So Rowden had remarked to Paul, and it proved a good way to start a conversation when he met the girl, for he was unaccountably nervous at first. He had been late at the rendezvous owing to delay in getting away from Venton League after lunch, for he had not told Rowden he was going to meet the girl. He had even wondered if she would wait when he did not arrive; the first thing he must do was to apologize. But he forgot all about that when he saw her, and as she did not mention it, the fact that she had been standing for half an hour amidst the scurrying crowd vanished for both of them as if it had never existed. She wore a blue dress and the kind of pert cloche hat that was in style in those days and happened to suit her; she came towards him smiling, having seen him first, a few anxious seconds first, for after leaving a taxi to cross the road he had nearly been run down by a tram whose driver gave him some picturesque language in passing. “I keep forgetting you keep to the left in this country,” were his first breathless words of greeting.

“I know, I saw it,” she said. “But there’s terrible traffic here all the time. The Pillar gets in the way of everything.”

Which led him to repeat Rowden’s remark about it, and she too found the subject helpful to begin with; she told him how the City Corporation had considered moving the Pillar (as a traffic hazard, so as to dodge the political issue), but so far nothing had been done because it would cost too much.

“At least they could change the statue on the top,” Paul said. “Why not some Irish hero?”

“Ach, there mightn’t be time. Before we could hoist him up there, somebody would have shot him as a traitor and half the country wouldn’t think him a hero at all. That’s what happened to Michael Collins.”

“That’s almost what happened to Lincoln.”

“It’s a curse on all of us, then. The English don’t do things like that.”

“They do as bad.” He laughed. “Come now, don’t say you’re on THEIR side.”

“My stepfather’s English. I wish there weren’t any sides.”

“Ah, then that accounts for it. He’s the one that keeps you broad- minded.”

“Not him—he’s more Irish than some of the Irish. Spells his name S-e-a-n instead of John and it’s pronounced ‘Shawn’.”

“Then I give up. This is a strange country.”

“You can’t give up if you’ve got to write about us.”

“I shan’t touch on politics much.”

“No?… Perhaps that’s sensible. But don’t romanticize, whatever you do —none of the Killarney-blarney, broth of a boy, top o’ the marnin’ to ye—that’s the stuff we can’t stand.”

When he reflected that this was the kind of article Merryweather would probably like, he almost blushed. “Maybe you’d rather be laughed at? I could do an amusing piece about those Gaelic changes you talked about.”

“Why not, then? It’s a good subject. The ancient tongue of Ireland that nobody speaks any more except a handful of peasants in the far west, so there have to be a handful of professors in Dublin to decide what the ancient Irish would have called a telephone if they’d ever seen one.”

“If I wrote that way it would seem like an attack.”

“And why not? ‘Tis time someone attacked us in fun instead of seriously.” She showed him the book under her arm. It was Martin Chuzzlewit, a library copy. “I’ve just been reading this. Dickens certainly didn’t spare the Americans. And it wasn’t all fun either.”

“D’you know, I’ve never read Chuzzlewit.”

“Why don’t you? I’ll lend you this—I’ve finished it.”

“Thanks.”

“It’ll probably make you angry.”

“I’ll bet it won’t. My family hadn’t come to America when it was written, so why would I feel insulted? I’ll tell you what I think when I’ve read it.”

They went on talking, as vagrantly as that, while they skirted the quays past the burned-out Four Courts and entered Phoenix Park. It was windy on the upland there, with fast scudding clouds and a hint of rain. The view of mountains reminded him of a backdrop, grey-blue shapes as if cut in cardboard. He told her this, and it gave her the cue to remark that he still hadn’t said how he liked the play.

“Oh, THAT? Well, it wasn’t bad. In some ways it wasn’t bad enough. You know when a play is really bad, anything good in it shows like a sort of outcropping.