“I think it’s a bad sign she’s come back.”
“Her father wanted her, I expect. That chauffeur-secretary he had was no good. Besides, I expect she’s got over her feeling for Peter now.”
“I’m sure I hope she has, but you never know with a girl like Stella. She has too many ways of getting out of things.”
“What do you mean, dear?”
“Oh, confession and all that. All she has to do is to go to a Priest and he’ll let her off anything.”
“Come, come, my dear, that is hardly a fair summary of what the Prayer Book calls ‘the benefit of absolution.’ My own position with regard to confession has always been that it is at least tolerable and occasionally helpful.”
“Not the way a girl like Stella would confess,” said Rose darkly—“Oh, I don’t mean anything wrong—only the whole thing seems to me not quite healthy. I dislike the sort of religion that gets into everything, even people’s meals. I expect Stella would rather die than eat meat on Friday.”
“But surely, dear,” said George who was rather dense—“that sort would not encourage her to run after a married man.”
“Well, if you can’t use your eyes! ... she’s been perfectly open about it.”
“But she hasn’t been here at all since he married.”