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Updated: May 1, 2025
On the landing outside the drawing-room Gabriel found his wife and Mary Jane trying to persuade Miss Ivors to stay for supper. But Miss Ivors, who had put on her hat and was buttoning her cloak, would not stay. She did not feel in the least hungry and she had already overstayed her time. "But only for ten minutes, Molly," said Mrs. Conroy. "That won't delay you."
Great applause greeted Mary Jane as, blushing and rolling up her music nervously, she escaped from the room. The most vigorous clapping came from the four young men in the doorway who had gone away to the refreshment-room at the beginning of the piece but had come back when the piano had stopped. Lancers were arranged. Gabriel found himself partnered with Miss Ivors.
"Why should I be ashamed of myself?" asked Gabriel, blinking his eyes and trying to smile. "Well, I'm ashamed of you," said Miss Ivors frankly. "To say you'd write for a paper like that. I didn't think you were a West Briton." A look of perplexity appeared on Gabriel's face. It was true that he wrote a literary column every Wednesday in The Daily Express, for which he was paid fifteen shillings.
"Beannacht libh," cried Miss Ivors, with a laugh, as she ran down the staircase. Mary Jane gazed after her, a moody puzzled expression on her face, while Mrs. Conroy leaned over the banisters to listen for the hall-door. Gabriel asked himself was he the cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in ill humour: she had gone away laughing. He stared blankly down the staircase.
"What is it?" asked Gabriel, smiling at her solemn manner. "Who is G. C.?" answered Miss Ivors, turning her eyes upon him. Gabriel coloured and was about to knit his brows, as if he did not understand, when she said bluntly: "O, innocent Amy! I have found out that you write for The Daily Express. Now, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
She spoke also of the beautiful house her daughter kept in Glasgow, and of all the friends they had there. While her tongue rambled on Gabriel tried to banish from his mind all memory of the unpleasant incident with Miss Ivors. Of course the girl or woman, or whatever she was, was an enthusiast but there was a time for all things. Perhaps he ought not to have answered her like that.
"I used to go out walking with him," she said, "when I was in Galway." A thought flew across Gabriel's mind. "Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?" he said coldly. She looked at him and asked in surprise: "What for?" Her eyes made Gabriel feel awkward. He shrugged his shoulders and said: "How do I know? To see him, perhaps."
He repeated to himself a phrase he had written in his review: "One feels that one is listening to a thought-tormented music." Miss Ivors had praised the review. Was she sincere? Had she really any life of her own behind all her propagandism? There had never been any ill-feeling between them until that night.
As the words were usually accompanied by a cut of the whip, the dogs understood quite well, and remained a compact mass on the side of the road. A favourite meet was at the pretty little village of Ivors, standing just on the edge of the forest not far from us. It consisted of one long street, a church, and a château at one end.
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