better,” there would have been the desired end of the matter.
“I wish,” she said to the friend of the European trip, “he would take a firm line of some kind.”
“But he has,” replied the friend, who was a clear-headed person. “He knows what he wants. The trouble is that you don’t. I know it isn’t pleasant putting an end to things, but I don’t see why he should do all your dirty work for you, particularly as he doesn’t want it done. As for anonymous letters, it seems to me quite ridiculous to pay any attention to them.”
It was easy for the friend to say this, having no vulnerable points in her brisk and hard-working life.
“Peter says I ought to get a secretary and have them weeded out.”
“Well,” said the friend, “that’s a practical suggestion, anyway. But I suppose, since it’s his advice, you’ll find some ingenious reason for not taking it.”
“I’m not as bad as that,” said Harriet; and engaged the secretary.
So matters went on for some months. She made no further effort to discuss the conflicting claims of heart and brain. That line of talk led to a perilous exchange of personalities, in which he, with a livelier wit and better self-control, could always drive her into a corner without exposing himself. It was only by sheer brutal hacking that she could beat down his guard; and she was beginning to be afraid of those impulses to savagery.
She heard no news of Shrewsbury College in the interval, except that one “ay in the Michaelmas Term there was a paragraph in one of the more foolish London dailies about an “Undergraduettes’ Rag,” informing the world that somebody had made a bonfire of gowns in Shrewsbury Quad and that the “Lady Head” was said to be taking disciplinary measures. Women, of course, were always news. Harriet wrote a tart letter to the paper, pointing out that either “undergraduate” or “woman student” would be seemlier English than “undergraduette,” and that the correct method of describing Dr. Baring was “the Warden.” The only result of this was to provoke a correspondence headed “Lady Undergrads,” and a reference to “sweet girl-graduates.”
She informed Wimsey—who happened to be the nearest male person handy for scarifying—that this kind of vulgarity was typical of the average man’s attitude to women’s intellectual interests. He replied that bad manners always made him sick; but was it any worse than headlining foreign monarchs by their Christian names, untitled?
About three weeks before the end of the Easter term, however, Harriet’s attention was again called to college affairs in a way that was more personal and more disquieting.
February was sobbing and blustering its lachrymose way into March when she received a letter from the Dean.
My dear Miss Vane,
I am writing to ask you whether you will be able to get up to Oxford for the opening of the New Library Wing by the Chancellor next Thursday. This, as you know, has always been the date for the official opening, though we had hoped that the buildings themselves would be ready for habitation at the beginning of this term. However what with a dispute in the contractors’ firm, and the unfortunate illness of the architect, we got badly held up, so that we shall only just be ready in time. In fact, the interior decoration of the ground floor isn’t finished yet.— Still, we couldn’t very well ask Lord Oakapple to change the date, as he is such a busy man; and after all, the Library is the chief thing, and not the Fellows’ sets, however badly they may need a home to go to, poor dears.
We are particularly anxious—I am speaking for Dr. Baring as well as myself—that you should come, if you can manage to find time (though of course you have a lot of engagements). We should be very glad to have your advice about a most unpleasant thing that has been happening here. Not that one expects a detective novelist to be a practical policeman; but I
“I wish,” she said to the friend of the European trip, “he would take a firm line of some kind.”
“But he has,” replied the friend, who was a clear-headed person. “He knows what he wants. The trouble is that you don’t. I know it isn’t pleasant putting an end to things, but I don’t see why he should do all your dirty work for you, particularly as he doesn’t want it done. As for anonymous letters, it seems to me quite ridiculous to pay any attention to them.”
It was easy for the friend to say this, having no vulnerable points in her brisk and hard-working life.
“Peter says I ought to get a secretary and have them weeded out.”
“Well,” said the friend, “that’s a practical suggestion, anyway. But I suppose, since it’s his advice, you’ll find some ingenious reason for not taking it.”
“I’m not as bad as that,” said Harriet; and engaged the secretary.
So matters went on for some months. She made no further effort to discuss the conflicting claims of heart and brain. That line of talk led to a perilous exchange of personalities, in which he, with a livelier wit and better self-control, could always drive her into a corner without exposing himself. It was only by sheer brutal hacking that she could beat down his guard; and she was beginning to be afraid of those impulses to savagery.
She heard no news of Shrewsbury College in the interval, except that one “ay in the Michaelmas Term there was a paragraph in one of the more foolish London dailies about an “Undergraduettes’ Rag,” informing the world that somebody had made a bonfire of gowns in Shrewsbury Quad and that the “Lady Head” was said to be taking disciplinary measures. Women, of course, were always news. Harriet wrote a tart letter to the paper, pointing out that either “undergraduate” or “woman student” would be seemlier English than “undergraduette,” and that the correct method of describing Dr. Baring was “the Warden.” The only result of this was to provoke a correspondence headed “Lady Undergrads,” and a reference to “sweet girl-graduates.”
She informed Wimsey—who happened to be the nearest male person handy for scarifying—that this kind of vulgarity was typical of the average man’s attitude to women’s intellectual interests. He replied that bad manners always made him sick; but was it any worse than headlining foreign monarchs by their Christian names, untitled?
About three weeks before the end of the Easter term, however, Harriet’s attention was again called to college affairs in a way that was more personal and more disquieting.
February was sobbing and blustering its lachrymose way into March when she received a letter from the Dean.
My dear Miss Vane,
I am writing to ask you whether you will be able to get up to Oxford for the opening of the New Library Wing by the Chancellor next Thursday. This, as you know, has always been the date for the official opening, though we had hoped that the buildings themselves would be ready for habitation at the beginning of this term. However what with a dispute in the contractors’ firm, and the unfortunate illness of the architect, we got badly held up, so that we shall only just be ready in time. In fact, the interior decoration of the ground floor isn’t finished yet.— Still, we couldn’t very well ask Lord Oakapple to change the date, as he is such a busy man; and after all, the Library is the chief thing, and not the Fellows’ sets, however badly they may need a home to go to, poor dears.
We are particularly anxious—I am speaking for Dr. Baring as well as myself—that you should come, if you can manage to find time (though of course you have a lot of engagements). We should be very glad to have your advice about a most unpleasant thing that has been happening here. Not that one expects a detective novelist to be a practical policeman; but I
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