She was silent; her thumb flicked at a note on the keyboard behind her.
"But that's not what I mind in them most—"
She wondered at the rapidity with which his shyness was passing into effusiveness. But then was she not the "Mother-Confessor"? Had not even her favourite nuns told her things about their early lives, even when there was no moral to be pointed? "They're very good-hearted," she murmured apologetically. "I'm often companion—in charity expeditions."
"It's easy to be good-hearted when you don't know what to do with your money. This place is full of such people. But I look in vain for the diviner impulse."
Eileen wondered if he were a Dissenter. But then "the place was full of such people."
"You don't think there's enough religion?" she murmured.
"There's certainly plenty of churches and chapels. But I find myself isolated here. You see, I'm a Socialist."
Eileen crossed herself instinctively.
"You don't believe in God!" she cried in horror. For the good nuns had taught her that "les socialistes" were synonymous with "les athées."
He laughed. "Not, if by God you mean Mammon. I don't believe in Property—we up here in the sun and the others down there in the soot."