"What?" cried Burnarde. His very heart seemed to wrench itself loose at the word, but his tight lips bit back the agony into a mere raspishness of astonishment. "What?" Then quite as unexpectedly to himself as to any of the others an amazing little laugh slipped through where even agony could not pass. Oh ye god of Rhetoric! Ye subtlety [46] of Satire! Ye psychology of Climax! Was this the moment when a Master of Arts should fling his tenderest morsel to the dogs? "Betrothal?" Red as blood, white as a lily, the word flashed through his stricken senses! "Betrothal?" Oh ye gods of everything! A betrothal so new, so shy, so sacred, so reverential, that he had not yet even so much as affrighted the cool, unawakened, little-girl finger tips with the thrill of his grown-man lips! A betrothal so new, so shy, so precious, he had not yet even so much as shared the secret with his adorable, patrician mother! Announce it now? Proclaim it now? Merciful God! Was there anything left to proclaim? Yes, that was just exactly the question! _Was_ there anything left to proclaim? Even for loyalty, even in defense of the Beloved who had chosen so garishly--elsewhere, would it greatly enhance a substance as tender as a young girl's honor to scream out now? "_I also claimed her_--_once_?" Starkly his fine, clear-cut lips opened and shut again. "I--I protest!" he mumbled. Vaguely in a chaotic blur he sensed a restless exchange of glances, the soft, clothy shifting [47] and stir of busy people impatient to be off. Cleanly and concisely through the blur cut the President's persistent purpose. "Expulsion, of course," said the President, "must always seem a drastic measure. But in the safety and protection of the greater number rests now as always the greater mercy. This Bretton girl, I understand, has grown up with practically no home surroundings, being shifted about from one boarding school to another ever since her earliest childhood, and knowing apparently very little more about her people than even I have been able to glean. The circumstances are very sad, of course, very unfortunate, but our duty at the moment, of course, concerns itself with results, not causes. Looking back now to her first appearance among us two months ago I realize that there has always been something about her that was vaguely disquieting, vaguely suggestive of lawlessness. Her eyes, perhaps, her hair, some odd little trick of manner. Certainly," quickened the President, "I would not be doing my duty by the hundreds of innocent young girls committed to my care if----" [48] As though all life reverted then to the mere pursuit of hats and coats and rubbers, the Faculty Meeting dissolved into individual interests again and dispersed as such along the gloomy corridor and down the creaking stairs. It was winter-cold on the stairs.