Guy Livingstone | Page 4

of research that
was quite surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate of the
strength of character and principle inherent in the weaker sex was any
thing but high; nearly, indeed, identical with that formed by the learned
lady who, to the question, "Did she think the virtue of any single one of
her sisterhood impregnable?" replied "_C'est selon_." He often used to
astonish my weak mind by his observations on this head. I did not
know till afterward that Sir Henry Fallowfield, the Bassompierre of his
day, came for the Christmas pheasant-shooting every year into Guy's
neighborhood, and that he had already imbibed lessons of questionable
morality, sitting at the gouty feet of that evil Gamaliel.
He spoke of and to women of every class readily whenever he got the
chance, always with perfect aplomb and self-possession; and I have
heard older men remark since, that in him it did not appear the
precocity of "the rising generation," but rather the confidence of one
who knew his subject well. Perhaps the fact of his father having died
when he was an infant, and his having always been suzerain among his
women at home, may have had something to do with this. An absurd
instance of what I have been saying happened just before Guy left.

By time-honored custom, four or five of the Sixth were invited every
week to dine with the head master. They were not, strictly speaking,
convivial, those solemn banquets; where the host was condescendingly
affable, and his guests cheerful, as it were, under protest; resembling
somewhat the entertainments in the captain's cabin, where the chief is
unpopular.
Our Archididascalus was a kind-hearted, honest man, albeit, by virtue
of his office, somewhat strict and stern. You could read the Categories
in the wrinkles of his colorless face, and contested passages of
Thucydides in the crows'-feet round his eyes. The everlasting grind at
the educational tread-mill had worn away all he might once have had of
imagination; he translated with precisely the same intonations the
Tusculan Disputations and--_Erôs anikate machan._
He had lately taken to himself a wife, his junior by a score of years.
The academic atmosphere had not had time then to freeze her into the
dignity befitting her position; when I met her ten years later, she was
steady and staid enough, poor thing, to have been the wife of Grotius.
Guy sat next to her that evening, and before the first course was over a
decided flirtation was established. The pretty hostess, albeit wife of a
doctor and daughter of a dean, had evidently a strong coquettish
element in her composition, and a very slight spark was sufficient to
relight the _veteris vestigia flammæ._
For some time her husband did not seem to realize the position; but
gradually his sentences grew rare and curt; he opened his mouth, no
longer to let fall the pearls of his wisdom, but to stop it with savory
meat; finally this last resource failed, and he sat, looking wrathfully but
helplessly on the proceedings at the other end of the table--a lamentable
instance of prostrated ecclesiastical dignity. His disgust, however, was
far exceeded by the horror of one of the party, a meek,
cadaverous-looking boy, whose parents lived in the town, and who was
wont to regard the head master as the vicegerent of all powers, civil and
sacerdotal--I am not sure he did not include military as well. I caught
him looking several times at the door and the ceiling with a pale, guilty
face, as if he expected some immediate visitation to punish the

sacrilege. However, heaven, which did not interrupt the feast of Atreus
or of Tereus (till the dessert), allowed us to finish our dinner in peace.
During the interval when we sat alone over his claret, our host revived
a little; but utterly relapsed in the drawing-room, where things went on
worse than ever. Guy leaned over the fair Penelope (such was her
classical and not inappropriate name) while she was singing, and over
her sofa afterward, evidently considering himself her legitimate
proprietor for the time, and regarding the husband, as he hovered round
them, in the light of an unauthorized intruder. The latter would have
given any thing, once or twice, to have interfered, I am sure; but, apart
from, the extreme ridicule of the thing, he was in his own house, and as
hospitable as Saladin.
It was a great scene, when, at parting, she gave Guy the camellia that
she wore at her breast; the doctor gasped thrice convulsively and said
no word; but I wonder how she accounted afterward for the smile and
blush which answered some whispered thanks? There are certain limits
that even the historian dares not transgress; a veil falls between the
profane and