He thought of her now.
“Mother,” he demanded abruptly, “let me know how it stands. Has she taken any vows yet?”
“Oh no. This was only her prise d’habit. She gets her religious name, you know, and all her hair is cut off—not that the Prior really did cut it with those blunt old scissors under her veil—quite impossible. It must have been properly done afterwards.”
“Then she could still change her mind?”
“Yes, if she wanted to. She won’t take even her first vows for another year, and then they’ll only be temporary ones. The Church is very prudent in these matters, Ludovic.”
“I dare say,” said Ludovic, with no marked conviction in his tones.
“Well, at all events, she’s not bound herself down yet, and she’s very young. Would there be any difficulty about her coming away if she wanted to?”
“Of course not, my dear boy. Don’t suggest anything so preposterous. Anybody would think,” said Lady Argent plaintively, “that you were like Sir Walter Scott or somebody dreadful of that kind, who always wrote as though the Church was a most barbarous institution, and convents and monasteries only good for extermination. Of course they would let Frances go in a minute if she wasn’t happy. It’s a question of vocation.”
“Well,” said Ludovic hopefully, “there’s still a chance, then, that she may find she’s mistaken her vocation.”
“Yes,” said Lady Argent reluctantly, “and I’m afraid that Rosamund is building on that. She keeps saying: ‘It can’t last—it’s only a phase. Francie will come away again.’ But, indeed, Ludovic, I don’t think she will.”