"Well, I set her thinking about the Catholic Church, I suppose. Of course I don't know in the least what brought her to it in the end, but still I can see, somehow. She was made to be a nun."
"Then she could hardly have been made for you."
"Oh, I don't know. She was such a dear. You don't know," he cried bitterly.
Ursula smiled. "You odd, impetuous, eager creature," she said.
"But, Ursula, I'm utterly sick and miserable to-night. I can't put it into words properly. I see what I've lost. My people—of course, they're ignorant, almost mad, but they've got something that I've lost. Their faith is wonderful. Christ is so real to them. They live in an odd world, but it isn't shallow, it isn't a sham, and our world is such a sham, Ursula. I feel that at the theatre so much. You never know what people really think and mean. And afterwards, in the morning light, so to speak, it's all made-up and painted and false."
She said nothing, only shifted her eyes to the fire.
"And then there's Edith. You can't see Edith, Ursula, as I do. She was like a flower. She was so utterly simple and childish and true. She was just the opposite to all this. She saw through things. That's why she's become a nun, of course; just walked straight forward into it. And our world never walks straight forward."
"Our world?"
The tone of her voice held him. She had shaded her face with her hand now and did not look at him. "Our world, Paul?" she queried again.
"What do you mean?"