He dare not speak.  She took his silence and his rapt gaze on the little spray of green as token of his admiration of her.

“Perhaps,” she rattled on lightly, “you never heard of Patrick, or if you did, you are inclined to share the modern opinion that ’there never was no sich a person’—­to quote an immortal!  If you were an Irishman I should not dare to whisper such a thing; but a canny Scot could have no regard for Patrick, even should he believe in him ever so much!”

Bernard kept his self-control, though he was deadly pale as he spoke.

“If it is so correct to wear it, you might give me a bit of it.”

Smilingly she complied.  He placed it in his buttonhole with what must have seemed to her elaborate care.  Luckily the curtain rose, and he was free to indulge his thoughts.

Oh, it was almost sacramental—­that tiny sprig!  How it called up dead memories—­memories of the old land, of his dear ones now gone, of his boyhood’s simple faith!

“If you were an Irishman! . . .  Perhaps you never heard of Patrick!” The frivolous words burned his brain.

O God!  Believe in Patrick!  His breath came and went.  He could hardly refrain from pressing his lips to the tiny leaves he was wearing on his breast.

An Irishman, indeed, he was; but how unworthy of the name!  He, a child of that dear land which Patrick’s blessed feet had trodden—­he, a son of that race to whom the saint’s words of grace had made known the Truth—­what was he now?  A renegade!  A false deserter from the ranks of his faithful countrymen!  He had been ashamed of his nationality!  He had ceased to practise or to cherish the faith which Patrick had brought to the Isle of Saints!

The curtain fell upon the second act, and he had to be ready to listen to frivolities and to respond.  He did it with a bad grace, as he well knew.  Indeed, he would gladly have been far away—­hidden in the dark corner of some deserted church, where freely and unrestrainedly he might pour forth penitential tears, and beg forgiveness of the Father he had so wantonly offended.

“How deadly dull you are to-night!” cried his companion.  “I believe Cuthbert Aston, glum as he looks, would have been more entertaining!  What can be the matter with you?”

Her banter failed to provoke the always ready apology—­usually so charmingly proffered.

He could only mutter something about an awful headache; luckily Violet’s attention was drawn for the moment to an acquaintance who caught her eye, and there was a speedy change of subject.  Did he ever see such execrable taste as that girl’s dress?  It was positively hideous!  The colors did not suit either the wearer or each other, etc., etc.

It was a relief when the curtain rose once more.  The music and the action of the piece engrossed the attention of Violet; to Bernard they were God-sent helps.  His mind could range back over the past without restraint, while outwardly he appeared absorbed in the play.