"I suppose you're right," said John.

"I am," said Uncle William.

John was the first person to reach the door of the pit that afternoon.

The morning had been rough and bl.u.s.terous, and although the streets were dry, the cold wind blowing down from the hills made people reluctant to stand outside a theatre door. John, who was hardy and indifferent to cold, stood inside the shelter of the door and read the copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ which he had borrowed from his Uncle Matthew; and while he read the play he remembered his uncle's criticism of the story he had written for _Blackwood's Magazine_: that it ought to have had a woman in it! This play was full of love. Romeo, sighing and groaning because his lady will not look kindly upon him, runs from his friends who "jest at scars that never felt a wound" ...

and finds Juliet! In _The Merchant of Venice_, Ba.s.sanio and Portia, Lorenzo and Jessica, Gratiano and Nerissa had all made love.

Even young Gobbo, in a coa.r.s.e, philandering way, had made love, too! In all the books he had read, women were prominent. Queer and distressing things happened to the heroes; they were constantly in trouble and under suspicion of wrong-doing; poverty and persecution were common to them; frequently, they were misunderstood; but in the end, they had their consolations and their rights and rewards. Love was the great predominating element in all these stories, the support and inspiration and reward of the troubled and tortured hero; and Woman was the symbol of victory, of achievement. At the end of every journey, at the finish of every fight, there was a Woman. Uncle Matthew had spoken wisely, John thought, when he said that you cannot leave women out of your schemes and plans.

John had not thought of leaving women out of his schemes and plans. In all his romantic imaginings, a woman of superb beauty had figured in a dim way; but the woman had been a dream woman only, bearing no resemblance whatever to the visible women about him. He had so much regard for this woman of his imagined adventures ... she changed her looks as frequently as he changed the scene of his romances ... that he had no regard left for the women of his acquaintance. He nodded to the girls he knew when he met them in the street, but he had never felt any desire to "go up the road" with one of them. Willie Logan, as John knew, was "coortin' hard" and laying up trouble for himself by his diverse affections; and Aggie Logan, forgetful, perhaps, of the rebuff that John had given to her childish offers of love, had lately taken to hanging about the street when John was due to pa.s.s along it. She would pretend not to see him until he was close to her. Then she would start and giggle and say, "Oh, John, is that you? You're a terrible stranger these days!..." Once while he was listening to her as she made some such remark as that, Lady Castlederry drove by in her carriage, and his eyes wandered from the sallow, giggling girl in front of him to the beautiful woman in the carriage; and Aggie suffered severely by the comparison. And yet Aggie had a quicker and more intelligent look than Lady Castlederry. The beautiful, arrogant woman was like the dream-woman of his romances ... and again, she was not like her; for the dream-women had not got Lady Castlederry's look of settled stupidity in her eyes.

John had hurriedly quitted Aggie's company on that occasion. He knew why Aggie always contrived to meet him in the street, and he thought that she was a poor fool of a girl to do it. And her brother Willie was a "great gumph of a fellow," to go capering up and down the road in the evenings after any girl that would say a civil word to him or laugh when he laughed!...

All the same, women mattered to men. Uncle Matthew had said so, and Uncle Matthew was in the right of it. In the story-books, women surged into the hero's life, good women and bad women and even indifferent women. And, now, in these plays, he could see for himself that women mattered enormously. Yet he had never been in love with a girl! He was not even in love with the dream-woman of his romances. She was his reward for honourable and arduous service ... that was all. He was not in love with her any more than he was in love with a Sunday School prize. It was a reward for regular attendance and for accurate answers to Biblical questions, and he was glad to have it. It rested on the bookshelf in the drawing-room, and sometimes, when there were visitors in the house, his mother would request him to take it down and show it to them. They would read the inscription and make remarks on the oddness of Mr. McCaughan's signature and turn over the pages of the book ... and then they would hand it back to him and he would replace it on the shelf ... and no more was said about it. Really, his dream-woman had not meant much more to him than that. She would be given to him when he had won his fight, and he would take her and be glad to get her ... he would be very proud of her and would exhibit her to his friends and say, "This is my beautiful wife!" and then!... oh, well, there did not appear to be anything else after that. The book always came to an end when the hero married the heroine. Probably she and he had children ... but, beyond the fact that they lived happily ever afterwards, there did not appear to be much more to say about them....

Somehow, it seemed to him now, as he stood in the shelter of the Pit Entrance to the Theatre Royal, reading _Romeo and Juliet_, that the heroine was different from his dream-woman. His dream-woman had always been very insubstantial and remote, but Juliet was a real woman, alive and pa.s.sionate, with a real father and a real mother. The odd thing about his dream-woman was that she did not appear to have any relatives ... at least he had never heard of any. She had not even got a name. She never spoke to him. Always, when the adventure was ended, he went up to the dream-woman, waiting for him in a misty manner, and he took hold of her hand and led her away ... and while he was leading her away, the adventure seemed to come to an end ... the picture dissolved ... and he could not see any more. Once, indeed, he had kissed his dream-woman ... he had kissed her exactly as he had kissed his great-aunt, Miss Clotworthy, who was famous for the fact that she had attended a Sunday School in Belfast as pupil and teacher for fifty-seven years without a break ... and the dream-woman had taken the kiss in the unemotional manner in which she took hold of his hand when he led her away ... and lost her!...

There was something wrong with his dream-woman, he told himself. This man Shakespeare, so everybody said, was the greatest poet England had produced ... perhaps the greatest poet the world had produced ... and he ought to know something of what women were like. Whatever else Juliet might be, she certainly was not like John's dream-woman. She did not stand at the end of the road waiting for Romeo to come to her. She did not wait until the fight was fought and won. She did not offer a cold hand or cold lips to Romeo. Her behaviour was really more like that of Aggie Logan than that of the dream-woman!...

