“Oh, they were awful,” she cried, putting her hands to her eyes. “What shall I do? What shall I do?”
Canon Spratte, still in the swing of his rhetoric, stood in front of her. A faint smile was outlined on his lips. Was this the critical moment when the final blow might be effectively delivered? Should he suggest that it was the easiest thing in the world to break off the engagement with Bertram? He hesitated. After all, there was no need to take things hurriedly, and Providence notoriously sided with discretion and the large battalions. If Winnie suffered, it was for her good, and it was a cherished maxim with Canon Spratte that suffering was salutary. He had said in the pulpit frequently, (he was too clever a man to hesitate to repeat himself,) that the human soul was brought to its highest perfection only through distress, mental or bodily.
“Man is ennobled by pain,” he said, looking so handsome that it must have been a cynic indeed who doubted that he spoke sense. “Our character is refined to pure gold. The gross lusts of the flesh, the commonness which is in all of us, the pettiness of spirit, disappear in these profitable afflictions. From a bed of sickness may spring the most delicate flowers of unselfishness, of devotion, and of true saintliness. Do not seek to avoid pain, but accept it as the surest guide to all that is in you of beauty, of heavenliness, and of truth.”
For his own part, when forced to visit his dentist for the extraction of a tooth, he took good care to have gas properly administered.
In the present instance he looked upon himself as a surgeon who applies irritation that the ragged edges of an ulcer may inflame and heal. Possibly there was also in his determination to strike no sudden blow, a certain human weakness from which Canon Spratte often confessed he was not exempt. He had not the heart to interrupt the scheme which he had so ingeniously devised. He was like a debater who has convinced his adversary by the first section of an argument, but for his own pleasure, and in the interests of truth, duly exposes the rest of his contention.
He sat down at the little writing-table which was in the drawing-room and scribbled a note. He took out an envelope.
“By the way, my love, what is the address of dear Mrs. Railing?”
Winnie looked up with astonishment.
“What do you want it for?”
“Come, my darling, it’s nothing improper, I hope.”