“It was a marvelous day,” Martin said. “I never forgot what Delia’s Aunt Mag said to me. Do you remember — she said the air was like mother o’ pearl. Wasn’t that a funny thing for an old country woman to say? I wonder what put a thought like that in her head. ‘The air is like mother o’ pearl today,’ she said, looking at me as though we were the same age and had known each other all our lives.”

“She didn’t look at me that way,” Min said. “But I remember her saying that. She was a bit affected, I think — inclined to talk above herself. I didn’t care for her. Something about her made me very uneasy.”

“Ah, no,” Martin said. “Delia was very fond of her.”

“Oh, Delia,” Min said impatiently. “Delia said the first thing that came into her head. You told her so often enough, to her face, with me sitting here in this room listening to you barging at her. She couldn’t open her mouth to suit you. There was no harm in Delia, but she never knew what she said. Half the time she made no sense. There was nothing to Delia.”

The minute she finished speaking, she was sorry. She didn’t want to start a row. But Martin was silent, and then he said, “Nothing to Delia. That’s true. I never thought that. But as Shakespeare says, It’s true. It’s true, it’s a pity, and pity ’tis it’s true. Nothing to Delia. Shakespeare was right that time.”

“Shakespeare didn’t say it. I said it,” Min cried furiously.

“You or Shakespeare, what matter now. It’s true, there was nothing to Delia. Wasn’t she a lovely girl, though.”

“Are you going to make a song out of it?” Min said. “What’s got into you, Martin?”

She looked at him sitting across the hearth from her. His snow white curls floated on his head. His narrow face was the same shape as her own face. His blue eyes watched her through his rimless spectacles, and he smiled easily, as though they were discussing something pleasant from the past. She thought of Clare singing “You stick to the boats, lads …” that morning when she was being driven off in the car that took her to the asylum. They told Min later that Clare stopped singing quick enough when she saw where she was going. Min wondered if the queer strain that was in Clare had touched Martin, and she was glad that she herself was free of it. Martin seemed to follow her thoughts.

“You put poor Clare into the asylum,” he said gently.

“She was off her head, driving us all to distraction, trying to give the house away!” Min said indignantly. “What help were you, up here in Dublin, away from all the unpleasantness?”