'I suppose that would be my branch, as I live in England. Just the Christian Church, I mean.... Do you think mother'll mind much?'
Nicholas cogitated over this.
'Probably,' he concluded. 'She doesn't like it, you know. She thinks it stands for darkness.'
'That's so funny,' said Alix, 'when really it seems to me to stand for all the things she stands for—and some more, of course.'
'Exactly,' Nicholas agreed. 'It's the "more" she takes exception to.'
'Oh well,' Alix sighed a little. 'Mother's very large-minded, really. She'll get used to it.'
Nicholas was looking at her curiously, but not unsympathetically.
'Why these new and sudden energies?' he inquired presently. 'If you don't mind my asking?'
'It's what I told you once before,' Alix explained, and the memory of that anguished evening attenuated her clear, indifferent voice, making it smaller and fainter. 'As I can't be fighting in the war, I've got to be fighting against it. Otherwise it's like a ghastly nightmare, swallowing one up. This society of mother's mayn't be doing much, but it's trying to fight war; it's working against it in the best ways it can think of. So I shall join it.... Christianity, so far as I can understand it, is working against war too; must be, obviously. So I shall join the Church.... That's all.'
'H'm.' Nicholas looked dubious. 'Not quite all, I fancy. There are things to believe, you know. You'll have to believe them—some of them, anyhow.'