After the first session he took her aside, smiling, curious. He stood tall and lean in his priest’s costume: black, sheerly black, with the stark white turned-around collar. Marya was abashed, slightly dazed, but took note of his amused expression, his air of friendly condescension, even the white-gold wristwatch on his left arm. “What is your motive for coming into the Church?” he asked. The question was so frank, so blunt, Marya answered as directly: “I don’t know.” “You’ve been talking with Catholics, I assume? reading about Catholicism?” he asked. “But no one in your family is a practicing Catholic at this time?” Marya resisted the impulse to stammer. She wasn’t going to flinch beneath the gaze of this extraordinary man—she’d known at once that he was extraordinary, that there was no one like him in Innisfail—but it was difficult to sort out his questions, to guess what it was he might be most impressed to hear. So she told the truth, raising one shoulder in that half shrug that was so awkward a habit, speaking rather sullenly: “I told you I don’t know. It just seemed to me time.” She paused, flushing slightly; feeling the sharpness of his interest, his surprised approval. She said, “Maybe I was afraid I would die or something. I will die, I mean. Before I knew. . . .” But here her brave voice faltered, she knew she was an idiot, she had better retreat. “Before I knew . . . what it was all about.”

This must have been the perfect answer, since Father Shearing did nothing but nod, staring at her. She had not known that priests were so young. She may even have been somewhat disappointed in his very youth, his friendliness, at that time.