Lytham nodded and said to himself, “Yes, there’s Feo and her old scamp of a father and Gilbert Jermyn,—with nothing back from any of them, not even gratitude.” If he had stood in Fallaray’s shoes he would long since have brought an action for divorce against that woman and gone in quest of a girl who understood the rudimentary rules of sportsmanship and the art of give and take. He held in utter contempt the old adage that having made your bed it is necessary to lie upon it. What bosh that was. Wasn’t the town full of beds of every size and price? Sometimes, when he thought of the way in which Fallaray permitted himself to be run and worked and milked and used by his so-called wife and her family, by the Government, by all sorts of societies and even by himself, a huge impatience swept over him and he wanted to cry out, “Fallaray, for God’s sake, kick somebody. Don’t be so damned fair. Give a little consideration to yourself. Don’t always look at everything from everybody else’s point of view. Be selfish for a change.” And yet, all the while, different as he was from Fallaray in nature and character—with that strong streak of ruthlessness which permitted him to climb over the bodies of his opponents—Lytham loved Fallaray and would willingly have blacked his boots. There were moments when, looking into the eyes of his friend, he saw behind them a spirit as pure, as unselfish and as merciful as that of Christ, and he stood back, almost in awe. It was all the more galling, therefore, to see his friend hipped and hedged in by the rotten tricks of his party, by the quick shifting changes of his chief and by the heavy blundering of the other old bad men. How could he stand it? Why didn’t he give it all up, get out, try and find a corner of the earth where people didn’t quarrel and cheat,—and fall in love. He needed, no man more so, the “rustle of silk.” Fallaray was on his own chain of thought. “Hookwood’s line about the Irish leaders,” he said suddenly, “if based on any truth, makes negotiations with them futile. They have got a great deal of American money in their possession,—every Irish servant girl in the United States has been forced by the priests to subscribe to the Sinn Fein funds. We know that. But if, as Hookwood says, the Irish Republican leaders are afraid of an inquiry as to how they have spent or misspent these funds, it stands to reason that they will continue to fight tooth and nail for something which they know they can never get. It’s the only way in which they can maintain a barrier between themselves and disgrace and that brings us back to the beginning. Robert Cecil, Lord Derby, Horace Plunkett, Philip Gibbs and all the rest of us may just as well toss up the sponge. Don’t you think so, Lytham?” “Oh, God,” said Lytham, “I’m sick of the Irish. The mere mention of the name gives me jaundice. A rabble of egomaniacs led by a set of crooks and gunmen who are no longer blessed by the Roman Catholic Church.”