It was long before she bent over the columns of figures again, yet she did not reproach herself with having wasted time. The first of all her many duties, and the most arduous, was to think for others; to work for them was a hundred times easier and was rest and refreshment by contrast.
Angela would have been very much surprised if she could have known what was passing in the Mother Superior's mind, while she herself felt nothing but relief and satisfaction because her decision had now become irrevocable. If she had been bidden to wait another year, she would have waited patiently and without a murmur, because she could not be satisfied with anything less than apparent certainty; but instead, she had been encouraged to take the final step, after which there could be no return.
That was the inevitable. Human destiny is most tragic when the men and women concerned are doing their very utmost to act bravely and uprightly, while each is in reality bringing calamity on the other.
Acting on the only evidence she had a right to trust, the Mother Superior knew that she would not be justified in hindering Angela from taking the veil. Few had ever done so well in the noviciate, none had ever done better, and her natural talent for the profession of nursing was altogether unusual. There had never been one like her in the hospital. As for her character, she seemed to have no vanity, no jealousy, no temper, no moodiness. The Mother had never known such an even and well-balanced disposition as hers. Would it have been wise to keep her back longer, because she seemed too perfect? Would it have been just? Would it not, indeed, have been very wrong to risk discouraging her, now that she was quite ready? She was almost twenty-one years old and had taken no step hastily. More than two years and a half had passed since she had entered the convent, and in all that time no one had been able to detect the smallest fault in her, either of weakness or of hastiness, still less of anything like the pride she might actually have felt in her superiority. To keep her back now would be to accuse perfection of being imperfect; it would be as irrational as to call excellence a failing. More than that, it would have a bad effect on the whole community, a danger which could not be overlooked.