Mary was troubled because of her mother's illness, but, as it is always difficult to believe in the serious illness of another person until death has demonstrated its gravity, she soon dismissed the matter from her mind. This was the more easily done because her mind was teeming with impressions and pictures and scraps of dialogue.
As her mother was sleeping peacefully, Mary put on her hat and went out. She wanted, in her then state of mind, to walk in the solitude which can only be found in crowded places, and also she wanted some kind of distraction. Her days had lately been so filled with adventure that the placid immobility of the top back room was not only irksome but maddening, and her mother's hasty and troubled breathing came between her and her thoughts. The poor furniture of the room was hideous to her eyes; the uncarpeted floor and bleak, stained walls dulled her.
She went out, and in a few moments was part of the crowd which passes and repasses nightly from the Rotunda up the broad pathways of Sackville Street, across O'Connell Bridge, up Westmoreland Street, past Trinity College, and on through the brilliant lights of Grafton Street to the Fusiliers' Arch at the entrance to St. Stephen's Green Park. Here from half-past seven o'clock in the evening youthful Dublin marches in joyous procession. Sometimes bevies of young girls dance by, each a giggle incarnate. A little distance behind these a troop of young men follow stealthily and critically. They will be acquainted and more or less happily paired before the Bridge is reached. But generally the movement is in couples. Appointments, dating from the previous night, have filled the streets with happy and careless boys and girls--they are not exactly courting, they are enjoying the excitement of fresh acquaintance; old conversation is here poured into new bottles, old jokes have the freshness of infancy, every one is animated, and polite to no one but his partner; the people they meet and pass and those who overtake and pass them are all subjects for their wit and scorn, while they, in turn, furnish a moment's amusement and conversation to each succeeding couple. Constantly there are stoppages when very high-bred introductions result in a re-distribution of the youngsters. As they move apart the words "To-morrow night," or "Thursday," or "Friday" are called laughingly back, showing that the late partner is not to be lost sight of utterly; and then the procession begins anew.
Among these folk Mary Makebelieve passed rapidly. She knew that if she walked slowly some partially--elaborate gentleman would ask suddenly what she had been doing with herself since last Thursday, and would introduce her as Kate Ellen to six precisely similar young gentlemen, who smiled blandly in a semicircle six feet distant. This had happened to her once before, and as she fled the six young gentlemen had roared "Bow, wow, wow" after her, while the seventh mewed earnestly and with noise.
She stood for a time watching the people thronging into the Gaiety Theatre. Some came in motor-cars, others in carriages. Many hearse-like cabs deposited weighty and respectable solemnities under the glass-roofed vestibule. Swift outside cars buzzed on rubber tyres with gentlemen clad in evening dress, and ladies whose silken wraps blew gently from their shoulders, and, in addition, a constant pedestrian stream surged along the pathway. From the shelter of an opposite doorway Mary watched these gaily animated people. She envied them all innocently enough, and wondered would the big policeman ever ask her to go to the theatre with him, and if he did, would her mother let her go. She thought her mother would refuse, but was dimly certain that in some way she would manage to get out if such a delightful invitation were given her. She was dreaming of the alterations she would make in her best frock in anticipation of such a treat when, half-consciously, she saw a big figure appear round the corner of Grafton Street and walk towards the theatre. It was he, and her heart jumped with delight. She prayed that he would not see her, and then she prayed that he would, and then, with a sudden, sickening coldness, she saw that he was not alone. A young, plump, rosycheeked girl was at his side. As they came nearer the girl put her arm into his and said something. He bent down to her and replied, and she flashed a laugh up at him. There was a swift interchange of sentences, and they both laughed together; then they disappeared into the half-crown door.
Mary shrank back into the shadow of the doorway. She had a strange notion that everybody was trying to look at her, and that they were all laughing maliciously. After a few moments she stepped out on the path and walked homewards quickly. She did not hear the noises of the streets, nor see the promenading crowds. Her face was bent down as she walked, and beneath the big brim of her straw hat her eyes were blinded with the bitterest tears she had ever shed.
XV
Next morning her mother was no better. She made no attempt to get out of bed, and listened with absolute indifference when the morning feet of the next-door man pounded the
