The Contessa mutely assented.
'And you approve?' said Eleanor hotly.
'She has a vocation'—said the Contessa with a sigh.
'She has a mother!' cried Eleanor.
'Ah! madame—you are a Protestant. These things are in our blood. When we are devout, like Teresa, we regard the convent as the gate of heaven. When we are Laodiceans—like me—we groan, and we submit.'
'You will be absolutely alone,' said Eleanor, in a low voice of emotion, 'in this solitary place.'
The Contessa fidgetted. She was of the sort that takes pity hardly.
'There is much to do,'—she said, shortly.
But then her fortitude a little broke down. 'If I were ten years older, it would be all right,' she said, in a voice that betrayed the mind's fatigue with its own debate. 'It's the time it all lasts; when you are as strong as I am.'
Eleanor took her hand and kissed it.