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3 68 Sean O'Faolain
none of that," and he said, "All right, Madgie, none of that," and
there wasn't any of that, father.'
She stared at the canon, who was blowing and puffing and shak-
ing his head as if the whole world were suddenly gone mad.
'It was no harm, father,' she wailed, seeing he did not believe her.
'Once?' asked the canon shortly. 'You did this once?'
'Yes, father.'
'Are you sorry for it?' he demanded briefly.
'If it was a sin. Was it, father?'
'It was,' he roared. 'People can't be allowed to do this kind of
thing. It was a serious occasion of sin. Anything might have hap-
pened. Are you sorry?' - and he wondered if he should throw her
out of the box again.
'I'm sorry, father.'
'Tell me a sin of your past life.'
'The apple in the orchard, father.'
'Say an Act of Contrition.'
She ran through it swiftly, staring at him all the while. There
were beads of perspiration on her upper lip.
'Say three Rosarys for your penance.'
He shot the slide to and sank back, worn out. From force of
habit he drew the opposite slide and at once he got the sweet scent
of jasmine, but when Lady Nolan-White was in the middle of her
Confiteor
he waved his two hands madly in the air and said, has-
tily:
'Excuse me, one moment . . . I can't . . . It's all absurd . . . It's
impossible. . . .'
And he drew the slide on her astonished, beautiful, rouged face.
He put on his biretta, low down on his nose, and stalked out into
the aisle. He parted the curtains on Lady Nolan-White and said:
'It's quite impossible. . . . You don't understand it. . . . Good
night!'
He stalked up the dim aisle, and when he met two urchins gos-
siping in a corner he banged their little skulls together, and at once
he became disgusted with himself to see them cowering from him
in fright. He passed on, his hand under the tail of his surplice, danc-
ing it up and down. When he saw two old women by the great
Calvary, rubbing spittle into the Magdalen's foot and then rubbing
the spittle to their eyes or throat, he groaned out, 'Oh, dear, oh
dear,' and strode on towards Father Deeley's box. There he counted
Sinners
3 69
heads — fourteen penitents on one side and twelve on the other,
looked at his gold watch and saw it was a quarter-past eight.
He strode back to the centre compartment and flung aside the
curtains. Out of the dimness the warm, cherubic face of the young
curate looked at him - a pink Italian saint. Slowly the glow of
spiritual elevation died from his face as the canon's insistent whis-
per hissed down at him:
'Father Deeley, it won't do. I assure you it's absolutely impos-
sible. Half-past eight and twenty-six people yet to hear confession.
They're just deceiving you. They want to gabble. I am an old man
and I understand them. Think of the sacristan. Electric light, too!
And gas going until midnight. The organization of the Church . . .'
And so on. All the time he kept stretching and relaxing the me-
chanical bow of his genteel smile, and he spoke in the most polite
voice. But Deeley's face grew troubled, and pained, and seeing it
the canon groaned inwardly. He remembered a curate he had once
who played the organ every day for hours on end, until the parish-
ioners complained that they couldn't pray with the noise he made;
the canon recalled how he had gone up into the loft to ask him to
stop, and the curate had lifted to him a face like an angel, and how
within one half-minute it had become the face of a cruel, bitter
old man.
'All right, Father Deeley,' he said hastily, forestalling protests.
'You are young. I know. Still, you are young. . . .'
'I am not young,' hissed Deeley furiously. 'I know my duty. It's a
matter of conscience. I can sit in the dark if you are so mean that
you . . . '
'All right, all right, all right,' waved the canon, smiling furiously.
'We are all old nowadays. Experience counts for nothing . . . '
'Canon,' said Deeley, intensely, putting his two fists on his chest,
'when I was in the seminary, I used to say to myself, "Deeley," I
used to say, "when you are a priest. . . " '
'Oh,' begged the canon, cracking his face in a smile, 'don't, I beg
you, please don't tell me your life-story!'
Whereupon he whirled away, his head in the air, switching on
and off the electric light of his smile to penitents he did not know
and had never seen in his life before. He found himself before the
high altar. He saw the sacristan standing on a step-ladder before it
arranging the flowers for the morning, and he thought it would be
well to apologize to him for Deeley's late hours, but the sacristan
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