He pulled her close to him and pushing back her head sought her lips roughly, as if he were dying of thirst and cared little what healthy or unhealthy drink he had found. III “You know,” said Cele Nesbitt to Freda, “I think Mr. Flandon acts kind of queer, don’t you?” “He’s tired, probably,” she told Cele. “Doesn’t look tired. He seems so excited. I thought he and old Sable must be having a row. I went into Sable’s office with some papers to-day and there they were glowering at each other and mum as oysters all the time I was in the room. They don’t stop talking business when I’m around.” “Well, don’t worry about them,” answered Freda, “Mr. Flandon is the kindest person I know and there’s something wrong with people who can’t agree with him.” “Hate him, don’t you?” Cele teased her. “Isn’t it a pity he’s married. And such a stunning wife and children. Did you see her picture on Sunday? She ought to be in the movies instead of politics with that hair.” Except for Margaret Freda saw only one other person at very close range. That was Gage’s stenographer, Cecilla Nesbitt, commonly known as Cele. Cele was a joyous soul who had taken a liking to Freda and shortly invited her to come home for dinner. Freda had gone and been made happy and intimate at once. There were all the traces of the cottage that the Nesbitts had before they moved to St. Pierre--old rattan rocking chairs and scroll topped beds. Over everything, invading everything was the Church. There was a little holy water font inside the door, there were pictures and holy cards framed and unframed everywhere, crucifixes over the beds, holy pictures in the bureau frames and rosaries on the bed posts. To Freda in her sparsely religious home, God had been a matter of church on Sunday and not much more than that except a Bible for reference and a general astronomical warder at the enormity of God’s achievements. This difference--this delightful easy intimacy with God was all fascinating. This was the comfort of religion, religion by your bedside and at your table. She expanded under it. There was a plenitude of Nesbitts, sleeping rather thickly in the four bedrooms--two brothers, young men of twenty or thereabouts--there was Cele after them and then two younger girls of ten and thirteen and stepping rapidly downward the twins of nine, Mrs. Nesbitt having finished her family with a climax, especially as the twins were boys and made up for being altar boys on Sunday by being far from holy on all other occasions. Still their serving of Mass endowed them in the eyes of Mrs. Nesbitt with peculiar virtues. She had a gently conciliatory Irish way towards her sons rather different from her tone to her daughters. Freda contrasted it with some amusement with the cold classicism of Margaret’s attitude. To Mrs. Nesbitt they were obviously slightly inferior in the sight of God and man, being female, to be cherished indeed, frail perhaps, and yet not made in the exact image of the Creator.