Her son left the room in a fury.
That night at dinner he refused several courses with an air of asceticism, and drank only water, feeling that in some subtle manner this abstemiousness justified his attitude of the morning. Nina, perfectly following the workings of this strange law, remained serenely unmoved.
The astonishing ease with which Nina and Morris invariably penetrated one another’s poses was perhaps due less to years of practice than to the fundamental similarity of their methods and outlook.
It was no surprise to Morris Severing, although it irritated him very considerably, when two days later, Nina exclaimed over her correspondence in impassioned accents:
“Bertie Tregaskis is miserable about Frances—miserable! And no wonder. The child has written that she isn’t well—has been in the infirmary or something—some kind of epidemic, I imagine, as the Superior is ill too, which seems to be all that Frances writes about. She gives no details about herself, and persists in declaring that she’s perfectly happy and doesn’t want to come away. It’s scandalous.”
“What is?” coldly inquired Morris, who had not forgotten Nina’s recent reception of his views on the cloistered life.
“This convent system. I’ve a very good mind....”
Nina assumed an aspect of deep consideration and of a preoccupation which Morris did not judge sufficiently deep to prevent his gazing with ostentatious inattention out of the window.
“A very good mind,” Nina repeated, and paused. Morris took advantage of the pause, which his parent obviously desired broken by a question, to light a cigarette with every appearance of deliberation and in perfect silence.
But Mrs. Severing’s determinations were not easily baffled.