4
As they sat on the loggia that afternoon reading their letters after tea, Concha suddenly exclaimed, “Well I’m blessed!” and laying down her letter began to laugh.
“Well?” said the Doña.
“It’s that excellent David Munroe!”
“What about him?”
“He writes to say that he’s chucking business and everything, and is going at once into a seminary to prepare for ordination—it seems too comical!”
The Doña’s expression was one of mingled disappointment and interest; while Jollypot’s cheeks went pink with excitement. They began to press Concha for details.
As to Teresa—somehow or other it gave her a disagreeable shock.
Of course, every year hundreds of young men all over the world had a vocation, went to a seminary, and, in due time, said their first mass—she ought to be used to it; nevertheless, she felt there was something ... something unnatural in the news: a young man who had business connections with her father, and gave Concha dinner at the Savoy, and danced to the gramophone—and then, suddenly hearing this ... she got the same impression that she did in Paris from a sudden vision of the white ghostly minarets of the Sacré-Cœur, doubtless beautiful in themselves, but incongruous in design, and associations, and hence displeasing in that gray-green, stucco, and admirably classical city.
The others drifted off to their various business, and Teresa sat on, looking at the view.