Aunt Judy [indignantly].  As if he hadn’t seen enough o borryin when he was an agent without beginnin borryin himself! [She rises].  I’ll bory him, so I will. [She puts her knitting on the table and follows him out, with a resolute air that bodes trouble for Cornelius].

Larry and Nora are left together for the first time since his arrival.  She looks at him with a smile that perishes as she sees him aimlessly rocking his chair, and reflecting, evidently not about her, with his lips pursed as if he were whistling.  With a catch in her throat she takes up Aunt Judy’s knitting, and makes a pretence of going on with it.

Nora.  I suppose it didn’t seem very long to you.

Larry [starting].  Eh?  What didn’t?

Nora.  The eighteen years you’ve been away.

Larry.  Oh, that!  No:  it seems hardly more than a week.  I’ve been so busy—­had so little time to think.

Nora.  I’ve had nothin else to do but think.

Larry.  That was very bad for you.  Why didn’t you give it up?  Why did you stay here?

Nora.  Because nobody sent for me to go anywhere else, I suppose. 
That’s why.

Larry.  Yes:  one does stick frightfully in the same place, unless some external force comes and routs one out. [He yawns slightly; but as she looks up quickly at him, he pulls himself together and rises with an air of waking up and getting to work cheerfully to make himself agreeable].  And how have you been all this time?

Nora.  Quite well, thank you.

Larry.  That’s right. [Suddenly finding that he has nothing else to say, and being ill at ease in consequence, he strolls about the room humming a certain tune from Offenbach’s Whittington].

Nora [struggling with her tears].  Is that all you have to say to me, Larry?

Larry.  Well, what is there to say?  You see, we know each other so well.

Nora [a little consoled].  Yes:  of course we do. [He does not reply].  I wonder you came back at all.

Larry.  I couldn’t help it. [She looks up affectionately].  Tom made me. [She looks down again quickly to conceal the effect of this blow.  He whistles another stave; then resumes].  I had a sort of dread of returning to Ireland.  I felt somehow that my luck would turn if I came back.  And now here I am, none the worse.

Nora.  Praps it’s a little dull for you.

Larry.  No:  I haven’t exhausted the interest of strolling about the old places and remembering and romancing about them.

Nora [hopefully].  Oh!  You do remember the places, then?

Larry.  Of course.  They have associations.

Nora [not doubting that the associations are with her].  I suppose so.

Larry.  M’yes.  I can remember particular spots where I had long fits of thinking about the countries I meant to get to when I escaped from Ireland.  America and London, and sometimes Rome and the east.