It was not, so far as such things went, a very savage print. It showed a lecture theatre, crammed with gentlemen in powder and spectacles; and at the front, a young woman of startling height and thinness, in a bonnet trimmed with a quadrant and a pair of compasses, standing upon a stool to reach a black board covered in figures and writing upon it, in letters a foot high, 2 + 2 = 5. Below her, a large white-haired figure in a gown, who was not named and did not need to be, was offering her a stick of chalk and a sugar plum. Underneath ran the legend: THE FEMALE EUCLID; or, Minerva Corrects the Multiplication Table. And in the corner, very small, a tall naval officer with a scar through his eyebrow was gazing up at her with his hands clasped upon his breast and a heart above his head.
"They have put him in it," said Mrs. Gage. "Do you understand me, Judith? They have put him in. Somebody has seen his carriage in Lambeth."
"He has not got a carriage, Aunt. He walks from Westminster Bridge."
"Somebody has seen him walking from Westminster Bridge, then!" Mrs. Gage sank down upon the sofa. "Mrs. Fenwick has cut me. In Bond Street, before the whole street. And Lady Selsdon has sent to say she finds she will not have room in her carriage for us at the Hanover Square concert on Wednesday after all. And this morning there was a paragraph in the Morning Post. I did not show it you."
"What did it say?"
Mrs. Gage drew it out of her reticule. It was very short.
We understand that the young lady who so distinguished herself at a late meeting of a certain learned Institution, by publicly instructing a celebrated Professor in the elements of his own science, is in daily receipt of private tuition at her residence in the neighbourhood of Lambeth Marsh from a gallant naval officer, nearly related to the Professor himself. The precise branch of learning in which instruction is being given has not yet been ascertained.
Judith read it twice. Then she folded it up very small, and put it in the fire, and watched it burn.
"It is not true," she said. "It is he who is receiving the instruction."
"Judith!"
"I am sorry, Aunt." She sat down. Her hands, she found, were shaking now as they had not shaken in the lecture theatre. "I am sorry. I did not mean to be clever. It is only that he has done nothing in the world to deserve this. He has only told the truth."
"So have you," said Mrs. Gage unexpectedly. She looked at her niece for a long moment. "And that is precisely what nobody will forgive either of you."