"So do I. We all do. None of us want her to go—yet. You could easily have kept her another two months. She'd have given notice herself."
"I am not going to discuss it with you."
The Vicar put his head under the roll top of his desk and pretended to be looking for papers. Gwenda seated herself familiarly on the arm of the chair he had left.
"You'll have to, I'm afraid," she said. "Please take your head out of the desk, Papa. There's no use behaving like an ostrich. I can see you all the time. The trouble is, you know, that you won't think. And you must think. How's Essy going to do without those two months' wages she might have had? She'll want every shilling she can lay her hands on for the baby."
"She should have thought of that before."
The Vicar was answering himself. He did not acknowledge his daughter's right to discuss Essy.
"She'll think of it presently," said Gwenda in her unblushing calm. "Look here, Papa, while you're trying how you can make this awful thing more awful for her, what do you think poor Essy's bothering about? She's not bothering about her sin, nor about her baby. She's bothering about how she's landed us."
The Vicar closed his eyes. His patience was exhausted. So was his wisdom.
"I am not arguing with you, Gwenda."
"You can't. You know perfectly well what a beastly shame it is."