Captains and the Kings

  He had always thought of Regina as a young princess, tall and stately and serene, always ready with a look or touch of sympathy, always gazing at her brother with great dark blue eyes which swam with radiance and affection. Now, he thought, it is always Joe, Joe, Joe, as if he were a member of the Trinity, Itself, instead of a rough brute of a man without any of the amenities and with the face of a boulder that has stared at the sky relentlessly for ages. He always frightened me half to death, even at his best. No finer feelings, no subtleties, no eye except for money, money, money. Scan absently fingered the goldpieces in his own pocket and forgot who had given them to him. Sighing, he went into one of the noble parlors-now called the music room-and sat down at the piano and played to console himself and ease the misery of his own dejection. Soon the delectable notes of Debussy dashed at the gilded paneled walls like bright water, and sparkled in the air and sang like fountains in the sun. Finally, feeling much happier, Scan's fingers rippled gayly on the board and he threw back his head and sang joyously, hardly conscious of the words but only of the music: "They're hanging men and women for the wearing of the Green!" He heard a cough and looked up, smiling, to see Timothy Dineen standing near him. His hands fell from the keys. "Pretty song, isn't it?" asked Timothy. Scan began to laugh his light laugh but something in Timothy's face startled him, and again he was baffled. Everyone was very strange this morning. "I had two uncles who were hanged, and a young aunt," said Timothy, "for that very 'wearing of the green,' in Ireland. Somehow, I don't find it very amusing."