Macmaster said:
"I wish you wouldn't go on."
"There was a fellow," Tietjens continued, "whose land was next to ours. Conder his name was. His wife was habitually unfaithful to him. She used to retire with some fellow for three months out of every year. Conder never moved a finger. But we felt Groby and the neighbourhood were unsafe. It was awkward introducing him—not to mention her—in your drawing-room. All sorts of awkwardnesses. Everyone knew the younger children weren't Conder's. A fellow married the youngest daughter and took over the hounds. And not a soul called on her. It wasn't rational or just. But that's why society distrusts the cuckold, really. It never knows when it mayn't be driven into something irrational and unjust."
"But you aren't," Macmaster said with real anguish, "going to let Sylvia behave like that."
"I don't know," Tietjens said. "How am I to stop it? Mind you, I think Conder was quite right. Such calamities are the will of God. A gentleman accepts them. If the woman won't divorce, he must accept them, and it get's talked about. You seem to have made it all right this time. You and, I suppose, Mrs. Satterthwaite between you. But you won't be always there. Or I might come across another woman."
Macmaster said:
"Ah!" and after a moment:
"What then?"
Tietjens said:
"God knows . . . There's that poor little beggar to be considered. Marchant says he's beginning to talk broad Yorkshire already."