“It’s generally known of course,” said Trenchard.
“Such things can’t be hid and didn’t ought to be,” replied Mr. Pinhey. “We’re a very high-toned lot here for the most part, and me and Trood have something to do with that I believe; and I should be very sorry if he was to pander to evil.”
“Nobody’s pandering to evil, Nicholas,” explained Matthew Trenchard. “But business is business and will continue to be so. I don’t lose Kellock if I can help it; but Dingle’s a very good man, too, and I wish to consider him.”
“Dingle’s nothing to Kellock,” asserted Trood; “and I shouldn’t for an instant say Kellock was all wrong and Dingle all right. Women don’t run away from their husbands for nothing. I believe Ned’s been knocking her about, and she was divided between them in the past, and now, finding she backed the wrong one, she’s gone over to the other. It seems to be a private affair in my opinion.”
“Sin’s never a private affair. It’s everybody’s affair and ought to be everybody’s enemy,” said Pinhey.
“Then let nature take its course,” suggested Ernest Trood. “Let Dingle divorce her in a respectable way, and let us spare their feelings all we can.”
“Obviously they can’t both stop here after this,” observed Trenchard, “and if Kellock comes back, Dingle will go.”
“You’ll be putting a premium on vice if you agree to that, Mr. Trenchard.”
“There’s no vice in it, Nicholas,” answered Trood. “It’s like an old woman to talk that way. You know very well indeed that Jordan Kellock’s not a vicious person.”
“I know very well he is, then. And them as don’t go to church, or chapel, like him, have nothing to stand between them and temptation. And this is the result.”