VICAR. Damnation take my life!
AUNTIE. William, why are you so violent?
VICAR. Because violence is the only way of coming to the truth between you and me!
AUNTIE [now thoroughly afraid]. What do you mean by the truth,
William?
VICAR. I mean this: What is the building of this church to you? Are you so mightily interested in architecture, in clerical usefulness, in the furtherance of God's work?
AUNTIE. I am interested in your work, William. Do you take me for an atheist?
VICAR. No: far worse—for an idolater!
AUNTIE. William . . .
VICAR. What else but idolatry is this precious husband-worship you have set up in your heart—you and all the women of your kind? You barter away your own souls in the service of it: you build up your idols in the fashion of your own respectable desires: you struggle silently amongst yourselves, one against another, to push your own god foremost in the miserable little pantheon of prigs and hypocrites you have created!
AUNTIE [roused]. It is for your own good we do it!