“It can’t. The words are as plain as possible.”
“Have you looked at the original Greek?”
“No, I haven’t. What would be the good of doing that? And, besides, I don’t know Greek.”
“Then you may be sure,” I said, “that the original Greek alters the whole thing. I’ve noticed hundreds of times that when a text seems to be saying anything which doesn’t work out in practice the original Greek sets it right.”
“I know that,” said Lalage. “At least I’ve often heard it. But it doesn’t apply to cases like this. What on earth else could this mean in the original Greek or any other language you like to translate it into? ‘A bishop is to be the husband of one wife.’ I looked it out myself to make sure that Selby-Harrison had made no mistake.”
The text certainly seemed uncompromising. I had talked bravely about the original Greek, but I doubted in my own mind whether even it would offer a loophole of escape for the Archdeacon.
“It may,” I said, desperately, “merely mean that a bishop mayn’t have two wives.”
“Do talk sense,” said Lalage. “What would be the point of saying that a bishop mayn’t have two? It’s hard enough to get a man like the Archdeacon to have one. Besides, if that’s what it means, then other people, not bishops, are allowed to have two wives, which is perfectly absurd. It would be bigamy and that’s far worse than what the Archdeacon said I’d done. Where’s Hilda?”
Lalage’s way of dismissing a subject of which she is tired is abrupt but unmistakable. I told her that Hilda and her mother had gone.
“That’s a pity,” said Lalage. “I should have liked to take Hilda with me this afternoon.”