Sylvia looked at Father Consett.
"If you're going to trounce me any more," she said, "get a move on. It's late, I've been travelling for thirty-six hours."
"I will," Father Consett said. "It's a good maxim that if you swat flies enough some of them stick to the wall. I'm only trying to make a little mark on your common sense. Don't you see what you're going to?"
"What?" Sylvia said indifferently. "Hell?"
"No," the Father said, "I'm talking of this life. Your confessor must talk to you about the next. But I'll not tell you what you're going to. I've changed my mind. I'll tell your mother after you're gone."
"Tell me," Sylvia said.
"I'll not," Father Consett answered. "Go to the fortune-tellers at the Earl's Court exhibition; they'll tell ye all about the fair woman you're to beware of."
"There's some of them said to be rather good," Sylvia said. "Di Wilson's told me about one. She said she was going to have a baby. . . . You don't mean that, Father? For I swear I never will. . . ."
"I daresay not," the priest said. "But let's talk about men."
"There's nothing you can tell me I don't know," Sylvia said.