She was intensely herself, quaint, eccentric, but she was, Evelyn reflected, perhaps more distinctly from the English upper classes than any of the nuns she had seen yet.  She had not the sweetness of manner of the Reverend Mother, her manners were the oddest; but withal she had that refinement which Evelyn had first noticed in Owen, and afterwards in his friends, that style which is inheritance, which tradition alone can give.  She had spoken of her father, and Evelyn could easily imagine Sister Mary John’s father—­a lord of old lineage dwelling in an eighteenth century house in the middle of a flat park in the Midlands.  She could see a piece of artificial lake obtained by the damming of a small stream; one end full of thick reeds, in which the chatter of wild ducks was unceasing.  But her family, her past, her name—­all was lost in the convent, in the veil.  The question was, had she renounced the world, or had she refused the world?  Evelyn could not even conjecture.  Sister Mary John was outside not only of her experience, but also of her present perception of things.  Evelyn wondered why one of such marked individuality, of such intense personal will, had chosen a life the very raison d’etre of which was the merging of the individual will in the will of the community?  Why should one, the essential delight of whose life was music, choose a life in which music hardly appeared?  Was her piety so great that it absorbed every other inclination?  Sister Mary John did not strike her as being especially religious.  What instinct behind those brown eyes had led her to this sacrifice?  Apparently at pains to conceal nothing, Sister Mary John concealed the essential.  Evelyn could even imagine her as being attractive to men—­that radiant smile, the beautiful teeth, and the tall, supple figure, united to that distinct personality, would not have failed to attract.  God did not get her because men did not want her, of that Evelyn was quite sure.

There were on that afternoon assembled in the little white chapel of the Passionist Sisters about a dozen elderly ladies, about nine or ten stout ladies dressed in black, who might be widows, and perhaps three or four spare women who wore a little more colour in their hats; these might be spinsters, of ages varying between forty and fifty-five.  Amid these Evelyn was surprised and glad to perceive three or four young men; they did not look, she thought, particularly pious, and perceiving that they wore knickerbockers, she judged them to be cyclists who had ridden up from Richmond Park.  They had come in probably to rest, having left their machines at the inn.  Even though she was converted, she did not wish to sing only to women, and it amused her to perceive that something of the original Eve still existed in her.  But if any one of these young men should happen to have any knowledge of music, he could hardly fail to notice that it was not a nun who was singing.  He would ride away astonished, mystified; he would seek the