This frankness surprised the priest, who had heard the current rumours of Davenport Carr.
“Well, I take men as I find them,” he went on gently. “Mr. Barrington is a man of contradictions. But he is more at war with himself than anyone else need ever be with him. The man I would be afraid of would be the man who accepted himself without a fight, or the world without a fight.”
“Ah,” she patted his arm, her eyes flashing, “that’s it. That’s it.”
“And he is a generous man, though he would not admit it. He gave me fifty pounds last week for a wretched family that has tuberculosis. And when he handed it to me he said, ‘Ryan, this isn’t Christianity, it’s damned foolishness, and you know it as well as I do. If we had a grain of sense we’d have prevented those people being born, or once born we’d chloroform them. What the devil have they got to live for? This money will only feed their diseases. But you can have it on your conscience. I’ve enough on mine.’”
Valerie threw back her head and let out a peal of laughter that surprised the four men eating in the dining-room.
“That’s Miss Carr, I suppose,” said Dane to Mac, who nodded.
“Father Ryan must have been telling her a good joke,” he added.
II
Valerie had meant to play the piano that evening, but she felt self-conscious now with Dane in the hotel. She stood uncertainly in her room for some minutes. She had not changed for dinner, she seldom did, as she usually went back to the office. She wore a dark linen dress with a little white at the pointed neck. She solemnly surveyed
