do this than Gerard, a
harmless and pleasant man in Denis Quirk's eyes?

This was the first male friendship of Kathleen O'Connor. Here was a man
who told her the history of his lifetime, not discursively, but in
fragments dropped here and there. There is pleasure, entertainment, and
pathos in every man's life, no matter who he may be. Gerard had lived
more adventurously than many others. He was a man who could make love
charmingly, one who had been liberally educated. There were many
pleasing reminiscences, many sad incidents in his past, and he had a
happy method of speaking of such events.

This is the manner in which love sometimes comes to man and woman, not,
as it is often pictured, as a sudden passion, but slowly and in stages.
Gerard loved easily and lightly; he had already had his grand passions,
and the current of his life ran none the less pleasantly because of
them. To make love to a pretty girl was nothing to him, merely another
passing incident. But a man was an event to Kathleen O'Connor, an
admirer something hitherto unknown. She had laughed and flirted with
boyish admirers, as girls do; but such events are mere ripples on the
surface of passion. The love and admiration of a man are to such things
a vast upheaval of the depths of the ocea