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He pointed down the snow-covered quay from where the sound of shrill prolonged whistling was borne in. "Teddy will have all the cabs in Dublin out," he said. Gabriel advanced from the little pantry behind the office, struggling into his overcoat and, looking round the hall, said: "Gretta not down yet?" "She's getting on her things, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate.
At that his head went up sharply; he stood altogether tense as he waited for Gretta to set the other girl right Gretta, so sure-seeing, so much wiser and truer than the rest of them. Gretta would laugh! But she did not laugh. And what his strained ear caught at last was not her scornful denial, but a little gasp of breath suggesting a sob. "Noticed it? Why it breaks my heart!"
He was tired. It was hard to go back to what he had been saying about the different things the world's philosophers had believed about the immortality of the soul. So, as often when his feeling for his thought dragged, he turned to Gretta Loring. She seldom failed to bring a revival of interest a freshening. She was his favourite student.
They both kissed Gabriel frankly. He was their favourite nephew the son of their dead elder sister, Ellen, who had married T. J. Conroy of the Port and Docks. "Gretta tells me you're not going to take a cab back to Monkstown tonight, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate. "No," said Gabriel, turning to his wife, "we had quite enough of that last year, hadn't we?
Thanks to her, Constantine was now senior curate in Balbrigan and, thanks to her, Gabriel himself had taken his degree in the Royal University. A shadow passed over his face as he remembered her sullen opposition to his marriage. Some slighting phrases she had used still rankled in his memory; she had once spoken of Gretta as being country cute and that was not true of Gretta at all.
"You looked tired," he said. "I am a little," she answered. "You don't feel ill or weak?" "No, tired: that's all." She went on to the window and stood there, looking out. Gabriel waited again and then, fearing that diffidence was about to conquer him, he said abruptly: "By the way, Gretta!" "What is it?" "You know that poor fellow Malins?" he said quickly. "Yes. What about him?"
The impulses of the former are under few conventional restraints; they have a greater control of their lives: that is the only material difference. The matrimonial creed of Gretta Reay expresses rather the exaggerated cynicism of a coquette than a fact generally true of the class to which she belongs.
Like distant music these words that he had written years before were borne towards him from the past. He longed to be alone with her. When the others had gone away, when he and she were in the room in the hotel, then they would be alone together. He would call her softly: "Gretta!" Perhaps she would not hear at once: she would be undressing. Then something in his voice would strike her.
He did not believe that in all the years there had been any student who had not only pleased, but helped him as she did. He had taught her father and mother. And now there was Gretta, clear-eyed and steady of gaze, asking more of life than either of them had asked; asking, not only May, but what May meant. For Gretta there need be no duality.
Gretta joined one of the boys for a game of tennis. Motionless, he sat looking out at her. She looked so very young as she played. For an hour he remained at the table in the alcove where he had overheard what his students had to say of him. And when the hour had gone by he took up the pen which was there upon the study table and wrote his resignation to the secretary of the board of trustees.
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