did not render M. E. so difficult to please, the situation would be
very instructive to watch. And I am not even now certain whether he
will escape eventually, because her whole pride in herself is roused
and she will stick at nothing. I have a shrewd suspicion as to what
has caused the change in his feelings and intentions towards M. E.,
but I have not imparted my ideas to her, since doing so might do no
good, and would in some way certainly injure an innocent person. As
yet I believe she is unaware of this person's existence. We have done
everything we can for Mr. Derringham with the most erudite
conversation. I have been up half of the night ascertaining facts
upon all sorts of classical subjects, as that seems to be more than
ever the bent of his mind in these last two visits. (I am given to
understand from other sources that the person of whom I made mention
above is a highly-trained Greek scholar and of exceptional refinement
and cultivation, so that may be the reason.) The strain of preparing
M. E. for these talks and then my anxiety when, at meals or after
them, I hear her upon the brink of some fatal mistake, has caused me
to have most unpleasant headaches, and really, if it were not so
modern and silly a phrase, I should say the thing was getting on my
nerves. However, all the interesting guests are leaving on Tuesday
afternoon. Mr. Derringham, I understand from what he said to me,
intends to go over to his old master, Professor Carlyon's, and catch
a later train from there, but M. E. does not know this, and I have
not felt it my duty to inform her of it, because it might involve
some awkwardness connected with the person about whom I have already
given you a hint. I must close now, as I have some facts to look up
concerning the worship of Dionysus which M. E. is going to bring in
to-night. It was only yesterday I told her who he was, and I had the
greatest difficulty to get her to understand he was Bacchus as well,
as she had learned of him when younger under that name as the God of
Drunkards, and did not consider him a very nice person to mention.
But Mr. Derringham held forth upon the rude Thracian Dionysus last
night and the fundamental spirituality of his original cult, and so
she felt it might seem rather _bourgeois_ to be shocked, and has
committed to memory as well as