Soames.  They cant be divorced.  They will not be married.

Reginald.  But if they cant be divorced, then this will be worse than marriage.

Mrs Bridgenorth.  Of course it will.  Do stop this nonsense.  Why, who are the children to belong to?

Lesbia.  We have already settled that they are to belong to the mother.

Reginald.  No:  I’m dashed if you have.  I’ll fight for the ownership of my own children tooth and nail; and so will a good many other fellows, I can tell you.

Edith.  It seems to me that they should be divided between the parents.  If Cecil wishes any of the children to be his exclusively, he should pay a certain sum for the risk and trouble of bringing them into the world:  say a thousand pounds apiece.  The interest on this could go towards the support of the child as long as we live together.  But the principal would be my property.  In that way, if Cecil took the child away from me, I should at least be paid for what it had cost me.

Mrs Bridgenorth [putting down her knitting in amazement] Edith!  Who ever heard of such a thing!!

Edith.  Well, how else do you propose to settle it?

The bishop.  There is such a thing as a favorite child.  What about the youngest child—­the Benjamin—­the child of its parents’ matured strength and charity, always better treated and better loved than the unfortunate eldest children of their youthful ignorance and wilfulness?  Which parent is to own the youngest child, payment or no payment?

Collins.  Theres a third party, my lord.  Theres the child itself.  My wife is so fond of her children that they cant call their lives their own.  They all run away from home to escape from her.  A child hasnt a grown-up person’s appetite for affection.  A little of it goes a long way with them; and they like a good imitation of it better than the real thing, as every nurse knows.

SOAMEs.  Are you sure that any of us, young or old, like the real thing as well as we like an artistic imitation of it?  Is not the real thing accursed?  Are not the best beloved always the good actors rather than the true sufferers?  Is not love always falsified in novels and plays to make it endurable?  I have noticed in myself a great delight in pictures of the Saints and of Our Lady; but when I fall under that most terrible curse of the priest’s lot, the curse of Joseph pursued by the wife of Potiphar, I am invariably repelled and terrified.

Hotchkiss.  Are you now speaking as a saint, Father Anthony, or as a solicitor?

Soames.  There is no difference.  There is not one Christian rule for solicitors and another for saints.  Their hearts are alike; and their way of salvation is along the same road.

The bishop.  But “few there be that find it.”  Can you find it for us, Anthony?