"Yesterday was my birthday."
"Funny kind of celebration."
Marise looked at him across an immense chasm, and said nothing. She couldn't ever remember having a meal at a table alone with Papa before.
"Don't you want to go with me?" he asked later, as the dessert was served. "I don't know how to find my way around a convent—of all places! Whatever possessed your Mama to go there anyhow?"
"She and Sœur Ste. Lucie are such good friends," explained Marise. She decided not to say anything about the old monk, because she didn't know whether Papa knew about Maman's going to see him before; but after thinking for an instant she decided that it would do no harm to add, "Sœur Ste. Lucie wants Mama to be a Catholic, you know."
Papa said quickly, "What's that?"
Marise was surprised at his tone. Perhaps that was one of the things she oughtn't to tell about. "Why, would you mind if she did?" she asked.
Papa thought for a moment, and dropped back into his usual slow casual comment, "Oh, no, I guess not, if she wants to." There was a silence broken by Papa's saying something else, in an earnest tone as though this time he really wanted Marise to listen to him. "All I ever want, Molly, is for Mama to have things the way she wants them."
Marise's heart was nervously sensitive that day, in a sick responsiveness to the faintest indication of what was in other people's hearts.
She could not put another morsel of food to her lips. She sat looking down at her plate, trying to master or at least understand the surge of feeling within her. "All I ever want is for Mama to have things the way she wants them." There was so much to think of in that, that she was still lost in thinking, when Papa pushed back his chair and got up, pulling down his vest, with his usual after-dinner gesture.