“Oh, Laddie, you must manage it!” said Agnes. “That is just all that you can be. You are a priest too—she will recognise your authority.”
Canon Alington leaned his head on his hand thinking heavily. He did not feel quite certain in his own mind that Edith would recognise his authority, but he felt even in the first moments of thought, that there would not be any need that she should. Agnes seemed to imagine that she would insist on reading her paper to the horrified Literific unless he absolutely forbade her.
“There will be no need for that,” he said; “a little tact, above all, perfect simplicity and directness will, I feel sure, be all that is needed. But I was wondering, dear, whether my speaking to her direct would be the best plan. I can’t tell you how grieved and disappointed I am. I feel almost as if my first impression about ‘Gambits,’ before I had seen it, was right after all. It seems to be more of a piece with this. In Mannington, too! That this should happen in Mannington!”
This was a little obscure; it seemed to imply that it did not matter what was read to Literifics in other places. But no such thought really entered his head, nor did his wife put such an interpretation on it.
“Or would you speak to Hugh about it?” she asked, “or should I? I think he will see.”
Canon Alington shook his head.
“I don’t wish to say, or, indeed, to think, anything unkind or hard,” he said, “and so neither in thought nor word do I go further than confess that I don’t understand Hugh. And I have, therefore, no confidence that he will see our point of view. You remember Tristan?”
Mrs. Alington sighed: she did remember Tristan.
“I was filled with forebodings ever since I read the libretto,” he said, “and I did not see how the impression which the opera itself would produce could be other than painful and shocking. Still, since my impression on reading ‘Gambits,’ at least the review of ‘Gambits,’ was reversed when I saw it on the stage, I felt bound to see the other also. We left Covent Garden, you remember, before the end of the second act, in spite of the inconvenience of finding our way out in the dark. No, I do not think it certain that Hugh will take our view. Still, one might try. I think—I am not sure—but I think that Hugh felt something of what I said then.”
Canon Alington had sat down again by his wife’s chair, and she took his hand.