not do
so: he turned away quickly and opened the door.

"I suppose John Marsh is eatin' all the food," he said with
extraordinary heartiness. "Are you eatin' all the food, John Marsh? I'll
wring your damned neck if you are!..."

4

That evening, after dinner, Mr. Quinn and John Marsh were sitting
together. Henry had gone out of the room for a while, leaving Mr. Quinn
to smoke a cigar while John Marsh corrected some exercises by the
students of the Language class.

"Marsh!" Mr. Quinn said suddenly, after a long silence.

Marsh looked up quickly. "Yes, Mr. Quinn!" he replied.

"Henry's in love!..."

"Is he?"

"Yes. With that girl. Sheila Morgan, Matt Hamilton's niece!"

Marsh put his exercises aside. "Dear me!" he exclaimed.

There did not appear to be anything else to say.

"So I'm goin' to send him away," Mr. Quinn went on.

"Away?"

"Yes. I don't quite know where I shall send him. It's too soon yet to
send him up to Trinity. I've a notion of sendin' you an' him on a
walkin' tour in Connacht. The pair of you can talk that damned language
'til you're sick of it with the people that understands it!"

Marsh was delighted. He thought that Mr. Quinn's proposal was excellent,
and he was certain that it would be very good for Henry to come into
contact with people to whom the language was native.

"Wheesht a minute, Marsh!" Mr. Quinn interrupted. "I want to talk to you
about Henry. It's a big thing for a lad of his age to fall in love!"

"I suppose it is."

"There's no supposin' about it. It is! He's just at the age when women
begin to matter to a man, an' I don't want him to go an' get into any
bother over the head of them!"

"Bother?"

"Aye. Do you never think about women, John Marsh?"

"Oh, yes. Sometimes. One can't help it now and then!..."

"No, begod, one can't!" Mr. Quinn exclaimed. "Do you know this, John
Marsh, I never can make out whether God did a good day's work the day He
made women! They're the most unsettlin' things in the world. You'd think
to look at me, I was a fairly quiet sort of a steady man, wouldn't you?
Well, I'm not. There's whiles when a woman makes my head buzz ... just
the look of her, an' the way she turns her head or moves her legs. I'm a
hefty fellow, John Marsh, for all I'm the age I am, an' I know what it
is to feel damn near silly with desire. But all the same, I can keep
control of myself, an' I've never wronged a woman in my life. That's a
big thing for any man