After her last prayer—for her whole life was one long prayer—she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, but not before she had sent a certain note....
There was but little sleep for Marjorie that night. The hour was not late for her, it was not yet one o'clock, and night after night in the season she would dance till dawn.
But the girl was stirred and frightened to the depths of her rather shallow nature by the things which she had heard from Mary. The deep solemnity and utter reality of Mary's words were full of a sort of terror to Marjorie. They came into her gay, thoughtless and sheltered life with unwelcome force and power. She wanted to hear no such things. Life was happy and splendid for her always. It was one continual round of pleasure, and no day of it had palled as yet. There was nothing in the world that she might wish for that she could not have. Her enormous wealth, her beauty, social position, and personal fascination brought all men to her feet.
And incense was sweet in her nostrils! Heart-whole, she loved to be adored. Religion was all very well, of course. All nice people went to church on Sunday morning. It was comme il faut, and then one walked in the Park afterwards for church parade, and met all one's friends.
Every Sunday Marjorie and Lady Kirwan attended the fashionable ritualistic church of St. Elwyn's, Mayfair. The vicar, the Honorable and Reverend Mr. Persse, was a great friend of Marjorie's, and she and her mother had given him three hundred pounds only a few weeks ago for the wonderful new altar frontals worked by the Sisters of Bruges.
But Mary's religion! Ah, that was a very different thing. It was harsh, uncomely, unladylike even.
And what did this preposterous business about "Joseph" mean? Marjorie had seen the paper, and could make nothing of it. And then the theatre! Mary was making fun of her. She could not really have meant—
With these thoughts whirling in her brain and troubling it, the girl fell asleep at last. Although she did not know it nor suspect it, she was never again to wake exactly the same person as she had been. She did not realize that her unconscious antagonism to Mary's words sprang from one cause alone, that a process had begun in her which was to lead her into other paths and new experiences.
She did not know that, at last, for the first time in her bright, careless life, conscience was awake.
It was not till nearly nine o'clock that she awoke. Antoinette had peeped into the bedroom several times. When at length the maid brought the dainty porcelain cup of chocolate, a bright sun was pouring into the room through the apricot-colored silk curtains.