“I was led to believe—”
She left it at that.
Mr. Sycamore allowed himself to point the moral. “It is a very remarkable thing to me, Lady Charlotte, most remarkable, that Catholic people and Church of England people—you must forgive me for saying it—and religious bodies generally should be so very anxious and energetic to get control of the education of children and so careless—indeed they are dreadfully careless—of the tone, the wholesomeness and the quality of the education they supply. And of the homes they permit. It’s almost as if they cared more for getting the children branded than whether they lived or died.”
“The school was an excellent school,” said Lady Charlotte; “an excellent school. Your remarks are cruel and painful.”
Mr. Sycamore again restrained some retort. Then he said, “I think it would be well for Mr. Oswald Sydenham to have the address of the little girl.”
Lady Charlotte considered. “There is nothing to conceal,” she said, and gave the address of Mrs. Pybus, “a most trustworthy woman.” Mr. Sycamore took it down very carefully in a little notebook that came out of his vest pocket. Then he seemed to consider whether he should become more offensive or not, and to decide upon the former alternative.
“I suppose,” he said reflectively as he replaced the little book, “that the demand for religious observances and religious orthodoxy as a first condition in schools is productive of more hypocrisy and rottenness in education than any other single cause. It is a matter of common observation. A school is generally about as inefficient as its religious stripe is marked. I suppose it is because if you put the weight on one thing you cannot put it on another. Or perhaps it is because no test is so easy for a thoroughly mean and dishonest person to satisfy as a religious test. Schools which have no claims to any other merit can always pass themselves off as severely religious. Perhaps the truth is that all bad schools profess orthodoxy rather than that orthodoxy makes bad schools. Nowadays it is religion that is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
“If you have nothing further to say than this Secularist lecturing,” said Lady Charlotte with great dignity, “I should be obliged if you would find somewhere—some Hall of Science—... Considering what my feelings must be... Scarcely in the mood for—blasphemies.”
“Lady Charlotte,” said Mr. Sycamore, betraying a note of indignation in his voice; “this school into which you flung your little ward was a very badly conducted school indeed.”
“It was nothing of the sort,” said Lady Charlotte. “How dare you reproach me?”