CHAPTER XXXV

As I walked home with Owen next day after school I wanted to tell him what I had done, but it was somehow difficult to do so quite abruptly. I turned the conversation to Roman Catholicism, and from that to the general subject of confession to a priest, but to Owen this idea appeared to be so distasteful that I did not attempt to introduce my own particular case.

On our way we met his mother, who told me to go on in and get something to eat now, and to stay and dine with them at seven. I refused, having an idea Owen didn’t particularly want me. I knew it was only because he wished to finish an epitome he was making of Herbert Spencer’s “First Principles” (he had told me he had reached the last chapter) and as I had a strong desire to stay I felt annoyed. I came to the door with him.

“You’d better come in,” he said.

“What’s the use of my coming in when you don’t want me?” I replied.

He laughed. “Of course I want you; don’t be an ass.”

I came in. While we were having tea I looked over the epitome. It represented a good deal of work, and I remembered having asked him to read Blake’s “Songs,” and his refusing because he hadn’t time. It was the same with nearly everything I recommended to him, though I was always reading books to please him. He offered now to lend me the “First Principles” as soon as he should have finished it.

“I don’t want it,” I answered, discontentedly. “I’m sick of all that stodgy stuff. You’re always complaining about not being able to be religious, yet you’re never happy unless you’re reading something against religion.”

“I’m not anxious for a religion that won’t bear examination,” replied Owen, coldly.

“No religion _will_ bear it,” I said, and both speeches had that infinite priggishness which not infrequently characterized our conversation.

“People who have read a hundred times more philosophy than I have have been able to remain Christians,” Owen continued, with a naïveté that was quite lost on me. He was particularly fond just now of talking about people who had or had not read philosophy.

“You’re thinking of Levine in ‘A.K.,’” I answered disrespectfully, a decreasing enthusiasm having led me to abbreviate the title of this work.

“I’m not,” said Owen.

“You are. And Levine doesn’t remain a Christian. He drops it and then takes it up again, and, as he hasn’t any more reason for doing one than the other, I don’t see what it proves.”

“Why do you say he has no reason?”

“I don’t call half a dozen words spoken by an ignorant peasant a reason. If you claim religion to be the most valuable thing in life, it oughtn’t to be at the mercy of a chance phrase. At any rate the words that affected Levine seem far from wonderful to me.”

“I don’t know that they aren’t wonderful,” Owen declared.

“‘One man lives for his stomach,’” I jeeringly quoted, “‘another for his soul, for God, in truth.’ You’d find the same thing in any tract. And why should it turn you to Christianity particularly? A man who believed in Pan could live just as much for his soul as a Christian.”

“I don’t believe anybody ever believed in Pan,” said Owen, “any more than they believe in Father Christmas. Because certain words happened to help Levine, Tolstoy does not mean that they will help everyone.”

“He does. Only you’re nearly as bad as Levine yourself.”

Owen was not listening; he was working out an argument he would produce as soon as I had done; but I was beginning to be tired of Tolstoy, and I wanted to express my own point of view. “If one were to see a ghost, it would make an enormous difference,” I admitted. “It would open your eyes to a new world, to a deeper, finer world.”

“Isn’t this one deep enough for you? And I don’t see that it would necessarily be any finer. It might very well be extremely objectionable. All that would happen if you saw a ghost is that it would frighten you very much at the time, and afterwards you wouldn’t believe in it.”

“I don’t think it would frighten me. I don’t think it would frighten anybody, if it were the ghost of somebody they had cared for a great deal.”

Owen considered this. “I don’t suppose the ghost of your mother would frighten you. _Your_ mother is dead, isn’t she?” he added, and then stopped short. “I’m awfully sorry,” he stammered, “I wasn’t thinking of what I was saying.”

I laughed. “It’s all right. My mother isn’t dead. Shall we go out before dinner?”

Owen got up.

We walked by the road as far as Shaw’s Bridge, where we branched off on to the river bank. It was already well on in April. The brilliant tender green of the opening leaves had spread like a delicate green flame over the black branches of the trees. The sky was clear, and there was a sharpness in the air that made us walk quickly. Owen’s dogs, two rough-haired Irish terriers, ran along the bank, sniffing among the coarse grass, alert, eager to hunt anything, whether a rat or a stick.

Owen’s remark about my mother had reminded me that I had told him singularly little about myself, or rather, about my people. He did not know anything beyond the fact that we lived at Newcastle, and, from the way I had spoken of it, he might easily have imagined that Derryaghy was my home. I’m afraid an unconscious snobbery had kept me from revealing the obscurity of my origin, and I was suddenly struck by the stupidity and odiousness of this, especially with Owen, for whom such things meant nothing.

“Why did you think my mother was dead?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. I suppose because you never――I don’t know, I’m sure.”

“I want to tell you about my people.”

Curiously enough, though I had been so reluctant to mention that my father was a National schoolmaster, it did not trouble me in the least to talk about my mother. I even had some dim notion that it made me rather interesting; so I told him all I knew. “I have not seen her since,” I wound up, “and perhaps my father is not my real father.” Why I should have thrown in this after-touch I cannot conceive, as I had never in my life had the faintest doubts concerning my legitimacy; but I suppose it was to heighten the romance.

“Do you think I ought to try to find out something more?” I asked.

“You never did try!” exclaimed Owen.

“Never very much. I don’t know who to ask. I can’t very well ask my father.”

“Why?”

“I can’t.”

“There must be somebody else who knows. Your friend, Mrs. Carroll.”

“She won’t tell me.”

“Have you asked her?”

“I asked her the last time I was at home.”

“And what did she say?”

“She doesn’t like her.”

“She said she didn’t like her?”

“No, of course not; but I know it all the same.”

“The whole thing,” Owen began, but tailed off abruptly “――it seems rather queer.”

We walked on for a long time in silence. I was determined to tell him about Mr. Applin, but it was not till we were coming home that I began my explanation.

“And you’re really going to him!” Owen marvelled.

“I’ll have to go now. That is, if he does not tell me not to.”

“He can hardly do that. You’re not making fun?”

“Fun?”

Owen was silent.

“I didn’t know whether you meant it,” he said. “What are you going _for_?” he suddenly asked. “Just to talk to him?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“But what about?”

“About?... Do you remember talking of confession?”

“But it’s not that, is it?” said Owen, very seriously. “You’re not――――”

“Why not?” I smiled dimly.

“But what is the matter? Why should you? What have you done? And if you have done anything, what is it to him?”

We had come to a standstill on the lonely river bank. Owen’s eyes were fixed upon me questioningly. I had nothing to say, or, rather, I could not say it. I stood before him, looking on the ground, my hands in my trouser pockets.

Owen hesitated. He put his hands on my shoulders, but I did not look up.

Presently I raised my head, but I looked away from him, and across the fields. “Come along,” I said, quietly. “It’s getting late, and we must hurry.”

* * * * *

When I reached home at about half-past nine little Alice came running to meet me. Her white face, her bright black eyes, and long straight black hair, brushed back from her forehead and spreading out on either side of her face in the shape of a fan, were vivid in the gas-light, under which she stood looking up at me while I opened the letter she had brought me. It was from Mr. Applin, asking me to call on Wednesday evening between nine and ten, or on Friday between the same hours, if Wednesday did not suit me.