wever, that the speech was a
powerful appeal for the maintenance of the Union. Conroy said so
afterwards and Babberly entirely agreed with him. The Dean suggested
that something might be put in about the sanctity of the marriage
tie, a matter of particular importance to women and likely to be
seriously affected by the passing of a Home Rule Bill. Lady Moyne
thanked him for calling her attention to the omission. The secretary,
who had once been a governess, adjusted her pince-nez and took a note.

In the smoking-room that evening Conroy took command of the
conversation, and for the first time since I arrived at Castle Affey
we got off politics. He told us a good deal about how he made his
fortune. Most men who have made fortunes enjoy talking about how they
made them. But their stories are nearly always most uninteresting. My
impression is that they do not themselves understand how they came to
be rich. But Conroy understood, or at all events thought he
understood, his own success. He believed that he was rich because he
had, more than other men, a love of the excitement which comes with
risk. He had the spirit of the true adventurer, the man who pursues
novelty and danger for their own sakes. Every story he told us
illustrated and was meant to illustrate this side of his character. He
despised the rest of us, especially me perhaps. We, Cahoon, the Dean,
even Malcolmson, though he was a bristly fighting man, certainly Moyne
who had gone quietly to bed--we were tame barndoor fowls, eating the
sordid messes spread for us by that old henwife, civilized society.
Conroy was a free bird of the wild. He snatched golden grain for
nutriment from the hand of a goddess. These were not his words or his
metaphors, but they represented the impression which his talk and his
stories left on my mind.

At twelve o'clock I rose to say good night. As I did so a servant
entered the room and told Conroy that his motor was ready for him at
the door. Conroy left the room at once, and left the house a few
minutes later.

I suppose we ought, all of us, to have been surprised. Motor drives in
the middle of the night are an unusual form of amusement, and it was
impossible to suppose that Conroy could have any business requiring
immediate personal attention in the neighbourhood of Castle Affey. But
his talk during the evening had left its impression on other minds as
well as mine. We bid each other good night without expressing any
astonishment