Monday or Tuesday | Page 4

and when she had done, and we were trying not to meet each other's eyes, rose and said, "At your wish I spent last week at Oxbridge, disguised as a charwoman. I thus had access to the rooms of several Professors and will now attempt to give you some idea--only," she broke off, "I can't think how to do it. It's all so queer. These Professors," she went on, "live in large houses built round grass plots each in a kind of cell by himself. Yet they have every convenience and comfort. You have only to press a button or light a little lamp. Their papers are beautifully filed. Books abound. There are no children or animals, save half a dozen stray cats and one aged bullfinch--a cock. I remember," she broke off, "an Aunt of mine who lived at Dulwich and keep cactuses. You reached the conservatory through the double drawing-room, and there, on the hot pipes, were dozens of them, ugly, squat, bristly little plants each in a separate pot. Once in a hundred years the Aloe flowered, so my Aunt said. But she died before that happened--" We told her to keep to the point. "Well," she resumed, "when Professor Hobkin was out, I examined his life work, an edition of Sappho. It's a queer looking book, six or seven inches thick, not all by Sappho. Oh, no. Most of it is a defence of Sappho's chastity, which some German had denied, and I can assure you the passion with which these two gentlemen argued, the learning they displayed, the prodigious ingenuity with which they disputed the use of some implement which looked to me for all the world like a hairpin astounded me; especially when the door opened and Professor Hobkin himself appeared. A very nice, mild, old gentleman, but what could he know about chastity?" We misunderstood her.
"No, no," she protested, "he's the soul of honour I'm sure--not that he resembles Rose's sea captain in the least. I was thinking rather of my aunt's cactuses. What could they know about chastity?"
Again we told her not to wander from the point,--did the Oxbridge professors help to produce good people and good books?--the objects of life.
"There!" she exclaimed. "It never struck me to ask. It never occurred to me that they could possibly produce anything."
"I believe," said Sue, "that you made some mistake. Probably Professor Hobkin was a gyn?cologist. A scholar is overflowing with humour and invention--perhaps addicted to wine, but what of that?--a delightful companion, generous, subtle, imaginative--as stands to reason. For he spends his life in company with the finest human beings that have ever existed."
"Hum," said Castalia. "Perhaps I'd better go back and try again."
Some three months later it happened that I was sitting alone when Castalia entered. I don't know what it was in the look of her that so moved me; but I could not restrain myself, and, dashing across the room, I clasped her in my arms. Not only was she very beautiful; she seemed also in the highest spirits. "How happy you look!" I exclaimed, as she sat down.
"I've been at Oxbridge," she said.
"Asking questions?"
"Answering them," she replied.
"You have not broken our vow?" I said anxiously, noticing something about her figure.
"Oh, the vow," she said casually. "I'm going to have a baby, if that's what you mean. You can't imagine," she burst out, "how exciting, how beautiful, how satisfying--"
"What is?" I asked.
"To--to--answer questions," she replied in some confusion. Whereupon she told me the whole of her story. But in the middle of an account which interested and excited me more than anything I had ever heard, she gave the strangest cry, half whoop, half holloa--
"Chastity! Chastity! Where's my chastity!" she cried. "Help Ho! The scent bottle!"
There was nothing in the room but a cruet contained mustard, which I was about to administer when she recovered her composure.
"You should have thought of that three months ago," I said severely.
"True," she replied. "There's not much good in thinking of it now. It was unfortunate, by the way, that my mother had me called Castalia."
"Oh, Castalia, your mother--" I was beginning when she reached for the mustard pot.
"No, no, no," she said, shaking her head. "If you'd been a chaste woman yourself you would have screamed at the sight of me--instead of which you rushed across the room and took me in your arms. No, Cassandra. We are neither of us chaste." So we went on talking.
Meanwhile the room was filling up, for it was the day appointed to discuss the results of our observations. Everyone, I thought, felt as I did about Castalia. They kissed her and said how glad they were to see her again. At length, when we were all assembled, Jane rose and said that it was time to