They seated themselves, and Marya lighted the cigarette which Palla had refused; and they fell into the animated, gossiping conversation characteristic of such reunions.
"Vanya?" repeated Marya, smiling, "no, I have not seen him. That is quite finished, you see. But I hope he is well. Do you happen to know?"
"He seems--changed. But he is working hard, which is always best for the unhappy. And he and his somewhat vociferous friend, Mr. Wilding, are very busy preparing for their Philadelphia concert."
"Wilding," repeated Marya, as though swallowing something distasteful.
"He was the last straw! But tell me, Palla, what are you doing these jolly days of the new year?"
"Nothing.... Red Cross, canteen, club--and recently I go twice a day to the Memorial Hospital."
"Why?"
"John Estridge is ill there."
"What is the matter with him?"
"Pneumonia."
"Oh. I am so sorry for Ilse!----" Her eyes rested intently on Palla"s for a moment; then she smiled subtly, as though sharing with Palla some occult understanding.
Palla"s face whitened a little: "I want to ask you a question, Marya.... You know our belief--concerning life in general.... Tell me--since your separation from Vanya, do you still believe in that creed?"
"Do I still believe in my own personal liberty to do as I choose? Of course."
"From the moral side?"
"Moral!" mocked Marya, "--What are morals? Artificial conventions accidentally established! Haphazard folkways of ancient peoples whose very origin has been forgotten! What is moral in India is immoral in England: what is right in China is wrong in America. It"s purely a matter of local folkways--racial customs--as to whether one is or is not immoral.
"Ethics apply to the Greek _Ethos_; morals to the Latin _Mores_--_moeurs_ in French, _sitte_ in German, _custom_ in English;--and all mean practically the same thing--metaphysical hair-splitters to the contrary--which is simply this: all beliefs are local, and local customs or morals are the result. Therefore, they don"t worry me."
Palla sat with her troubled eyes on the careless, garrulous, half-smiling Russian girl, and trying to follow with an immature mind the half-baked philosophy offered for her consumption.
She said hesitatingly, almost shyly: "I"ve wondered a little, Marya, how it ever happened that such an inst.i.tution as marriage became practically universal----"
"Marriage isn"t an inst.i.tution," exclaimed Marya smilingly. "The family, which existed long before marriage, is the inst.i.tution, because it has a definite structure which marriage hasn"t.
"Marriage always has been merely a locally varying mode of s.e.x a.s.sociation. No laws can control it. Local rules merely try to regulate the various manners of entering into a marital state, the obligations and personal rights of the s.e.xes involved. What really controls two people who have entered into such a relation is local opinion----"
She snapped her fingers and tossed aside her cigarette: "You and I happen to be, locally, in the minority with our opinions, that"s all."
Palla rose and walked slowly to the door. "Have you seen Jim recently?" she managed to say carelessly.
Marya waited for her to turn before replying: "Haven"t _you_ seen him?" she asked with the leisurely malice of certainty.
"No, not for a long while," replied Palla, facing with a painful flush this miserable crisis to which her candour had finally committed her.
"We had a little difference.... Have you seen him lately?"
Marya"s sympathy flickered swift as a dagger:
"What a shame for him to behave so childishly!" she cried. "I shall scold him soundly. He"s like an infant--that boy--the way he sulks if you deny him anything--" She checked herself, laughed in a confused way which confessed and defied.
Palla"s fixed smile was still stamped on her rigid lips as she made her adieux. Then she went out with death in her heart.
At the Red Cross his mother exchanged a few words with her at intervals, as usual, during the seance.
The conversation drifted toward the subject of religious orders in Russia, and Mrs. Shotwell asked her how it was that she came to begin a novitiate in a country where Catholic orders had, she understood, been forbidden permission to establish themselves in the realm of the Greek church.
Palla explained in her sweet, colourless voice that the Czar had permitted certain religious orders to establish themselves--very few, however,--the number of nuns of all orders not exceeding five hundred.
Also she explained that they were forbidden to make converts from the orthodox religion, which was why the Empress had sternly refused the pleading of the little Grand d.u.c.h.ess.
"I do not think," added Palla, "that the Bolsheviki have left any Catholic nuns in Russia, unless perhaps they have spared the Sisters of Mercy. But I hear that non-cloistered orders like the Dominicans, and cloistered orders such as the Carmelites and Ursulines have been driven away.... I don"t know whether this is true."
Mrs. Shotwell, her eyes on her flying needle, said casually: "Have you never felt the desire to reconsider--to return to your novitiate?"
The girl, bending low over her work, drew a deep, still breath.
"Yes," she said, "it has occurred to me."
"Does it still appeal to you at times?"
The girl lifted her honest eyes: "In life there are moments when any refuge appeals."
"Refuge from what?" asked Helen quietly.
Palla did not evade the question: "From the unkindness of life," she said. "But I have concluded that such a motive for cloistered life is a cowardly one."
"Was that your motive when you took the white veil?"
"No, not then.... It seemed to be an overwhelming need for service and adoration.... It"s strange how faiths change though need remains."
"You still feel that need?"
"Of course," said the girl simply.
"I see. Your clubs and other service give you what you require to satisfy you and make you happy and contented."
As Palla made no reply, Helen glanced at her askance; and caught a fleeting glimpse of tragedy in this girl"s still face--the face of a cloistered nun burnt white--purged utterly of all save the mystic pa.s.sion of the spirit.
The face altered immediately, and colour came into it; and her slender hands were steady as she turned her bandage and cut off the thread.
What thoughts concerning this girl were in her mind, Helen could neither entirely comprehend nor a.n.a.lyse. At moments a hot hatred for the girl pa.s.sed over her like flame--anger because of what she was doing to her only son.
For Jim had changed; and it was love for this woman that had changed him--which had made of him the silent, listless man whose grey face haunted his mother"s dreams.
That he, dissipating all her hopes of him, had fallen in love with Palla Dumont was enough unhappiness, it seemed; but that this girl should have found it possible to refuse him--that seemed to Helen a monstrous thing.
And even were Jim able to forget the girl and free himself from this exasperating unhappiness which almost maddened his mother, still she must always afterward remember with bitterness the girl who had rejected her only son.