"I wish it was all well over," he said. "I hope the Prime Minister won't be disagreeable to--. It would have been better, much better, if she'd gone to Castle Affey."
"You needn't be a bit afraid of that," I said.
This time I spoke with real assurance. No man living could be disagreeable to Lady Moyne, if she smiled at him. When she left Belfast she was so much in earnest and so anxious, that she would certainly smile her very best at the Prime Minister.
"I don't know," said Moyne. "He may hold her responsible to some extent. And she is, you know. That's the worst of it, she is. We all are."
"Oh, but we are," said Moyne. "I feel that. I wish to goodness we'd never--"
"What I mean is that the Prime Minister won't hold her responsible. After all, Moyne, he's a politician himself. He'll understand."
"But we said--we kept on saying--Babberly and all of us--"
"Don't be a fool," I said. "Of course we said things. Everybody does. But we never intended to do them. Any one accustomed to politics will understand that. I expect the Prime Minister will be particularly civil to Lady Moyne. He'll see the hole she's in."
I went down to the club next morning at about half-past ten o'clock, hoping to see Conroy. He, so I thought, might be able to tell me what was likely to happen during the day. Moyne could tell me nothing. I left him in the hotel, desperately determined to take the chair at any meeting that might be held; but very doubtful about how he was to do it.
The streets were much less obviously martial than they had been the night before. There were no soldiers to be seen. There were only a very few volunteers, and they did not seem to be doing anything particular. The police--there were not even many of them--looked quite peaceable, as if they had no more terrific duties to perform than the regulation of traffic and the arrest of errant drunkards. I began to think that I had accidentally told Moyne the truth the night before. All our warriors seemed to be in bed, exhausted by their marching and counter-marching. I did not even see McConkey with his machine gun. This disappointed me. I thought McConkey was a man of more grit. One night's work ought not to have tired him out.
Clithering was in the club. He, at all events, was still active. Very likely he was caught the night before by some patrolling party and forced to go to bed. Unless he happened to be carrying some sort of certificate of his religious faith in his pocket, Crossan would almost certainly have put him to bed. The moment he saw me he came fussing up to me.