"Stuff and nonsense!" replied the vicar's wife; "if there were such a thing as a good bachelor I should say that he got amongst the pick of men only when he took to himself a good wife. But who ever yet saw or knew a 'good' bachelor? It's a contradiction of terms. Mind you, I don't call boys bachelors; bachelors are men who might be married if they would, but they won't. Good men are unselfish, and bachelors are brazenly self-centred, and usually unbearably conceited. And you are as bad as any of them, Philip."
"Veritatis simplex oratio est," muttered the Cynic.
"Didn't I say so?" ejaculated the vicar's wife triumphantly. "It is a sure sign of conceit when a man hurls a bit of school Latin at his ignorant opponent and so scores a paltry advantage." She pursed her lips in scorn.
"I beg your pardon," replied the Cynic calmly;. "I got the quotation from a cyclopædia, but I will substitute a line from an English poet which accurately expresses the same meaning:
"'How sweet the words of truth, breathed from the lips of love!'
But is there no excuse for me and others in like case? Are we unmarried men sinners above all the rest? Granted that we are selfish, conceited, corrupt and vile, is there yet no place for us in the universe? no lonely corner in the vineyard where we can work with profit to the State?"
"I suppose you think you work 'with profit to the State,'" returned the vicar's wife with a curl of the lip, "when you persuade one of His Majesty's judges to send some poor wretch to gaol, where he will be provided for at the country's expense whilst his wife and children are left to starve. You would be of far more use to it, let me tell you, if you became the father of a family and——"
The Cynic held up his hand: "The prey of some conceited bachelor who should wickedly persuade one of His Majesty's judges to send me to gaol, whilst my wife and children were left to starve. The reasoning does not seem very clear. If I had remained a bachelor I might have become a wretch, and I might have suffered imprisonment, but at least my sins would not have been visited upon the innocent heads of wife and children. And then it occurs to me that I have known bachelors to be sent to gaol at the instance of married men who persuaded the judges to send them there. No, no, madam, you are too deep for me! I give it up!"
"Rubbish!" snorted the vicar's wife, "you evade the issue, which is simple enough. Are—bachelors—selfish—or—are—they—not?"
The Cynic shook his head mournfully. "They are more to be pitied than blamed, believe me. They are too often the sport of cruel Fate—tossed here and there upon the wave of Circumstance—unable, alas! and not unwilling to find safety in the Harbour of Matrimony. Their lot is indeed a sad one. Don't call them hard names, but drop for them—and me—the silent tear of sympathy."