"You appear to me to be getting into a tangle," said Lalage, "so you'd better not go on. If you're afraid of the Archdeacon--and I suppose that is what your excuses will come to in the end--I'll do it myself. After all, you'd most likely have made a mess of it."

I bore the insult meekly. I was anxious, if possible, to persuade Lalage to drop the idea of marrying the Archdeacon to Miss Battersby.

"Remember your promise to my mother," I said.

"I've kept it. I submitted the matter to Lord Thormanby just as I said I would. If he won't act I can't help it."

"The Archdeacon will be frightfully angry."

Lalage sniffed slightly. I could see that the thought of the Archdeacon's wrath did not frighten her. I should have been surprised if it had. After facing Thormanby in the morning the Archdeacon would seem nothing. I adopted another line.

"Are you perfectly certain," I said, "about that text? Don't you think that if it's really in the Bible the Archdeacon would have seen it?"

"He might have overlooked it," said Lalage; "in fact, he must have overlooked it. If he'd come across it he'd have got married at once.

Anybody can see that he wants to be a bishop."

This seemed unanswerable. Yet I could not believe that the Archdeacon, who has been a clergyman for many years, could have failed to read the epistle in which the verse occurs. I made another effort.

"Most likely," I said, "that text means something quite different."

"It can't. The words are as plain as possible."

"Have you looked at the original Greek?"

"No, I haven't. What would be the good of doing that? And, besides, I don't know Greek."

"Then you may be sure," I said, "that the original Greek alters the whole thing. I've noticed hundreds of times that when a text seems to be saying anything which doesn't work out in practice the original Greek sets it right."

"I know that," said Lalage. "At least I've often heard it. But it doesn't apply to cases like this. What on earth else could this mean in the original Greek or any other language you like to translate it into?

'A bishop is to be the husband of one wife.' I looked it out myself to make sure that Selby-Harrison had made no mistake."

The text certainly seemed uncompromising. I had talked bravely about the original Greek, but I doubted in my own mind whether even it would offer a loophole of escape for the Archdeacon.

"It may," I said, desperately, "merely mean that a bishop mayn't have two wives."

"Do talk sense," said Lalage. "What would be the point of saying that a bishop mayn't have two? It's hard enough to get a man like the Archdeacon to have one. Besides, if that's what it means, then other people, not bishops, are allowed to have two wives, which is perfectly absurd. It would be bigamy and that's far worse than what the Archdeacon said I'd done. Where's Hilda?"

Lalage's way of dismissing a subject of which she is tired is abrupt but unmistakable. I told her that Hilda and her mother had gone.

"That's a pity," said Lalage. "I should have liked to take Hilda with me this afternoon."

"Are you going to do it so soon?"

"The election is next week," said Lalage, "so we haven't a moment to lose."

"Well," I said, "if you're really going to do it, I shall be greatly obliged if you'll let me know afterward exactly what the Archdeacon says."

"I will if you like," said Lalage, "but there won't be anything to tell you. He'll simply thank me for bringing the point under his notice."

"I'm not a betting man, but if I were I'd wager a pretty large sum that whatever the Archdeacon does he won't thank you."

"Have you any reason to suppose that he has a special objection to p.u.s.s.y Battersby?"

"None in the world. I'm sure he respects her. We all do."

"Then I don't see what you mean by saying that he won't thank me. He's a tiresome old thing, especially when he tries to be polite, which he's always doing, but he's not by any means a fool where his own interests are concerned. He'll see at once that I'm doing him a kindness."

I found nothing more to say, so I left Lalage. I had at all events, done my best. I drove home.

CHAPTER XXI

I was late for luncheon, very late. My mother had left the dining-room when I got home, but I found her and she readily agreed to leave the letters she was writing and to sit beside me while I ate. It was not, as I discovered, sympathy for my exhaustion and hunger which induced her to do this. She was full of curiosity.

"Well," she said, as I helped myself to some cold pie, "what was it?"

"It was Lalage," I said. "You guessed that before I started."

There was a short pause during which I ate some of the cold pie and found out that it was made, partly at least, of veal. Then my mother asked another question:

"Has she hit on anything unexpected?"

"Quite. She wants Thormanby to insist on the Archdeacon marrying Miss Battersby."

Even my mother was startled. She gave utterance to an exclamation. If she had been a man she would have sworn. I soothed her.

"It's not really a bad scheme," I said, "when you get over the first shock. The Archdeacon, it appears, is bound to marry."

"Why?"

"Timothy says so or seems to say so. Perhaps he didn't really. What is the proper, regularly received interpretation of that text which says that a bishop is to be the husband of one wife?"

"There are several."

"The Archdeacon is sure to know them, I suppose."

"Oh, yes. He's certain to know them."

"He'll want them all this afternoon. Lalage is going to him with that text drawn in her hand. She's also taking Miss Battersby, a wedding ring, a cake, and a white satin dress. I'm speaking figuratively of course."

"I hope so. But however figurative your way of putting it may be, I'm afraid that the Archdeacon won't be pleased."

"So I told Lalage. But she's quite certain that he will. I should say myself that he'd dislike it several degrees more than he did the simony.

I often think it's a pity the Archdeacon hasn't any sense of humour."

"No sense of humour would enable him to see that joke."