If, for instance, he’s a writer, he can make personal sorrow work for him in a book—a musician can put it into his music—a painter can see it on canvas. And all that never surprises anyone. But with the actor, the art is ACTING—so that whenever something happens to you that matters enough, that’s just what you do. Most people wouldn’t understand it, because they think of acting as a kind of pretence or sham—anyhow, they don’t often notice it in a good actor, because it’s his art not to seem to be acting at all. But he is, and he knows he is, and—as you say—he can’t stop it. It’s really the highest form of sincerity—and since you liked your stepfather, it’s a tribute to him that you should be doing it… as you are now… SO WELL.”

“AM I?” She was moved almost to tears, and he did not tell her that his long speech had been a repetition, personalized and slightly adapted, of a paragraph in an article on acting which he had submitted to various magazines so far without success.

She added: “Paul, since you say that, is there—do you think —any chance for me?”

“As an actress?” Trying to assemble his judgment, he was excited by her emotion; it was intoxicating to think that she must assume his eloquence to have been improvised.

“I know it’s the most awful time to ask,” she went on, noticing his hesitation. “But I HAVE asked, so won’t you answer? Is there the merest outside chance? You’re leaving so soon and you can help me either way. If you say no, I’ll give up the whole idea, because I don’t want to waste my time. But if you say yes, then…”

His judgment still balked, and he could only remember what he had realized from the first—that she possessed the genuine histrionic personality plus a quality of her own that the stage might either destroy or magnify, depending of course on how she was trained and directed. What was it? Talent? Some half-physical attribute? He answered: “Yes, I think you might have a chance.” His words had the kind of delayed sincerity that made him feel, a few seconds after speaking them, that he hadn’t been insincere at all. (For presumably she did have a chance, at the Abbey, of being properly directed.) He went on, gathering confidence: “Why, sure—of course you have.”

“You REALLY think so?”

“I do… I do…”

The answer made the thing seem like some sort of ceremony involving them in vows and pledges; I do, I do, his mind kept echoing, incredulously.

“Oh, bless you, Paul—even if you don’t mean it… no, don’t argue —not another word—I know you have to go—”

Actually he didn’t want to go now at all; he wanted to explore a relationship that had begun to fascinate.

“But Carey—”

“Dear, no, I’ve talked too long already—I’ll bet my aunt and uncle are wondering who that man is. Thank you, Paul—you’ve helped me so much—in so many ways—”

“Will you do something for me, then? As soon as I’ve gone, go to bed and try to sleep.”

“Yes, yes, I promise that. I promise.”

In her changed mood she was almost shooing him out of the house.

“And I’ll write to you from Rome—”

“Yes, if you have time—but you’ll be so busy—”

“I’ll find time, Carey… because I…”

“Goodbye, Paul—goodbye.” They shook hands in the lobby as she opened the door. All the way back to Venton League he wondered why he had not kissed her. It did not seem important till he himself was in bed and trying to sleep. Then, with the mail-boat to catch in a few hours, he felt hemmed in by timings and mistimings.

* * * * *

Paul wrote to her from the Holyhead boat the next day—a constrained letter, oddly aloof, because there was a battle going on in his own mind. He was fated, it seemed, to fight too late, when the issue could not be affected and the victory of second thoughts could only bring regrets and remorse. This time it was the fact that he had left Carey in such trouble, deserting her when she might most need him. Actually he doubted whether he could have helped her more than he already had by his advice and encouragement; but this prompt physical departure from the scene had an air of callousness which shocked him when now he contemplated it. Surely it would seem to her that he could cancel anything except business, and for anyone except her. If she mattered to him, he ought to have stayed in Dublin for at least a few days, even if he had left Venton League and taken a room at a hotel. But perhaps, he reflected, the fact that he was now on his way elsewhere proved that she DIDN’T matter to him. It was an argument that made him uneasy, as if, in his bones, he WISHED her to matter to him and would suffer if it were proved otherwise.

He wrote to her again from London, but there was no time for her to reply before he was off to Rome; he gave her an address there. If she didn’t reply, it might mean that she too had sized up the situation as one calling for caution, or at least for a meditative pause. During his first week in Rome he glanced many times across the hotel desk to the pigeon-hole where his mail was put when he had any; he was curious, but not too anxious yet. No letter came from her; and then, as if to make that a bad start in retrospect, other things began to go wrong too. Mussolini was neither in Rome nor willing to see him, and from a succession of urgent cables it was clear how confidently and absurdly Merryweather had been counting on a repetition of the Lloyd George fluke. Paul almost wished he could share the editor’s concern; as it was, he felt only increasing distaste for the kind of fraud he was beginning to think he was. Perhaps the sooner he failed as a journalist the better, but it must be quick and catastrophic, before he could rescue himself by another fluke. Because he so nearly HAD pulled off that interview with Mussolini, and the reason for missing at the last moment had been nothing but his own caprice, if one could let it go at that; he had neglected to exploit one of Rowden’s letters of introduction to an Italian of wealth and influence. The man had evidently liked Paul on sight and been ready to pull some final string, but Paul, after one short meeting, had fought shy of him from a personal squeamishness as hard to admit as to ignore.

So having fluffed, he left Italy and travelled to Paris to await further word from Merryweather; if none came he could take it that there were no more assignments for the time being.