"The great argument in favor of the Church seems to me," Sylvia thought, "that it measures humanity by the weakest and not by the strongest link, which of course means that it never overestimates its power and survives assaults that shatter more ambitious and progressive organizations of human belief. Well, Queenie is a weak enough link, and I sha'n't feel happy until I have secured her incorporation first into the Church, and, secondly--I suppose into the state. Yet why should I want to give her nationality? What is the aim of a state? Material comfort, really--nothing else. I'm tempted to give her to the Church, but deny her to the state. Alas! it's a material world, and it's not going to be spiritualized by me. The devil was sick, etc. No doubt at present everything promises well for a spiritual revival after this orgy of insane destructiveness. But history with its mania for repetition isn't encouraging about the results of war. As a matter of fact, I've got no right to talk about the war at present. I choked and spluttered for a while in some of its vile back-wash, and Bucharest hasn't managed to get the taste out of my mouth. Queenie," she said, aloud, "you know that during these last weeks I've been going to church regularly?"
Queenie extricated herself from whatever path she was following in her pictures and looked at Sylvia with blue eyes that were intensely willing to believe anything her friend told her.
"I knew you were always going out," she said. "But I thought it was to see a boy."
"Great heavens! child, do you seriously think that I should so much object to men's getting hold of you if I were doing the same thing myself in secret? Haven't you yet realized that I can't do things in secret?"
"Don't be cross with me again. I think you are cross, yes?"
Sylvia shook her head. "What I want to know is: did you ever go to church in your life, and if you did do you ever think about wanting to go again?"
"I was going to church with my mother when I was four; my stepmother was never going to church, and so I was never going myself until two years ago at Christmas. There was a girl who asked me to go with her, and it was so sweet. We looked at all the dolls, and there was a cow, but some woman said, quite loudly: 'Well, if this is the sort of women we was meeting on Christmas night, I'm glad Christmas only comes once in the year.' My friend with me was very _maquillée_. Too much paint she was having, really, and she said to this woman such rude things, and a man came and was asking us to move along farther. And then outside my friend sat down on the steps and cried and cried. _Ach_, it was dreadful! She was making a scene. So I was not going more to church, because I was always remembering this and being unhappy."