"Gwenda," he said, "you're terrible."
"No, Papa, I'm not terrible. I'm really awfully kind. I'm telling you these things for your good. Don't you worry. I shan't run very far after young Rowcliffe."
XXXIII
Left to himself, the Vicar fairly wallowed in his gloom. He pressed his hands tightly to his face, crushing into darkness the image of his daughter Gwenda that remained with him after the door had shut between them.
It came over him with the very shutting of the door not only that there never was a man so cursed in his children (that thought had occurred to him before) but that, of the three, Gwenda was the one in whom the curse was, so to speak, most active, through whom it was most likely to fall on him at any moment. In Alice it could be averted. He knew, he had always known, how to deal with Alice. And it would be hard to say exactly where it lurked in Mary. Therefore, in his times of profoundest self-commiseration, the Vicar overlooked the existence of his daughter Mary. He was an artist in gloom and Mary's sweetness and goodness spoiled the picture. But in Gwenda the curse was imminent and at the same time incalculable. Alice's behavior could be fairly predicted and provided for. There was no knowing what Gwenda would do next. The fear of what she might do hung forever over his head, and it made him jumpy.
And yet in this sense of cursedness the Vicar had found shelter for his self-esteem.
And now his fear, his noble and righteous fear of what Gwenda might do, his conviction that she would do something, disguised more than ever his humiliating fear of Gwenda. She was, as he had said, terrible. There was no dealing with Gwenda; there never had been. Patience failed before her will and wisdom before the deadly thrust of her intelligence. She had stabbed him in several places before she had left the room.
* * * * *
The outcome of his brooding (it would have shocked the Vicar if he could have traced its genesis) was an extraordinary revulsion in Rowcliffe's favor. So far from shutting the Vicarage door in the young man's face, the Vicar was, positively he was, inclined to open it. He couldn't stand the idea of other people marrying since he wasn't really married himself, and couldn't be as long as Robina persisted in being alive (thus cruelly was he held up by that unscrupulous and pitiless woman) and the idea of any of his daughters marrying was peculiarly disagreeable to him. He didn't know why it was disagreeable, and it would have shocked him unspeakably if you had told him why. And if you had asked him he would have had half a dozen noble and righteous reasons ready for you at his finger-ends. But the Vicar with his eyes shut could see clearly that if Gwenda married Rowcliffe the unpleasant event would have its compensation. He would be rid of an everlasting source of unpleasantness at home. He didn't say to himself that his egoism would be rid of an everlasting fear. He said that if Rowcliffe married Gwenda he would keep her straight.
And then another consoling thought struck him.