“Just what I think. She must go straight ahead and follow her conscience in spite——”
The door-handle turned from outside.
“Who is there?” almost shouted Mrs. Mulholland in truculent accents.
“It is I. Mère Pauline.”
The small, trenchant voice fell like a douche of cold water on the agitation within. Mrs. Mulholland, in some strange way, seemed to Bertha to crumple up under the severely inquiring gaze of the little French Superior.
“What is all this?”
“A most unjustifiable piece of interference on the part of this person,” said Mrs. Tregaskis, in no uncertain accents. “She appears to think herself called upon to give me advice about the child I’ve brought up.”
The corners of Mère Pauline’s little mouth closed more firmly, and she turned an inquiring gaze through her spectacles on to Mrs. Mulholland, whose face was now suffused. She had the angry, confused aspect of a child detected in naughtiness.
“Well, well, ma Mère, I may have exceeded my rights a little in what I said. I know very well I’m apt to get excited when it’s a question of gaining a soul for God——”
“I think you ’ave exceeded them very considerably,” said Mère Pauline with perfect candour. “It was not your business.”