—­Admit that Byron was no good.

—­No.

—­Admit.

—­No.

—­Admit.

—­No.  No.

At last after a fury of plunges he wrenched himself free.  His tormentors set off towards Jones’s Road, laughing and jeering at him, while he, half blinded with tears, stumbled on, clenching his fists madly and sobbing.

While he was still repeating the confiteor amid the indulgent laughter of his hearers and while the scenes of that malignant episode were still passing sharply and swiftly before his mind he wondered why he bore no malice now to those who had tormented him.  He had not forgotten a whit of their cowardice and cruelty but the memory of it called forth no anger from him.  All the descriptions of fierce love and hatred which he had met in books had seemed to him therefore unreal.  Even that night as he stumbled homewards along Jones’s Road he had felt that some power was divesting him of that sudden-woven anger as easily as a fruit is divested of its soft ripe peel.

He remained standing with his two companions at the end of the shed listening idly to their talk or to the bursts of applause in the theatre.  She was sitting there among the others perhaps waiting for him to appear.  He tried to recall her appearance but could not.  He could remember only that she had worn a shawl about her head like a cowl and that her dark eyes had invited and unnerved him.  He wondered had he been in her thoughts as she had been in his.  Then in the dark and unseen by the other two he rested the tips of the fingers of one hand upon the palm of the other hand, scarcely touching it lightly.  But the pressure of her fingers had been lighter and steadier:  and suddenly the memory of their touch traversed his brain and body like an invisible wave.

A boy came towards them, running along under the shed.  He was excited and breathless.

—­O, Dedalus, he cried, Doyle is in a great bake about you.  You’re to go in at once and get dressed for the play.  Hurry up, you better.

—­He’s coming now, said Heron to the messenger with a haughty drawl, when he wants to.

The boy turned to Heron and repeated: 

—­But Doyle is in an awful bake.

—­Will you tell Doyle with my best compliments that I damned his eyes? answered Heron.

—­Well, I must go now, said Stephen, who cared little for such points of honour.

—­I wouldn’t, said Heron, damn me if I would.  That’s no way to send for one of the senior boys.  In a bake, indeed!  I think it’s quite enough that you’re taking a part in his bally old play.