Page:All Kneeling (1928).pdf/259

 his dull day. She could hear him telling the other clerks: "That was Christabel Caine! That lady I was just waiting on!"

The day was so lovely that she had sent the car away. Turning down a side street, she went into the Catholic church where she liked to say her prayers or meditate. Sometimes she longed to be a Catholic. If only she could stop thinking, how restful it would be.

Beyond the rood screen lights wavered in white and blue cups, banked into shapes of hearts and crosses, on either side of the altar, where a nun knelt, rose to dust the vases of artificial lilies, knelt again. All work should be done that way, with love and prayer, Christabel thought. Other nuns knelt motionless. She was kneeling with them. She was kneeling alone, the bride of Christ, lost in ecstasy, while out in the church, heartbroken, adoring, knelt Elliott and Maurice and the new poet who was coming to dinner tonight. She almost added Curtis, but the thought of him floated out without embodying.