Chapter IV

He walked down the stairs and into the street in a state of fury. He had been treated as if he were a corner-boy.

Willie Logan, who was any girl's boy, could not have been treated so contemptuously as he, who had never cared for any other girl, had been treated. She had married a policeman ... _a peeler!_ She might as well have married a soldier or a militia-man. A MacDermott had been rejected in favour of a peeler! She had gone straight from his embraces to the embraces of a policeman ... a common policeman. She had refused to meet him on a Wednesday, he remembered, because, probably, she had engaged to meet the peeler on that evening. He would be off duty then! While she was yielding her lips to John, she was actually engaged to be married to ... to a policeman! By heaven!...

What a good and fortunate thing it was that he had not spoken of her to anyone except to Uncle Matthew! If anyone were to know that a MacDermott had fallen in love with a girl who had preferred to marry a peeler ... _a peeler_, mind you! ... they would split their sides laughing. What a humiliation! What an insufferable thing to have happened to him! That was your love for you! That was your romance for you! ... Och! Och, och!! This was a lesson for him, indeed. No more love or romance for him. Willie Logan could run after girls until the soles dropped off his boots, but John MacDermott would let the girls do the running after him in future. No girl would ever get the chance again to throw him over for ... for a _peeler!_ If that was their love, they could keep their love!...

He walked about the town until, after a while, he found himself at the Theatre Royal. Still raging against Maggie, he paid for a seat in the pit. He had forgotten that he was in mourning, and he remembered only that he was a jilted lover, a MacDermott cast aside for a policeman. He sat through the first act of the play, without much comprehension of its theme. Then in the middle of the second act, he heard the heroine vowing that she loved the hero, and he got up and walked out of the theatre.

"I could write a better play than that with one hand tied behind my back," he said to himself. "Her and her love!"

He walked rapidly from the theatre, conscious of hunger, for he had omitted to get a meal before going into the theatre, but he was unwilling to forego the pleasure of starving himself as a sign of his humiliation. He made his way towards Smithfield and stopped in front of a bookstall. A couple of loutish lads were fingering a red-bound book as he approached the stall, and he heard them tittering in a sneaky, furtive fashion as he drew near. The owner of the stall emerged from the back of his premises, and when they saw him, they hurriedly put the book down and walked away. John glanced at it and read the title on the cover: The Art of Love by Ovid.

"Love!" he exclaimed aloud. "Ooo-oo-oo!"

The streets were full of young men and women intent on an evening's pleasure, and as he hurried away from Smithfield Market towards the railway station, he received bright glances from girls who were willing to make friends with him. He scowled heavily at them, and when they looked away to other men, he filled his mind with sneers and bitter thoughts. A few hours before, these young girls would have seemed to him to be very beautiful and innocent, but now they appeared to him to be deceitful and wicked. Each evening, he told himself, these girls came out of their houses in search of "boys" whom they lured into love-making, teasing and tormenting them, until at last they tired of them and sent them empty away. That was your love for you! Uncle Matthew had dreamed of romantic love, and John had set out to find it, and behold, what was it! A girl's frolic, a piece of feminine sport, in which the girl had the fun and the boy had the humiliation and pain. Maggie could go from him, her lips still warm with his kisses, to her policeman ... and take kisses from him! There might be other hoaxed lovers ... if she had one, why not have two or three or four ... and his kisses might have meant no more to her than the kisses of half-a-dozen other men. Well, he had learned his lesson! No more love for him....

He crossed the Queen's Bridge, and when he reached the station, he came upon Willie Logan, moodily gazing at the barriers which were not yet open. John, undesirous of society, nodded to him and would have gone away, but Willie suddenly caught hold of his arm.

"I want to speak to you a minute, John!" he said thickly.

The smell of drink drifted from him.

"What about?" John answered sourly.

"Come over here 'til a quiet place," Willie said, still holding John's arm, and drawing him to a seat at the other end of the station. "Sit here 'til the gates is open," he added, as he sat down.

"Is there anything up?" John demanded.

"Aye," Willie replied in a bewildered voice. "John, man, I'm in terrible trouble!"

"Oh!"

"Sore disgrace, John. I don't know what my da and ma'll say to me at all when they hear about it. Such a thing!..."

"Well, what is it?"

"Do you know a wee girl called Jennie Roak?" John shook his head. "Her aunt lives in Ballyards ... Mrs. Cleeland!..."

"Oh, yes. Is that her aunt?"

"Aye. Well, me an' her has been going out together for a wee while past, and she says now she's goin' to have a child!"

John burst into laughter.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" Willie demanded angrily.

"I was thinking it doesn't matter whether it's one girl or a dozen you're after, you'll get into bother just the same!"

"Aye, but what am I to do, John? I'll have to tell the oul' fella, and he'll be raging mad when he hears about it. He's terrible against that sort of thing, and dear knows I'm an awful one for slipping into trouble. I can not keep away from girls, John, and that's the God's truth of it. And I've been brought up as respectable as anybody. Jennie's in an awful state about it!"

"I daresay," said John.

"She says I'll have to marry her over the head of it, but sure I don't want to get married at all ... not yet, anyway. I don't know what to do. I'll have to tell the oul' lad and he'll have me scalded with his tongue. I suppose I'll have to marry her. It's a quare thing a fella can't go out with a girl without getting into bother. I wish to my goodness I had as much control over myself as you have!"

"Control!" said John.

"Aye. You'll never get into no bother!"

"Huh!" said John.

The barriers were opened, and Willie and John passed through on to the platform, and presently seated themselves in a carriage.

"This'll be a lesson to me," said Willie, lying back against the cushions of the carriage. "Not to be running after so many girls in future!"

John did not make any answer to him. He let his thoughts wander out of the carriage. He had loved Maggie Carmichael deeply, and she had served him badly; and Willie Logan, who treated girls in a light fashion, was complaining now because one girl had loved him too well. And that was your love for you! That was the high romantical thing of which Uncle Matthew had so often spoken and dreamed...

He came out of his thoughts suddenly, for Willie Logan was shaking him.

There was a glint in Willie Logan's eye!...

"I say, John," he said, "come on into the next carriage! There's two quare nice wee girls just got in!"

"No," said John.

"Ah, come on," Willie coaxed.

"No," John almost shouted.

"Well, stay behind then. I'll have the two to myself," Willie exclaimed, climbing out of the carriage as he spoke.

"That lad deserves all he gets," John thought.