He cast about for a minute how to answer. What did she mean? What was she driving at? Who had been putting notions into her mind? Was it Honor, or who? That his wisest course would have been to be a little affectionate to her; to have appealed to her affection for him; to have put his arms round her; nay, if so wild, so utterly unprecedented a course had proved necessary, to have actually gone so far as to kiss her; that _this_ was what she wished, what she was waiting for, he did not know in the least. It was a great pity there was no one at hand to tell him so, for he was really an exceedingly intelligent young man, quick to take a hint, and would doubtless have essayed even this unpractical method of argument had he known it to be the one most likely to succeed under the circumstances. He was by this time very much in earnest, and had no idea of being in his turn made a _baulyore_ of, as she had said, and a laughing-stock before all Inishmaan. He did not know it, however, and the result was that natural annoyance prompted him to take up quite a different line, one not nearly so well calculated to be successful. It was an error of judgment, but to such errors even intelligent people are occasionally liable. ‘Begorra, this is grand news you have for me this evening, Grania O’Malley, so it is!’ he exclaimed, with a loud laugh, though his face was red, and an angry look in his eyes betrayed some lack of indifference. ‘Grand news, glory be to God, and ’tis myself is obliged to you for telling it to me! And who is it that you’re going to take up with, now you’ve given me the go-by, if you’ll be so polite as to tell me? ’Tis some rich gentleman over from the Continent, I’ll be bound, that you have been putting your _comether_ upon, or, may be, a lord from Dublin? Gorra, ’tis the proud place Inishmaan will be when it sees him coming to carry you off! my faith, yes; the proud place and the proud people we’ll be, every one of us! Sure, how could a poor young fellow like myself have any chance with you, so grand and so proud as you’ll be? Musha, it’s not Irish will do you then to speak, I suppose, but the best of fine scholar’s English, and a grand house with a slate roof on it you’ll have no doubt to live in, and a servant, please God, or maybe two, to wait on you. Och, glory! glory! it _will_ be the great day for Inishmaan when Grania O’Malley is seen sailing off with her new husband the lord from Dublin! _Wurrah! Wurrah!_ the grand day, please God, and no mistake.’