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impressive and the gorgeous, and rests there. Accuracy is not necessary except in the case of
aggressive, acquisitive natures, when it manifests itself in a desire to seize. True controlling
sensuousness cannot be manifested in the most active dispositions, nor again in the most
accurate.
There is need of defining these statements in so far as they apply to Aileen. It would scarcely be
fair to describe her nature as being definitely sensual at this time. It was too rudimentary. Any
harvest is of long growth. The confessional, dim on Friday and Saturday evenings, when the
church was lighted by but a few lamps, and the priest's warnings, penances, and ecclesiastical
forgiveness whispered through the narrow lattice, moved her as something subtly pleasing. She
was not afraid of her sins. Hell, so definitely set forth, did not frighten her. Really, it had not laid
hold on her conscience. The old women and old men hobbling into church, bowed in prayer,
murmuring over their beads, were objects of curious interest like the wood-carvings in the
peculiar array of wood-reliefs emphasizing the Stations of the Cross. She herself had liked to
confess, particularly when she was fourteen and fifteen, and to listen to the priest's voice as he
admonished her with, "Now, my dear child." A particularly old priest, a French father, who came
to hear their confessions at school, interested her as being kind and sweet. His forgiveness and
blessing seemed sincere--better than her prayers, which she went through perfunctorily. And
then there was a young priest at St. Timothy's, Father David, hale and rosy, with a curl of black
hair over his forehead, and an almost jaunty way of wearing his priestly hat, who came down the
aisle Sundays sprinkling holy water with a definite, distinguished sweep of the hand, who took
her fancy. He heard confessions and now and then she liked to whisper her strange thoughts to
him while she actually speculated on what he might privately be thinking. She could not, if she
tried, associate him with any divine authority. He was too young, too human. There was
something a little malicious, teasing, in the way she delighted to tell him about herself, and then
walk demurely, repentantly out. At St. Agatha's she had been rather a difficult person to deal
with. She was, as the good sisters of the school had readily perceived, too full of life, too active,
to be easily controlled. "That Miss Butler," once observed Sister Constantia, the Mother
Superior, to Sister Sempronia, Aileen's immediate mentor, "is a very spirited girl, you may have
a great deal of trouble with her unless you use a good deal of tact. You may have to coax her
with little gifts. You will get on better." So Sister Sempronia had sought to find what Aileen was
most interested in, and bribe her therewith. Being intensely conscious of her father's
competence, and vain of her personal superiority, it was not so easy to do. She had wanted to
go home occasionally, though; she had wanted to be allowed to wear the sister's rosary of large
beads with its pendent cross of ebony and its silver Christ, and this was held up as a great
privilege. For keeping quiet in class, walking softly, and speaking softly--as much as it was in
her to do--for not stealing into other girl's rooms after lights were out, and for abandoning
crushes on this and that sympathetic sister, these awards and others, such as walking out in the
grounds on Saturday afternoons, being allowed to have all the flowers she wanted, some extra
dresses, jewels, etc., were offered. She liked music and the idea of painting, though she had no
talent in that direction; and books, novels, interested her, but she could not get them. The
rest--grammar, spelling, sewing, church and general history--she loathed. Deportment--well,
there was something in that. She had liked the rather exaggerated curtsies they taught her, and
she had often reflected on how she would use them when she reached home.
When she came out into life the little social distinctions which have been indicated began to
impress themselves on her, and she wished sincerely that her father would build a better
home--a mansion--such as those she saw elsewhere, and launch her properly in society. Failing
in that, she could think of nothing save clothes, jewels, riding-horses, carriages, and the
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