The little bee-clock on the mantel-shelf made troubled conversation, and once in every few minutes a cart rattled an answer from the street. The fire-light was on Father Denis’ treasures; and the face of the girl on the wall laughed once, as though, from across the Great Space, she saw and approved the shaping of the lives before her. But the two men smoked silently.
The priest moved first; grunted; heaved himself forward in his chair.
“If I were behind the gratin’, Ormond, I’d have ye up tu the confessional in less toime than this. Have ye killed a directhor, then?”
Ormond started. Then he recrossed his legs and lay back.
“Oh, it’s only the same old thing;” his voice was carefully careless. “Don’t you know what I’ve come to you for? You can’t do anything.”
“I don’t mean tu thry, sure. The sowls ov men take all the tinkerin’ I can give widout goin’ sakin’ tu the dredges an’ sluices.”
“You’d find your work cut out if you came seeking to the Lion,” said Ormond, bitterly. “She’s going to pieces. To pieces, poor old girl! Just for want of a little of the money those confounded directors are sucking out of her. I’ve written to them;” he sat up, and his words came with a rush. “I’ve written and written. And I’ve laced Bert Kiliat till I mar-
