CHAPTER LI “I want to go up to Belfast to-day,” I said to my father next morning at breakfast. His reply was exactly the one I had anticipated. “What do you want to go to Belfast for?” “I want to see Owen about something.” “Hadn’t you a whole fortnight when you saw him every day?” “I want to speak to him,” I answered, very low-spiritedly. I knew he was thinking of the railway-fare, and if I had had any money myself I should never have asked him. “Can’t you write?” he demanded, querulously. “I want to speak to him.” “Don’t go on repeating the same thing like a child.” “But why can’t I go?” I asked helplessly. “Because it is a waste of money.” “It will only cost five shillings.” “Five shillings is a great deal too much to spend upon nothing.” “It isn’t nothing. I want to speak to him. I never asked to go before.” “You’ll be seeing him very soon――in another fortnight――and you will have plenty of time to talk to him then.” “I want to speak to him now,” I persisted. “Can’t I go?” “Peter, you are dreadfully obstinate. What do you want to see him about that won’t keep for a few days?” “I sent him a telegram before breakfast, asking him to meet me, and I can’t very well not go.” “It is your own fault if you do things without consulting me.” Nevertheless, in the end, he allowed me to go, and I caught the first train. I had asked Owen to meet me in the Botanic Gardens, for I did not want to call at his house, and, as I arrived some few minutes before the appointed time, I began to pace disconsolately up and down one of the paths, my head filled with dreary thoughts. Two or three gardeners with long rakes were raking the walks, and a man with a pair of clippers was trimming the edges of the grass. As they pottered over their work they carried on a disjointed conversation, principally about religion, or rather about the evils of Roman Catholicism. I listened to their idiotic remarks, which at another time might have amused me. The man with the clippers was describing some form of service which he called “High Rosary,” and the rakers from time to time interpolated words and grunts. A few little boys were playing hide-and-seek, and now and then a nurse passed, wheeling a perambulator. An old pensioner, sucking an empty pipe, hobbled up to the seat I had taken a corner of, though all the others were vacant, and began with much fumbling to unfold a greasy-looking newspaper. The sight of his futile senility somehow irritated me, and I stared at him fiercely, but he sat on. I began to think that perhaps Owen would not come: for all I knew he might be away from home. Two or three untidy, vulgar, little girls, with smaller brothers and sisters in tow, came up to inquire “the right time.” After I had satisfied their curiosity they still hovered near me, gazing at me in a silence that it was difficult to construe as flattering. At a distance of three or four yards they then settled down stolidly to some