past, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before. He saw
her urge her vanities, her fine dress and sash and long black
stockings, and knew that he had yielded to them a thousand times. Yet a
voice within him spoke above the noise of his dancing heart, asking him
would he take her gift to which he had only to stretch out his hand.
And he remembered the day when he and Eileen had stood looking into the
hotel grounds, watching the waiters running up a trail of bunting on
the flagstaff and the fox terrier scampering to and fro on the sunny
lawn and how, all of a sudden, she had broken out into a peal of
laughter and had run down the sloping curve of the path. Now, as then,
he stood listlessly in his place, seemingly a tranquil watcher of the
scene before him.

--She too wants me to catch hold of her, he thought. That's why she
came with me to the tram. I could easily catch hold of her when she
comes up to my step: nobody is looking. I could hold her and kiss her.

But he did neither: and, when he was sitting alone in the deserted
tram, he tore his ticket into shreds and stared gloomily at the
corrugated footboard.


* * * * *


The next day he sat at his table in the bare upper room for many hours.
Before him lay a new pen, a new bottle of ink and a new emerald
exercise. From force of habit he had written at the top of the
first page the initial letters of the jesuit motto: A.M.D.G. On the
first line of the page appeared the title of the verses he was trying