This young man had been strictly brought up by
priests; he had never been out of Ireland except
when he had been to school in Belgium; he was
advised to marry for the apostolic reasons — to avoid
incontinence and to beget children. Whereupon this
gay and pretty Geraldine, willing enough to be a
Countess and to escape from the crowding competi-
tion of home life, with its rather irritating division
and apportionment of dresses, dances, visits, and
other amusements, and equipped with the Catholic
combination of innocence and shame, was thrown to
the lusty young Fastnet as a live rabbit is thrown to
a starving python. Such was her introduction to one
set of the facts of life. The church had terrified
her into obedience and submission, and encouraged
him with the grave sensuality of a Puritan Catholi-
cism: with a result that any civilized society might
look upon with shame, if it had the courage to look
at all.
