"You've shortened the period already," the priest said. "I gave a full week to every man."
"But, of course, one would have to have a home," Sylvia said, "an address. One would have to fill one's mid-week engagements. Really it comes to it that one has to have a husband and a place to store one's maid in. Hullo Central's been on board-wages all the time. But I don't believe she likes it. . . . Let's agree that if I had a different man every week I'd be bored with the arrangement. That's what you're getting at, isn't it?"
"You'd find," the priest said, "that it whittled down until the only divvy moment was when you stood waiting in the booking-office for the young man to take the tickets. . . . And then gradually that wouldn't be divvy any more. . . . And you'd yawn and long to go back to your husband."
"Look here," Mrs. Tietjens said, "you're abusing the secrets of the confessional. That's exactly what Tottie Charles said. She tried it for three months while Freddie Charles was in Madeira. It's exactly what she said down to the yawn and the booking-office. And the 'divvy.' It's only Tottie Charles who uses it every two words. Most of us prefer ripping! It is more sensible."
"Of course I haven't been abusing the secrets of the confessional," Father Consett said mildly.
"Of course you haven't," Sylvia said with affection. "You're a good old stick and no end of a mimic, and you know us all to the bottom of our hearts."
"Not all that much," the priest said, "there's probably a good deal of good at the bottom of your hearts."
Sylvia said:
"Thanks." She asked suddenly: "Look here. Was it what you saw of us—the future mothers of England, you know, and all—at Miss Lampeter's—that made you take to the slums? Out of disgust and despair?"
"Oh, let's not make melodrama out of it," the priest answered. "Let's say I wanted a change. I couldn't see that I was doing any good."