“So you’ll pay it, Eddy. You’ll pay it. You’ll have to pay more than you know, before you’ve done with love. I wonder will you have to pay your very soul away? Many people have to do that; pay away their own inmost selves, the things in them they care for most, their secret dreams. ‘I have laid my dreams under your feet. Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.’... It’s like that so often; and then she--or he--doesn’t always tread softly; they may tread heavily, the way the dreams break and die. Still, it’s worth it....” She fell into silence, brooding with bent head and locked hands. Then she roused herself, and said cheerfully, “You may say just what you like, Eddy, but I’m not going to spoil your life any more. That’s gone on too long already. If it was only by way of saying thank you, I would stop it now. For you’ve been a lot of use to me, you know. I don’t think I could easily tell you how much. I’m not going to try; only I _am_ going to do what I can to help you patch up your affairs that you’ve muddled so. So you go to Molly directly you get home, and make her marry you. And you’ll pay the price she asks, and you’ll go on, both of you, paying it and paying it, more and more of it, as long as you both live.” “She won’t have me,” said Eddy. “No one would have me, I should think. Why should they? I’m nothing. Everyone else is something; but I’m nothing. I can do nothing, and be nothing. I am a mere muddle. Why should Molly, who is straight and simple and direct, marry a muddle?” “Because,” said Eileen, “she cares for it. And she’ll probably straighten it out a bit; that’s what I mean, partly, by the price ... you’ll have to become straight and simple and direct too, I wouldn’t wonder, in the end. You may die a Tory country gentleman, no less, saying, ‘To hell with these Socialist thieves’--no, that’s the horrid language we use in Ireland alone isn’t it, but I wouldn’t wonder if the English squires meant the same. Or you might become equally simple and direct in another direction, and say, ‘Down with the landed tyrants,’ only Molly wouldn’t like that so well. But it’ll be a wonder if you don’t, once you’re married to Molly, have to throw overboard a few creeds, as well as a few people. Anyhow, that’s not your business now. What you’ve got to do now is to get your health again and go down to Welchester and talk to Molly the way she’ll see reason.... And now I must go. Your mother doesn’t care for me to be here, but I had to come this once; it’s never again, you can tell her that.” Eddy sat up and frowned. “Don’t go on like that, Eileen. I’ve not the least intention of having my friendships broken for me like this. If Molly ever marries me--only she won’t--it will be to take my friends; that is certain.” She shook her head and smiled down on him as she rose.