"I don't think it would be for me. I'm almost sure I'm not like that—if I can be sure of anything about myself. Perhaps I can't! But you described the place as if it were a sort of paradise—and all the Riviera. You said you would go back in the spring with your father. You didn't seem to think it wicked and dangerous for yourself."
"Monte Carlo isn't any more wicked than other places, and it's dangerous only for born gamblers," Peter argued. "I'm not one. Neither is my father, except in Wall Street. He plays a little for fun, that's all. And my cousin Jim Schuyler never goes near the Casino except for a concert or the opera. But you—all alone there—you who know no more of life than a baby! It doesn't bear thinking of."
"Don't think of it," said Mary, rather dryly. "I have no idea of going to Monte Carlo."
"Thank goodness! Well, I only wanted to be sure. I couldn't help worrying. Because, if anything had drawn you there, it would have been my fault. You would hardly have heard of Monte Carlo if it hadn't been for my stories. A cloistered saint like you!"
"Is that the way you think of me in these days?" The novice blushed and smiled, showing her friendly dimples. "I wish I felt a saint."
"You are one. And yet"—Peter gazed at her with sudden keenness—"I don't believe you were made to be a saint. It's the years here that have moulded you into what you are. But, there's something different underneath."
"Nothing very bad, I hope?" Mary looked actually frightened, as if she did not know herself, and feared an unfavourable opinion, which might be true.
"No, indeed. But different—quite a different You from what any of us, even yourself, have ever seen. It will come out. Life will bring it out."
"You talk," said Mary, "as if you were older than I."
"So I am, in every way except years, and they count least. Oh, Mary, how I do wish I were going with you!"