“Tea time!” the others echoed; and they all got up.
“But look here, Miss Concha,” said Rory, “if you love Owen Nares so much, why not come up and see him? It’s quite a good show ... you’ll look at him and I’ll look at the lady—though you’ll probably have the best of it. What do you think, Arnold? We could dine first at the Berkeley or somewhere ... well, look here, that’s settled; we must fix up a night.”
Teresa felt a sudden and, to her, most unusual craving for the life that smells of lip-salve and powder, where in bright, noisy restaurants “every shepherd tells his tale ...” where “the beautiful Miss Brabazons” laugh and dance and triumph eternally.
5
After tea they decided to go a walk, and escort Eben part of his way home—a delightful plan, it seemed to Anna, Jasper, and ’Snice; but to Anna and Jasper the Doña said firmly, “No, my darlings; I want you.”
Their faces fell; they knew it meant what Nanny, who was a Protestant, called “a Bible lesson from kind Granny.”
Needless to say, the fact that these lessons were opposed to the wishes—nay, to the express command—of Dr. Sinclair, was powerless in deterring the Doña from attempting to save her grandchildren’s souls; and, even if she failed in the attempt, they should at any rate not be found in the condition of criminal ignorance of the children of one of Pepa’s friends who had asked why there were always “big plus-signs” on the tops of churches.
The Doña was not merely a Catholic; she was also a Christian—that is to say, though she did not always follow his precepts, she had an intense personal love of Christ.
Besides the shadowy figure struggling towards “projection” through the ritual of the Church’s year, there are more concrete representations on which the Catholic can feed his longings.