"But why?"
"Inquisitive person!"
Her look of pain checked him. He observed her rather sadly and silently for a moment, then said:
"I will tell you, dear, of course, if you want to know. It is one of the obligations of the Third Order of St. Francis, to which I belong."
"What does that mean?"
He shortly explained. She cross-examined. He was forced to describe to her in detail all the main constitutions of the Third Order; its obligations as to fasting, attendance at Mass, and at the special meetings of the fraternity; its prescriptions of a rigid simplicity in life and dress; its prohibition of theatre-going.
She stood amazed. All her old notions of Catholics as gay people, who practised a free Sunday and allowed you to enjoy yourself, had been long overthrown by the Catholicism of Bannisdale. But this—this might be Daffady's Methodism!
"So that is why you would not take us to Whinthorpe the other day to see that London company?"
"It was an unsuitable play," he said hastily. "Theatres are not wholly forbidden us; but the exceptions must be few, and the plays such as a Catholic can see without harm to his conscience."
"But I love acting!" she cried, almost with a sense of suffocation. "Whenever I could, I got papa to take me to the play. I shall always want to go."