Aggie Logan! That "girner" with the sallow look and the giggle! He could see her now, standing in the street waiting for him, dabbing at her mouth with the foolish handkerchief she always carried in her hand.

What did she want to keep on dabbing at her mouth with her handkerchief for! Men didn't dab at _their_ mouths.... Nor did the dream-woman dab at hers.... But it was just possible ... indeed, it was very likely, that Juliet dabbed at hers!...

At that moment, the Pit Door opened, and John, having paid his shilling, pa.s.sed into the theatre.

III

He came away from the play in a disturbed and exalted state. Suddenly and compellingly, he had become aware of the fact of Women. While he sat in the front row of the pit, listening with his whole body to the play, something stirred in him and he became aware of Women. The actress who played the part of Juliet had turned towards the audience for a few moments during the performance and, so it seemed to him, had looked straight into his eyes. She did not avert her gaze immediately, nor did he avert his. He imagined that she was appealing to him ... he forgot that he was sitting in the pit of a theatre listening to a play written by a man who had died three hundred years ago ... and remembered only that he was a young man with aspirations and romantic longings, and that a young woman, in a pitiable plight, was gazing into his eyes ... and his heart reached out to her. He drew in his breath quickly, murmuring a soft "Oh," and as he did so, his dream-woman fell dead and he did not even turn to look at her.

When the play was over, he had sat still in his seat, more deeply moved than he had ever been before, overwhelmed by the disaster which had come upon the young lovers through the foolish brawls of their foolish elders; and it was not until an impatient woman had prodded him in the side that he returned to reality.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am!" he said and got up and hurried out of the theatre into the street.

He went along High Street towards Castle Place, and as he walked along, he regarded each woman and girl that approached him with interest.

"That one's nice-looking!" he said of a girl, and "That one's ugly!" he said of another. He wondered why it was that all the older women of the working-cla.s.s were so misshapen and lacking in good looks, when so many of the girls of the working-cla.s.s were shapely and pretty. Mr.

Cairnduff had told him that Belfast girls were prettier than London girls. "London girls aren't pretty at all," Mr. Cairnduff had said.

"You'd walk miles in London before you'd see a pretty girl, but you wouldn't walk ten yards in Belfast before you'd meet dozens!" And yet, all those pretty working-girls grew into dull, misshapen, displeasing women. "It's getting married that does it, I suppose," he said to himself. "They were all nice once, but they married and grew ugly!"

He did not look long at the ugly and misshapen women. His eyes quickly searched through the crowds of pa.s.sers-by for the pretty girls, and at them he looked with eagerness.

"There's no doubt about it," he said to himself, "girls are nice to look at!"

He found a restaurant in the street off High Street. He climbed up some stairs, and then, pushing a door open, entered a large room, at the back of which was a smaller room. A girl was standing at a window, looking out on to the street, but she turned her head when she heard him entering. She smiled pleasantly as he sat down, and came forward to take his order.

"It's turned out a brave day after all," she said.

He said "Aye" and smiled at her in return. She had thick, fair hair, and he remembered Ba.s.sanio's description of Portia:

_And her sunny locks Hang on her temples like a golden fleece._

He had a curious desire to talk to the girl about the play he had just seen, and before he gave his order, he glanced about the room. She and he were the only persons in it.

"You don't seem to be very busy," he said.

"Och, indeed, we're not," she replied. "We seldom are on a Sat.u.r.day.

Mrs. Bothwall ... her that owns the place ... thought mebbe some football fellows might come here for their tea after the matches so's they needn't go home before starting for the Empire or the Alhambra: but, sure, none of them ever comes. We might as well be shut for the custom we get!"

He ordered his tea, and she went to the small room at the back of the large room to prepare it. He thought it would be a good plan to ask the girl if she would care to have her tea with him, but a sudden shyness prevented him from doing so, and he was unable to say more than "Thank you" when she put the teapot by his side. There was plenty for two on the table, he said to himself: a loaf and a bap and some soda-farls and a potato cake and the half of a barn-brack and b.u.t.ter and raspberry jam. He looked across the room to where the girl was again looking out of the window. He liked the way she stood, with one hand resting on her hip and the other on her cheek. He could see that she had small feet and slender ankles, and while he looked at her, she rubbed her foot against her leg and he saw for a moment or two the flash of a white petticoat....

"I was at the Royal the day!" he called to her.

She turned round quickly. "Were you?" she said. "Was it good?"

"It was grand. I enjoyed it the best," he answered.

She came towards him and sat down at a table near to his. "What piece was it you saw?" she asked. "It's Benson's Company, isn't it?"

"Yes. I saw _Romeo and Juliet_."

"Oh, that's an awful sad piece. I cried my eyes out one year when I saw it!"

"It's a great play," John said.

"I suppose you often go?" she went on.

"Last Sat.u.r.day was the first time I ever went to a theatre. I saw _The Merchant of Venice_. I'll go every Sat.u.r.day after this, when there's a good piece on. I'm going again to-night to see _Julius Caesar!_"

"I'd love to see that piece!"

"Would you?"

"Aye, indeed I would. I'm just doting on the theatre. The last piece I saw was _The Lights of London_. It was lovely."

"I never saw that bit," John answered. "You see I live in Ballyards and I only come up to town on Sat.u.r.days."

"By your lone?" she asked.

He nodded his head. He poured out his tea, and then began to spread b.u.t.ter on a piece of soda-farl.

"I'd be awful dull walking the streets by myself," she said, watching him as he did so. "I'm a terrible one for company. I can't bear being by myself!"

"Company's good," he said. "Have you had your tea yet?"

"I'll be having it in a wee while!"

"I wish you'd have it with me!" He spoke hesitatingly.

"Oh, I couldn't!" she exclaimed.