“Do you think she would mind so very much? After all, Frances is not her daughter.”
“The point is that she has not been asked. I really think she has a right to be told, before there is any question of anything so definite as receiving regular instructions.”
“Oh, Ludovic, my dear boy! I wish I could get you to look at it as I do. The gain of a soul, you know.”
“The end justifies the means,” quoted Ludovic, shaking his head and unable to help laughing. “Mother dear, may I talk to her about it?”
“To Frances? Oh yes, dear, I wish you would. I assure you that it’s most edifying to see the graces that child has already been given—she seems to believe by instinct, as it were. Perhaps,” said Lady Argent with a sort of melancholy hopefulness, “she may be able to show you things in quite a new light.”
Ludovic was inclined to think this contingency a remote one, and it did not deter him from seeking a conversation with Frances Grantham.
Something unexpectedly flintlike in the quality of her determination came upon him as a surprise.
“I am going to tell Cousin Bertie all about it,” she said quietly. “She and Cousin Frederick have the right to be told, but they have not the right to stop me from following my own conscience. I am going to become a Catholic as soon as Father Anselm thinks me sufficiently instructed.”
“And when will that be?”
“He thought in about six or eight months, perhaps. But he wants to see me again before then.”