“Do you know, as I was coming up in the tram it occurred to me how like Tweedledum and Tweedledee you two are, and now what you say makes you more absurdly like. They never knew which began the quarrels. You need a ‘monstrous crow’ to send you both flying into one another’s arms. Of course if you were in a book Ivor would have a dangerous illness or something silly like that.”
“That would only make us hate each other more because he would say that God did it for our good, and I should say that God was sorry the devil did it.”
“And suppose Ivor died, whose doing would you say it was?”
“No one’s doing at all. But I should say the devil made the germs and that God did nothing, except that He was glad to have Ivor back.”
“I am sure that is very bad theology,” said Teresa, “You can’t have Badness with a definite intention and Goodness without any.”
“Why not? Intentions mean brains and theories and I do loathe them more than I can tell you. I’m content with things that are alive and perfect; I mean without diseases and sins. One doesn’t need any intention for loving the sun and everything that I call ‘God.’ But Evan sets his brain humming and buzzing like a factory to make up the awful Moloch of a creature that he worships.”
“It is very odd,” said Teresa, “how people have always been more annoyed by each other’s religions than by anything else. I am myself. I could put up with Mrs. Carpenter’s face, if it were not for the things she says about the Church. But there we go again! I suppose if a monstrous crow could frighten quarrellers apart a monstrous dove might prevent them from fighting; but I don’t know, and there would probably be some drawback to that too; there always is. I am going to meet David next week.”
“You know, I can’t go on living at home for ever,” said Evangeline. “I shall have to arrange something when all this business is over, and what am I going to tell people? I can’t keep an unexplained husband in the background all my life. Just think of it! Very little money, no man, no father for the children and no explanation to give. I shall have to become a paid agitator in self-defence.”
“To agitate about what?”
“Oh, anything. Mrs. Vachell belongs to all sorts of societies. I might help to run a paper. I’ve always liked papers.”