VIII
Miss Ley found the Dean alone in the library, for the Langtons returned to Tercanbury that afternoon, and Bella was spending her last morning at the Stores.
“You know, Algernon, in this world it’s the good who do all the harm,” remarked Miss Ley, sitting down. “The bad carry off their wrong-doing with a certain dash which lessens the iniquity, and common-sense robs their vice of sting; but there’s no reasoning with a man conscious of his own rectitude.”
“That is a very subversive doctrine,” answered the Dean, smiling.
“Only the wicked should sin, for experience teaches them moderation, and little hurt befalls. But when the virtuous slip from the narrow path they flounder hopelessly, committing one error after another in the effort to right themselves by the methods of virtue. Under like circumstances they injure all concerned far more desperately than the entirely vicious, because they won’t face the fact that a different code is applicable.”
“Pray tell me the reason of this harangue.”
“A young friend of mine has done a foolish thing, and means to cap it with another. He came to me just now ostensibly for advice, but in reality that I might applaud his magnanimity.”
Without giving names, Miss Ley told her cousin Basil’s story.
“My first curacy was at Portsmouth,” the Dean said when she finished, “and I was then very intolerant of evil, very eager to right the wrong. I remember one of my parishioners got into a similar trouble, and for the child’s sake as well as for the woman’s I insisted that the man should marry. I practically dragged them to the altar by the hair of their heads, and when I had properly legalized the position felt I had done a good day’s work: six months afterwards the man cut his wife’s throat and was duly hanged. If I hadn’t been so officious two lives might have been spared.”
“Mrs. Grundy is a person of excellent understanding, who does not in the least deserve the obloquy with which she is now regarded. She does not mind if a man is a little wild, and if he isn’t thinks him rather a milksop; but with admirable perspicacity she realizes that for the woman a straighter rule is needed: if she falls Mrs. Grundy, without the smallest qualm, will give the first push into the pit. Society is a grim monster, somnolent apparently, so that you think you can take every kind of liberty; but all the time he watches you, he watches slily, and when you least expect it puts out an iron hand to crush you.”