Cicely looked at him gravely, with troubled eyes. Then she said slowly:
“I’ve often thought exactly what you say, Rod; I’m afraid I’m not honest. Then again I think I am honest in trying to keep hold. You know there’s something in the Gospel about there being virtue in the hem of the garment; I don’t like to drop the wee edge I’m holding. It’s something like the code, you know, Rodney dear; I can’t learn it easily, but I’d never think of giving it away—don’t you see?”
“Cis, Cis, Cis, drop it! It’s a danger; it’s your enemy, it’s my enemy! That horrible system will wreck your life! Cis, for my sake, in pity say you’ll come with me on Sunday, and cut out the Mass! Cis, it’s a test, Cis; you must come! Cis, Cis, for my sake?” Rodney spoke quite wildly, crushing her hands in his.
Cis looked at him, frightened, and then a great tenderness flooded her face, a look that it had never worn before.
“All that isn’t true, Rod; it is sheer nonsense, but one Sunday can’t matter. I’ll go with you, if you care so much to have me,” she said gently. Then as if a new fear came upon her, she added: “Dear old pal of mine!” hiding behind a phrase.
CHAPTER VIII
CABLE STRANDS
THAT night Cis took the pins out of her hair and let it fall around her, like a screen of molten metal which miraculously could envelop and not sear her. It shone above her white petticoat and over her bare arms and shoulders so resplendent that it was a pity that there was none to see it, though Cis felt no such regret. She did not consciously see herself as she stood before her mirror, letting down her Brünhilde-like tresses; her mind was filled with other thoughts, and she turned from the glass to switch off the electric light the better to follow out these thoughts and their conclusions.
She went over to the window and seated herself in a low chair, her right foot boyishly resting on her left knee that she might easily remove its shoe, but having removed it she absent-mindedly let it drop on the floor and stroked her silk-stockinged instep, forgetful that normally one takes off its mate when one shoe has been removed.
Cis was reliving her outing with Rodney that afternoon; it gave her food for new and serious thought. Rodney had definite and adverse views in regard to religion from her views and, apparently, he was especially adverse to hers, to the Old Faith. This surprised her. She had thought of him as indifferent, with an indifference not greatly unlike her own, the difference being that she was indifferent within her faith, while he was indifferent outside of any faith; the difference between two persons without an appetite, one seated at a table, the other resting in an ante-room. Yet this was an exaggeration of the situation as she had previously conceived it. Cis meant to keep her Faith, somewhat as one keeps a valuable piece of lace, not letting it get lost, but not often getting it out of its storage drawer. Rod, however, had pleaded with her, speaking with impassioned earnestness, not to adhere to the Church, to cast it off as a shackle. She had been amazed to find that he cared, violently desired to get her to drop out of her Church. Why did he? What difference could it make to him that she held to it, provided that it did not get in the way of their friendship? If she bothered him with it, tried to convince him of its truth, let it come between them in any way, behaved about it as Nan would, for instance, Rod might justly consider it a nuisance, but as it was, why did he mind? He had said that he had once learned catechism. What catechism? Episcopalian? Cis thought that Lutherans, and Presbyterians also, had a catechism, but she was not conversant with the ways of the Protestant sects. It could not have been the Catholic catechism? In that case Rod himself had once been to Mass, had probably been instructed and received the Sacraments as she had. But this was not likely; Cis did not believe that G. Rodney Moore had ever been within the Church. Perhaps poor Cis found it hard to believe that anyone who had ever been actually within her could ever be actually outside of her.
She had promised Rod to go with him out into the country early on Sunday morning, to do which she would omit Mass. A mortal sin? That was what she had been taught, but she had missed Mass before, for less cause. Poor Rod! He had so eagerly begged her to do this for him! He showed such intense feeling about it; it seemed to matter to him beyond the intrinsic importance of taking that special train, going to that particular place on this coming Sunday. Again: why? But how could it be a mortal sin to gratify the dear fellow? She was not going to give up the Church, of course, but it did go rather far in some things, notably in the matter of turning meat-eating on forbidden days, and Mass-omission on commanded days into a mortal sin. She intended to remain a Catholic, but it could hardly be that missing Mass deliberately on a Sunday would shut one out of heaven if she died that night unshriven, uncontrite. She hated to break her promise to Nan for the first time; she would write Nan in the morning and tell her that she should not be at Mass on Sunday, but not to mind; she would go other Sundays. It was fair to let Nan know that she was breaking her promise; letting her know seemed to lessen the breach of faith with nice Nannie. She must also hasten to advise her to marry Joe Hamilton. Funny little Nannie! As though she would not marry him anyway! Nan was fond of him, Cis was sure of that, fond enough of him to predict the marriage happy, but Cis thought that she might have been equally fond of another nice boy; Joe was a nice boy. It was all right for Nannie; Cis recognized in her the woman whose children would be the absorbing devotion of her life, her husband would be sure to drift pleasantly into second place. It was all right for Nan, but it would not do for Cis! If ever she married it would be a man whose presence blinded her to all other creatures; whose life and death included her own; she would worship him, live for him, breathe in him, count nothing costly that contributed to his welfare, even to his pleasure. She would be good to her children, love them, look after them to the best of her ability, but—weigh them in the scale with her husband? Preposterous! She would be first of all what Eve was to Adam, his mate superaboundingly. Why had that handsome, bad-tempered Davenport girl acted as she had acted? She wanted Rod. Why did she? Cis felt a fierce sort of fury toward her, and clutched Rod in her thoughts; she gloated over him and over the thought that the Davenport girl could not take him from her. She had never before been dominated for even an instant by an unreasoning, overpowering hatred for a person, as if she would cut her down as she stood, if she moved hand or foot upon her preserves. Her preserves! What did it mean? Jealous? But what did that mean? Of all things, what did that mean? She, free, frank, comradely Cis Adair, whom all the boys had liked, who had liked them all in return, whose pulses had never quickened at the thought or sight of any one of them, much less her heart contracted as hers did now in thinking of this.