Page 89 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

swaying their baskets of paper violets and curtsying. In a
dark corner of the chapel at the gospel side of the altar a
stout old lady knelt amid her copious black skirts. When she
stood up a pink-dressed figure, wearing a curly golden wig
and an old-fashioned straw sunbonnet, with black pencilled
eyebrows and cheeks delicately rouged and powdered, was
discovered. A low murmur of curiosity ran round the cha-
pel at the discovery of this girlish figure. One of the prefects,
smiling and nodding his head, approached the dark corner
and, having bowed to the stout old lady, said pleasantly:
—Is this a beautiful young lady or a doll that you have
here, Mrs Tallon?
Then, bending down to peer at the smiling painted face
under the leaf of the bonnet, he exclaimed:
—No! Upon my word I believe it’s little Bertie Tallon af-
ter all!
Stephen at his post by the window heard the old lady and
the priest laugh together and heard the boys’ murmurs of
admiration behind him as they passed forward to see the
little boy who had to dance the sunbonnet dance by himself.
A movement of impatience escaped him. He let the edge of
the blind fall and, stepping down from the bench on which
he had been standing, walked out of the chapel.
He passed out of the schoolhouse and halted under
the shed that flanked the garden. From the theatre oppo-
site came the muffled noise of the audience and sudden
brazen clashes of the soldiers’ band. The light spread up-
wards from the glass roof making the theatre seem a festive
ark, anchored among the hulks of houses, her frail cables

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