‘Well, I suppose it is not to make yourself uncomfortable,’ cried Roger, shirking the more serious question. ‘Though, as for that, if you wished, you could be quite uncomfortable enough at home. What do they mean by calling a room after a woman, St. Monica? and all these crucifixes and things—and that ridiculous dress—I am glad to see you have the sense not to wear it here at least.’
‘I wear it when I go out; it is not ridiculous; one can go where one pleases, that is, wherever one is wanted, in a Sister’s dress, and the roughest people always respect it,’ said Agnes, warmly. ‘Oh, Roger, why should you be so prejudiced? Do you know what kind of people are here? Poor helpless, friendless children, that have got no home, and the Sisters are like mothers to them. Is that no good? What does it matter about the name of the room, if a poor destitute baby is fed and warmed, and made happy in it? Children that would starve and beg and rob in the streets, or die—that would be the alternative, if these Sisters with their absurd dresses and their ridiculous ways, that make you so angry, did not step in.’
‘Well, I suppose they may do some good,’ said Roger, unwillingly. ‘You need not get so hot about it; but you might do just as much good with less fuss. And why should you shut yourself up in a penitentiary as if you had done something you were ashamed of? Why should you slave and teach for your living? We are not so poor as that. If the brothers all work,’ said Roger, with a not unbecoming glow of pride, ‘there ought always to be plenty for the sisters at home.’
‘But I must live my life too, as well as my brothers; and do what I can before the night comes,’ said Agnes, with a little solemnity, ‘when no man can work.’
Roger was subdued by the quotation more than by all her reasons. He could not, as he said to himself, go against Scripture, which certainly did exhort every man to work before the night cometh. Did that mean every woman too?
‘The short and the long of it is,’ he said, half sulkily, half melted, ‘that you were never content at home, Agnes. Are you contented here?’
That was a home question. Agnes shrank a little and faltered, avoiding a direct reply.
‘You do not look very contented yourself. Have you been to see Cara?’ she said. ‘How is she? I have not heard a word of her since I came here.’
‘Oh, Cara is well enough. She is not like you, setting up for eccentric work. She is quite happy at home. Miss Cherry is there at present, looking after her. It is a handsome house, choke full of china and things. And I suppose, from all I hear, she has a very jolly life,’ said Roger, with a certain shade of moroseness creeping over his face, ‘parties and lots of friends.’
‘I daresay she does not forget the people she used to like, for all that,’ said Agnes, more kind than he was, and divining the uncontent in his face.