"Mabel always keeps up with everybody she makes friends with. She doesn't often make new friends. She told me she had made two new friends here. You and Kranitski."
"She likes him very much. She's very fastidious, very hard to please, very critical."
I said everyone seemed to like Kranitski.
"Aunt Netty says he's commonplace, but that's because Mr. Rudd said he was commonplace."
I said Rudd always had theories about people.
I said I did, and reminded her that she had told me she did.
"If you want to know the truth," she said, "I don't. I think he's awful." She laughed. "Isn't it funny? A week ago I would have rather died than admit this to you, but now I don't care. Of course I know he's a good writer and clever and subtle, and all that--but I've come to the conclusion----"
"Well, that I don't--that I like the other sort of people better."
"People like Mabel Summer and Princess Kouragine," she interrupted.
"They are both very clever, I think," I said.
I said I thought intelligence mattered a great deal.
"Do you think people can become religious if they're not?" she asked suddenly.
I said that I didn't feel that I could, but it certainly did happen to some people.
"I'm afraid it will never happen to me," she said. "I used to hope it might never happen, but now I hope the opposite. Last night, after you went in, Aunt Netty took us to the café, and we all sat there: Mr. Rudd, Mabel, a Frenchman whose name I don't know, and M. Kranitski. The Frenchman was talking about China, and said he had stayed with a French priest there. The priest had asked him why he didn't go to Mass. The Frenchman said he had no faith. The priest had said it was quite simple, he had only to pray to the Sainte Vierge for faith, _Mon enfant, c'est bien simple: il faut demander la foi à la Sainte Vierge._ He said this, imitating the priest, in a falsetto voice. They all laughed except M. Kranitski, who said, seriously, 'Of course, you should ask the Sainte Vierge.' When the Frenchman and M. Kranitski went away, Mr. Rudd said that in matters of religion Russians were childish, and that M. Kranitski has a _simpliste_ mind."
I said that Kranitski was obviously religious.
"Yes," she said, "but to be like that, one must be born like that."