useless, almost sexless, an invalid without
the excuse of disease, an incarnation of everything in Ireland
that drove him out of it. These judgments have little value and
no finality; but they are the judgments on which her fate hangs
just at present. Keegan touches his hat to her: he does not take
it off.

NORA. Mr Keegan: I want to speak to you a minute if you don't
mind.

KEEGAN [dropping the broad Irish vernacular of his speech to
Patsy]. An hour if you like, Miss Reilly: you're always welcome.
Shall we sit down?

NORA. Thank you. [They sit on the heather. She is shy and
anxious; but she comes to the point promptly because she can
think of nothing else]. They say you did a gradle o travelling at
one time.

KEEGAN. Well you see I'm not a Mnooth man [he means that he was
not a student at Maynooth College]. When I was young I admired
the older generation of priests that had been educated in
Salamanca. So when I felt sure of my vocation I went to
Salamanca. Then I walked from Salamanca to Rome, an sted in a
monastery there for a year. My pilgrimage to Rome taught me that
walking is a better way of travelling than the train; so I walked
from Rome to the Sorbonne in Paris; and I wish I could have
walked from Paris to Oxford; for I was very sick on the sea.
After a year of Oxford I had to walk to Jerusalem to walk the
Oxford feeling off me. From Jerusalem I came back to Patmos, and
spent six months at the monastery of Mount Athos. From that I
came to Ireland and settled down as a parish priest until I went
mad.

NORA [startled]. Oh dons say that.

KEEGAN. Why not? Don't you know the story? how I confessed a
black man and gave him absolution; and how he put a spell on me
and drove me mad.

NORA. How can you talk such nonsense about yourself? For shame!

KEEGAN. It's not nonsense at all: it's true--in a way. But never
mind the black man. Now that you know what a travelled man I am,
what can I do for you? [She hesitates and plucks nervously at the
heather. He stays her hand gently]. Dear Miss Nora: don't pluck
the little flower. If it was a pretty baby you wouldn't want to
pull its head off and stick it in a vawse o water to look at.
[The grasshopper chirps: Keegan turns his head and addresses it
in the vernacular]. Be aisy, me son: she won't spoil the
swing-swong in your little three. [To Nora, resuming his urbane
style] You see I'm quite cracked; but never mind: I'm harmless.
Now what is it?

NORA [embarras