A woman has
a right to indicate her position in regard to a fellow-being, and in
this age she generally does indicate it. If the true nature of Mother
Anastasia had so far exerted itself as to impel her, perhaps
involuntarily, to let me know that she was as much a woman as she was a
Mother Superior, and that in time she would be all of the first and not
any of the latter, she had truly done this with a delicate ingenuousness
beyond compare. It had not been the exhalation by the flower of inviting
perfume or its show of color; it had been the simple opening of the
blossom to the free sun and air before my eyes.
My last interview with Mother Anastasia had crystallized in my mind a
mist of suppositions and fancies which had vaguely floated there for
some time. It is not surprising that I was greatly moved at the form the
crystal took.
When Walkirk came, the next day, to make his usual reports, I talked to
him of Mother Anastasia. Of course I did not intimate to him how I had
been thinking of her, but I gave him as many facts as possible, in order
that I might discover what he would think of her. When I had finished my
account of the interview of the morning before, I could see that a very
decided impression had been made upon him.
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