He stood, holding her head between his hands. Then, slipping one arm swiftly about her body and drawing her towards him, he said softly: “Gretta, dear, what are you thinking about?” She did not answer nor yield wholly to his arm. He said again, softly: “Tell me what it is, Gretta. I think I know what is the matter. Do I know?” She did not answer at once. Then she said in an outburst of tears: “O, I am thinking about that song, _The Lass of Aughrim_.” She broke loose from him and ran to the bed and, throwing her arms across the bed-rail, hid her face. Gabriel stood stock-still for a moment in astonishment and then followed her. As he passed in the way of the cheval-glass he caught sight of himself in full length, his broad, well-filled shirt-front, the face whose expression always puzzled him when he saw it in a mirror and his glimmering gilt-rimmed eyeglasses. He halted a few paces from her and said: “What about the song? Why does that make you cry?” She raised her head from her arms and dried her eyes with the back of her hand like a child. A kinder note than he had intended went into his voice. “Why, Gretta?” he asked. “I am thinking about a person long ago who used to sing that song.” “And who was the person long ago?” asked Gabriel, smiling. “It was a person I used to know in Galway when I was living with my grandmother,” she said. The smile passed away from Gabriel’s face. A dull anger began to gather again at the back of his mind and the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his veins. “Someone you were in love with?” he asked ironically. “It was a young boy I used to know,” she answered, “named Michael Furey. He used to sing that song, _The Lass of Aughrim_. He was very delicate.” Gabriel was silent. He did not wish her to think that he was interested in this delicate boy. “I can see him so plainly,” she said after a moment. “Such eyes as he had: big, dark eyes! And such an expression in them—an expression!” “O then, you were in love with him?” said Gabriel. “I used to go out walking with him,” she said, “when I was in Galway.” A thought flew across Gabriel’s mind. “Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?” he said coldly. She looked at him and asked in surprise: “What for?” Her eyes made Gabriel feel awkward. He shrugged his shoulders and said: “How do I know? To see him, perhaps.” She looked away from him along the shaft of light towards the window in silence. “He is dead,” she said at length. “He died when he was only seventeen. Isn’t it a terrible thing to die so young as that?” “What was he?” asked Gabriel, still ironically. “He was in the gasworks,” she said.