“Let me take her!” suddenly exclaimed Nina, with an air of self-abnegation. “I have been thinking of making a Retreat for some time.”
Bertha was as well aware as Nina herself that “some time” only covered the last five seconds of time, but the advantages of Nina’s suggestion were too obvious for her to point out any flaws in the proposal.
“But, my dear, should you like it? A whole week at a place of that sort, and nothing on earth to do!”
“To ‘make my soul,’ Bertie. It would be such a rest—such a help. Not the teachings and sermonizings, you know, but quiet hours to myself in the garden and the chapel, a little time to read and meditate....”
“I don’t understand you, Nina. You don’t mean to become a Roman Catholic, so what’s the fun of dabbling in it?”
Nina understood that the unnecessary bluntness in her friend’s phraseology had been brought there by a certain rapt dreaminess of which she was fully conscious in her own expression.
“Dear Bertie,” she said softly, “it is quite true that I can’t be bound by any of the conventional laws of religion, but mayn’t I seek comfort where I can best find it?”
Bertha became, if possible, more matter-of-fact than before, in antagonistic contrast to this soulful appeal.
“You know they charge for your board and lodging at these places?”
Nina’s tinkling laugh pealed protestingly.