But after luncheon was over and Nina had smoked two cigarettes, with an air of detachment that made the act seem almost saintly, Ludovic left Lady Argent and Frances to entertain their guest unaided.
“Talk to me,” said Nina gently, turning her enormous eyes on her hostess, “talk to me a little of your wonderful Faith. I have heard so much of you—and of it—from my little Francie, and I feel she must have told you that I, too, am a seeker after truth; things of this world mean so little—oh, so little!—in comparison with the eternal quest.”
Receiving no immediate response but the slight bewilderment slowly becoming apparent on Lady Argent’s face, Nina glided on her conversational way with much discretion:
“Such things are not to be talked about, are they? They go too deep. One understands. My own reserve has always been rather a proverb; but somehow in this sort of atmosphere—well, it’s deep calling to deep, isn’t it, rather?”
She laughed a very little, with a perceptible undercurrent of agitation.
“You’ll let me talk to you quite frankly, won’t you?” she asked, with an appealing look at Lady Argent. “It’s so seldom one has the impulse—and my life has been a very lonely one. Oh, I have my boy, of course—but, then, what does the younger generation give? Nothing. They can give us nothing—in the nature of things. It’s all taking on their side, and sacrifice on ours. One would hardly have it otherwise—but—— Little Frances knows that I don’t mean her—she is my little comfort.” Nina tendered a reassuring, if rather absentminded, hand to her little comfort, who received it rather perfunctorily, and released it a good deal sooner than its owner expected.
“My son has always been a companion to me since he was a child,” said Lady Argent firmly; “and as for sacrifices, I’ve always felt them to be on his side, if there were any, since he might have been so much more in touch with things, living in London—he writes, you know—only my tiresome asthma is so troublesome there, and he won’t hear of leaving me. Not that it is a sacrifice, since he would much rather be with me here, than without me anywhere else,” she concluded simply.
“How very, very wonderful and beautiful such a relationship is,” breathed Nina reverently. “Morris and I are all the world to one another, but he is very, very young—young for his age, as well—and perhaps the very young shrink a little from an atmosphere of sadness. You see I have been all alone for a number of years now. I married very, very young—a child—and then I was left, with——”
Before Nina had reached the looming allusion to a child with only a star to guide her, Frances rose quickly and glided from the room, rather to the relief of Mrs. Severing, who was becoming increasingly aware of her protégée’s startled eyes at various new aspects of a recital which she had supposed she knew by heart.
“That is a very pure, sweet little soul,” said Nina as the door shut, after the invariable rule which causes minds of a certain calibre instantly to adopt as subject of conversation whoever has most recently left the room.