"Dear boy, do you suppose that nuns are dismal things, or indifferent to pleasant companionship? You should hear us laugh and chatter at Recreation. Perhaps because the time for fun is limited, as the time for other things—we enjoy that half-hour's freedom all the more. Not"—her smile did not leave her, but it changed in expression,—"not that I did not have my miserable hours. For the matter of that I have them still!"
He got up and went over to the hearth-side, where a tiny gas-fire made pretense of cheerfulness.
"I never thought it was all jam in the Novitiate. A fellow I knew who had wanted to be a Carthusian monk—and found it impossible to stick out the preliminaries!—hinted as much to me."
"I suppose," she said calmly, "that he could not submit to the—necessary experiences that lead to the final breaking of the will."
"Breaking of the will!" He kicked the old-fashioned fender savagely. "What do they do to break yours, in Heaven's name?"
"What is done is done in Heaven's name," she said, "and that is why one can submit cheerfully. But my first weeks in the noviceship were cloudlessly happy." She laughed a little. "I thought it was always going to be like that!"
"I see! ... I twig! ... They made much of you in the beginning...." He gritted his teeth and turned his face away.
"Perhaps they did! ... I remember I had all the nicest things to do, and nobody minded.... I was allowed to dust the High Altar, change the flowers in the vases, and help the Sister-Sacristan brush and fold the vestments away. And one day I was permitted to wash the lunette of the monstrance. It was a wonderful experience. One could understand how the Magdalene must have felt when she wiped the Sacred Feet."
He was silent, for she had soared to heights beyond him.
"Perhaps it made me proud, for next day I was set to tidy the linen-room presses. I worked for some weeks there, darning and mending and folding. Then I was sent to the Refectory." The smile was only in her eyes now. "I liked laying the long tables, but I hated washing dirty plates and dishes, and I simply loathed cleaning knives and forks."