She gave a stammering, halting summary of reasons, which sounded curiously unconvincing even to her own ears, for wishing to become a Catholic as soon as possible. Even the attentive silence, punctuated by quiet movements of the head, in which Bertha listened to her, seemed to add to the sense of pitiful inadequacy overwhelming her.
She knew that her uneloquent, shakily-spoken sentences gave no hint of the passionate convictions and determinations seething within her.
“Will you talk to Father Anselm—the Prior, you know—or to Mère Pauline?” she ended desperately.
“Certainly I will,” said Bertha promptly. “I had already meant to do so, my child, since these people have taken a very big responsibility on themselves in persuading you to leave your own Church before you’re even old enough to know what you’re doing. They’ve got to render a very strict account of it to me, too.”
“Cousin Bertie, there’s one thing,” said Frances, flushing scarlet. “By rights, the Catholic Church ought to be my own Church, because my mother was one, and if—if the rules and things had been as strict then as they are now, Rosamund and I would have had to be baptized Catholics.”
Bertha responded instantly:
“That’s quite true, Francie, and it’s because of that, and because we know that your dear mother belonged to that Faith, that Cousin Frederick and I are allowing you so much latitude. You see, darling, if Hazel had taken this turn, we should have forbidden it outright until she was at least twenty-one—but it’s not quite the same thing where you’re concerned.”
“Oh, Cousin Bertie, how kind and understanding you are!”
“Ah, the dull old people with Experience behind them do sometimes understand, don’t they?” asked Bertha playfully. “Well, now, what about a chat with the Reverend Mother Superior and all these good people? Can I see any of them?”
“I expect so,” said Frances, glad to think that her cause should be transferred to better hands than her own.