“Kellock ain’t human, so how should he care for the ways of the world? It’s a blind to his villainy.”
“I’ve had a good deal of speech with him of late and heard his opinions. He’s dead sure he’s right. It’s all in a nutshell. He had to rescue your wife from you, and now he’s as jealous for her as a hen with one chick. It’s damned hard to look at the situation from his point of view, Dingle—hard for me or anybody—and impossible for you; but he sees it in a certain way and no doubt she’s helped him to do so. And now he won’t have a breath on her name and feels he’s got to stand between her and the rest of the world. He smarts worse than she does when hard things are said. He’s a lot more high strung than your wife herself. In fact he’s so delicate about her that he’d rather die than leave her in a false position. It’s an attitude that would be cant in most chaps, but coming from him you’re bound to believe it. It may be part fish or frog, as you say; but so it is. Of course nobody who didn’t know him would believe it; but I do believe it.”
“That’s certain while she’s married to me.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean Kellock’s not all a man, as I’ve just said. You may say he’s a bit of a saint, or you may say he’s only half baked; but say what you like, the fact remains he’s different from other men and his opinions guide his conduct, which is a lot more than opinions always do. He’s told me that she’s not his wife in any sort of way—far too much respect for her and himself. That’s gospel you may be sure, for he’d rather die than lie.”
“She’ll soon get fed up with that,” said Dingle.
“Sooner than him I dare say; but so it is, and I’m glad to let you know it. I shook him by telling him he was a child in these things and that the law would refuse to let you divorce Mrs. Dingle, if it knew he was not fulfilling its requirements. But he’s got a feeling of contempt for the divorce laws which, of course, every decent man must share—a feeling of contempt which extends to the lawyers who live by them, and the parsons who like ’em. I give him all credit there.”
“And how do these fine ideas strike my wife that was?” asked Ned. “Because if I knew anything about her in her palmy days, she was built of quite different mud from that.”