Page 93 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

A shaft of momentary anger flew through Stephen’s mind
at these indelicate allusions in the hearing of a stranger.
For him there was nothing amusing in a girl’s interest and
regard. All day he had thought of nothing but their leave-
taking on the steps of the tram at Harold’s Cross, the stream
of moody emotions it had made to course through him and
the poem he had written about it. All day he had imagined
a new meeting with her for he knew that she was to come
to the play. The old restless moodiness had again filled his
breast as it had done on the night of the party, but had not
found an outlet in verse. The growth and knowledge of two
years of boyhood stood between then and now, forbidding
such an outlet: and all day the stream of gloomy tender-
ness within him had started forth and returned upon itself
in dark courses and eddies, wearying him in the end until
the pleasantry of the prefect and the painted little boy had
drawn from him a movement of impatience.
—So you may as well admit, Heron went on, that we’ve
fairly found you out this time. You can’t play the saint on me
any more, that’s one sure five.
A soft peal of mirthless laughter escaped from his lips
and, bending down as before, he struck Stephen lightly
across the calf of the leg with his cane, as if in jesting re-
proof.
Stephen’s moment of anger had already passed. He was
neither flattered nor confused, but simply wished the banter
to end. He scarcely resented what had seemed to him a silly
indelicateness for he knew that the adventure in his mind
stood in no danger from these words: and his face mirrored

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