“I should think nursing must be a terribly dull, monotonous life, isn’t it? Surely the continual atmosphere of the sick-room is very depressing?”
“I do not find it so,” she replied brightly, with her pretty French accent. “I am devoted to my calling.”
“I quite recognise that,” said his lordship, looking into her sweet, serious eyes. “Yet it requires a good deal of self-denial, I should imagine.”
“Perhaps,” and she smiled. “But self-denial is one of the first lessons learnt in our Sisterhood.”
“You joined the Sisterhood in France, did you not?” he asked.
“Yes; at the chief convent at Enghien, near Paris. But, of course, I have not yet taken my vows as a nun.”
“You intend to do so, I suppose?”
She was silent a few seconds; then, with her eyes averted, she answered frankly:
“It is more than possible.”
“Would it not be a great sacrifice? Remember, you are young. Why should you cut yourself off so entirely from the world?”