not knowing that I was near: 'Whatever you feel,
or however you act towards me in private, I will have respect when
others are present.'

"It was the custom for the professors to invite each student to luncheon
or dinner once during term-time. Being somewhat of a favourite of both
Professor and Mrs. Valiant however, I lunched with them often. I need
hardly say that I should not have exceeded the regulation once had it
not been for Mrs. Valiant. The last time I went is as clear in my memory
as if it were yesterday. Valiant was more satirical and cold-blooded
than usual. I noticed a kind of shining hardness in his wife's eyes,
which gave me a strange feeling; yet she was talkative and even gay,
I thought, while I more than once clinched my fist under the table,
so much did I want to pummel him; for I was a lover of hers, in a
deferential, boyish way.

"At last, knowing that she liked the hunt, I asked her if she was going
to the meet on the following Saturday, saying that I intended to follow,
having been offered a horse. With a steely ring to her voice, and a
further brightening of the eyes, she said: 'You are a stout little
sportsman, Marmy. Yes, I am going on Major Karney's big horse, Carbine.'

"Valiant looked up, half sneering, half doubtful, I thought, and
rejoined: 'Carbine is a valuable horse, and the fences are stiff in the
Garston country.'

"She smiled gravely, then, with her eyes fixed on her husband, said:
'Carbine is a perfect gentleman. He will do what I ask him. I have
ridden him.'

"'The devil you have!' he replied.

"'I am sure,' said I, as I hoped, bravely, and not a little
enthusiastically, 'that Carbine would take any fence you asked him.'

"'Or not, as the case might be. Thank you, Marmy, for the compliment,'
she said.

"'A Triton among minnows,' remarked Valiant, not entirely under his
breath; 'horses obey, and students admire, and there is no end to her
greatness.'

"'There is an end to everything, Edward,' she remarked a shade sadly and
quietly.

"He turned to me and said: 'Science is a great study, Marmion, but it is
sardonic too; for you shall find that when you reduce even a Triton to
its original elements--'

"'Oh, please let me finish,' she interrupted softly. 'I know the lecture
so well. It reads this way: "The place of generation must break to
give place to the generated; but the influence spreads out beyond the
fragments, and is greater thus than in the mass--neither matter