[He nods
understandingly and passes on]. Not a man either.
THE BISHOP [stopping] Not a man and not a woman! We have no
children left, Mrs Collins. They are all grown up and married.
MRS GEORGE. That other clergyman would do.
THE BISHOP. What! The sexton?
MRS GEORGE. Yes. He didnt mind my calling him that, did he? It
was only my ignorance.
THE BISHOP. Not at all. [He opens the study door and calls]
Soames! Anthony! [To Mrs George] Call him Father: he likes it.
[Soames appears at the study door]. Mrs Collins wishes you to join
us, Anthony.
Soames looks puzzled.
MRS GEORGE. You dont mind, Dad, do you? [As this greeting visibly
gives him a shock that hardly bears out the Bishop's advice, she
says anxiously] That was what you told me to call him, wasnt it?
SOAMES. I am called Father Anthony, Mrs Collins. But it does not
matter what you call me. [He comes in, and walks past her to the
hearth].
THE BISHOP. Mrs Collins has something to say to me that she wants
you to hear.
SOAMES. I am listening.
THE BISHOP [going back to his seat next her] Now.
MRS GEORGE. My lord: you should never have married.
SOAMES. This woman is inspired. Listen to her, my lord.
THE BISHOP [taken aback by the directness of the attack] I
married because I was so much in love with Alice that all the
difficulties and doubts and dangers of marriage seemed to me the
merest moonshine.
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