Now the two of you are outside, sitting on the stone steps of another grand building whose purpose you do not know. Merle – that is her name – is giving her opinions of various things, with a conspicuously un-Irish candour. Some of this candour is charming, for instance when she notes that the moonlight on the cobblestones is very beautiful – an observation, it saddens you to realize, that no one you know, including yourself, would ever make out loud.
