"Every boy," he said, "has a little sweetheart."

His attitude on this point struck me as strangely liberal in a man of
his age. In my heart I thought that what he said about boys and
sweethearts was reasonable. But I disliked the words in his mouth
and I wondered why he shivered once or twice as if he feared
something or felt a sudden chill. As he proceeded I noticed that his
accent was good. He began to speak to us about girls, saying what
nice soft hair they had and how soft their hands were and how all
girls were not so good as they seemed to be if one only knew.
There was nothing he liked, he said, so much as looking at a nice
young girl, at her nice white hands and her beautiful soft hair. He
gave me the impression that he was repeating something which he
had learned by heart or that, magnetised by some words of his own
speech, his mind was slowly circling round and round in the same
orbit. At times he spoke as if he were simply alluding to some fact
that everybody knew, and at times he lowered his voice and spoke
mysteriously as if he were telling us something secret which he did
not wish others to overhear. He repeated his phrases over and over
again, varying them and surrounding them with his monotonous
voice. I continued to gaze towards the foot of the slope, listening
to him.

After a long while his monologue paused. He stood up slowly,
saying that he had to leave us for a minute or so, a few minutes,
and, without changing the direction of my gaze, I saw him walking
slowly away from us towards the near end of the field. We
remained silent when he had gone. After a silence of a few
minutes I heard Mahony exclaim: