. He was too unhappy himself to be
got at that way. So I took him on the ground of expediency. I said after
all Jevons was his son-in-law. He couldn't go on ignoring Jevons. I used
Viola's argument. He wasn't dealing with an ordinary man. In a few years'
time Tasker Jevons would be so celebrated that it would be absurd to
pretend to ignore him.

The Canon stuck to it that he didn't care how celebrated the fellow was.

I said, "You can't keep it up for ever. You'll have to recognize him in
the end. You don't want to cut the poor chap while he's struggling and
accept him when he rolls, as he probably will roll."

The Canon said he wasn't going to accept him at all. He said that Jevons
rolling would he if anything more odious than Jevons as he was. He
couldn't forget what had happened. And that was the end of it.

I told him that it hadn't happened; but that to repudiate Jevons was the
way to make everybody think it had. And whether it had happened or not,
he must surely want other people to forget it. And once start the
abominable impression, Jevons's celebrity would cause it to be remembered
for ever, or at any rate for this generation. Whereas he could put a stop
to the whole thing at once by behaving as if nothing had happened. He had
only got to ask them down next week.

"Does _he_ want to be asked down?"

I said, No, he didn't. I told him what Jevons had said--that he didn't
care whether he was recognized or not, but that he "couldn't stand the
slur that was being put upon his wife."

I saw him wince at that.

"That's how it strikes him?" he said.

I answered that that was how it would strike most people.

"_I'm_ putting the slur on my daughter, am I?"

I was pitiless. I said, Certainly he was. If he persisted.

Then, after telling me that I had hit him hard, he fell back on another
line of defence. He owed it to his priesthood not to condone his
daughter's conduct.

"All the more--all the more, Furnival, if she _is_ my daughter."

I said he owed it to his priesthood to stand up for an innocent girl,
even if she _was_ his daughter. I couldn't see anything in it but her
innocence--her amazing innocence. I only wished I had his chance of
proving it.

He shook his head. "That's it, my dear fellow. We can't prove it."

I said at least we could believe in it and act on our belief.

He said it was all very well for me. I was prejudiced.

"My sort of prejudice," I said, "might work the other way."

"Y