"Don't," the priest said, "introduce the sacred name into an affair of Piccadilly bad girls. . . ." He stopped. "Heaven help me," he said again, "don't ask me to answer the question of what you should or shouldn't have done. You know I loved your husband like a brother, and you know I've loved you and Sylvia ever since she was a tiny. And I thank God that I am not your spiritual adviser, but only your friend in God. For if I had to answer your question I could answer it only in one way." He broke off to ask: "Where is that woman?" Mrs. Satterthwaite called: "Sylvia! Sylvia! Come here!" A door in the shadows opened and light shone from another room behind a tall figure leaning one hand on the handle of the door. A very deep voice said: "I can't understand, mother, why you live in rooms like a sergeants' mess." And Sylvia Tietjens wavered into the room. She added: "I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm bored." Father Consett groaned: "Heaven help us, she's like a picture of Our Lady by Fra Angelico." Immensely tall, slight and slow in her movements, Sylvia Tietjens wore her reddish, very fair hair in great bandeaux right down over her ears. Her very oval, regular face had an expression of virginal lack of interest such as used to be worn by fashionable Paris courtesans a decade before that time. Sylvia Tietjens considered that, being privileged to go everywhere where one went and to have all men at her feet, she had no need to change her expression or to infuse into it the greater animation that marked the more common beauties of the early twentieth century. She moved slowly from the door and sat languidly on the sofa against the wall. "There you are, Father," she said. "I'll not ask you to shake hands with me. You probably wouldn't." "As I am a priest," Father Consett answered, "I could not refuse. But I'd rather not." "This," Sylvia repeated, "appears to be a boring place." "You won't say so to-morrow," the priest said. "There's two young fellows. . . . And a sort of policeman to trepan away from your mother's maid!" "That," Sylvia answered, "is meant to be bitter. But it doesn't hurt. I am done with men." She added suddenly: "Mother, didn't you one day, while you were still young, say that you had done with men? Firmly! And mean it?" Mrs. Satterthwaite said: "I did." "And did you keep to it?" Sylvia asked. Mrs. Satterthwaite said: "I did." "And shall I, do you imagine?" Mrs. Satterthwaite said: "I imagine you will." Sylvia said: "Oh dear!" The priest said: "I'd be willing to see your husband's telegram. It makes a difference to see the words on paper." Sylvia rose effortlessly. "I don't see why you shouldn't," she said. "It will give you no pleasure." She drifted towards the door. "If it would give me pleasure," the priest said, "you would not show it me." "I would not," she said. A silhouette in the doorway, she halted, drooping, and looked over her shoulder.