aged in the mechanical
readjustment of his dress. Mr. Browne, whose face was once more
wrinkling with mirth, poured out for himself a glass of whisky while
Freddy Malins exploded, before he had well reached the climax of his
story, in a kink of high-pitched bronchitic laughter and, setting down
his untasted and overflowing glass, began to rub the knuckles of his
left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye, repeating words of
his last phrase as well as his fit of laughter would allow him.

Gabriel could not listen while Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece,
full of runs and difficult passages, to the hushed drawing-room. He
liked music but the piece she was playing had no melody for him and he
doubted whether it had any melody for the other listeners, though they
had begged Mary Jane to play something. Four young men, who had come
from the refreshment-room to stand in the doorway at the sound of the
piano, had gone away quietly in couples after a few minutes. The only
persons who seemed to follow the music were Mary Jane herself, her hands
racing along the key-board or lifted from it at the pauses like those
of a priestess in momentary imprecation, and Aunt Kate standing at her
elbow to turn the page.

Gabriel's eyes, irritated by the floor, which glittered with beeswax
under the heavy chandelier, wandered to the wall above the piano. A
picture of the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet hung there and beside
it was a picture of the two murdered princes in the Tower which Aunt
Julia had worked in red, blue and brown wools when she was a girl.
Probably in the school they had gone to as girls that kind of work had
been taught for one year. His mother had worked for him as a birthday
present a waistcoat of purple tabinet, with little foxes' heads upon it,
lined with brown satin and having round mulberry buttons. It was strange
that his mother had had no musical talent though Aunt Kate used to call
her the brains carrier of the Morkan family. Both she and Julia had
always seemed a little proud of their serious and matronly sister. Her
photograph stood before the pierglass. She held an open book on her
knees and was pointing out something in it to Constantine who, dressed
in a man-o-war suit, lay at her feet. It was she who had chosen the name
of her sons for she was very sensible of the dignity of family life.
Thanks to her, Constantine was now senior curate in Balbrigan and,
thanks to her, Gabriel himself had taken