“But you, Mr. Sycamore, know that it was my duty.”
“That depends, Lady Charlotte, on one’s opinions upon the efficacy of infant baptism. Opinions, you know, vary widely. I have read very few books upon the subject, and what I have read confused me rather than otherwise.”
And Mr. Sycamore put his hands together before him and sat with his head a little on one side regarding Lady Charlotte attentively through the gold-rimmed spectacles.
“Well, anyhow you wouldn’t let children grow up socialists and secularists without some attempt to prevent it!”
“Within the law,” said Mr. Sycamore gently, and coughed behind his hand and continued to beam through his glasses....
They talked in this entirely inconsecutive way for some time with a tremendous air of discussing things deeply. Lady Charlotte expressed a great number of opinions very forcibly, and Mr. Sycamore listened with the manner of a man who had at last after many years of intellectual destitution met a profoundly interesting talker. Only now and then did he seem to question her view. But yet he succeeded in betraying a genuine anxiety about the possible penalties that might fall upon Lady Charlotte. Presently, she never knew quite how, she found herself accusing Joan of her illegitimacy.
“But my dear Lady Charlotte, the poor child is scarcely responsible.”
“If we made no penalties on account of illegitimacy the whole world would dissolve away in immorality.”
Mr. Sycamore looked quite arch. “My dear lady, surely there would be one or two exceptions!”...
Finally, with a tremendous effect of having really got to the bottom of the matter, he said: “Then I conclude, Lady Charlotte, that now that the children are baptized and their spiritual welfare is assured, all you wish is for things to go on quietly and smoothly without the Miss Stublands annoying you further.”